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Rodriguez pregnant, will miss 2013 NWSL season

Jeff Kassouf January 30, 2013 37
Amy Rodriguez

Amy Rodriguez is pregnant and will miss the 2013 NWSL season. (Copyright Patricia Giobetti | http://www.printroom.com/pro/psgiobetti)

U.S. women’s national team forward Amy Rodriguez is pregnant and will miss the 2013 National Women’s Soccer League season, Seattle Reign FC confirmed late Tuesday night.

UPDATE: Rodriguez is due in August, according to U.S. Soccer. No. 1 NWSL draft pick (by the Chicago Red Stars) Zakiya Bywaters will replace Rodriguez in the upcoming national team camp.

The Equalizer’s and NBC’s Pro Soccer Talk’s Richard Farley reported the news Tuesday night and the team soon thereafter confirmed the news with a tweet.

The news is exciting for Rodriguez and her husband, Adam Shilling, but comes as a huge blow for a Seattle team that will already be without midfielder Megan Rapinoe for the first two-plus months of the season. Rapinoe is playing for Lyon until the end of the French season in June.

Rodriguez’s exit means that goalkeeper Hope Solo is the only U.S. national team player who, at this point, is slated to be on the field for Seattle on opening day on April 13. Farley also notes that Mexican international Teresa Noyola won’t be there for Seattle to start the season, which was also shortly thereafter confirmed by Seattle:

In short, Reign FC could be in some real trouble if they don’t make some good free agency moves. Laura Harvey has a big task ahead of her and rookie Christine Nairn (No. 7 overall draft pick) just have inherited a much larger role on this team.

More: On ProSoccerTalk, Farley discusses what the news means for Seattle

TAGS » ,
POSTED IN » News, NWSL, Seattle Reign FC, USWNT
About the author: Jeff Kassouf View all posts by Jeff Kassouf

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  • Steglitz49

    Congratulations!

  • vert2013

    And Christen Press is in Sweden celebrating because her spot on the NT just got a lot easier to attain.

  • http://twitter.com/hercircumstance hercircumstance

    Next time is it too much to ask players have complete physicals done before they are allocated/drafted/whatever? I’m pretty sure that is standard in many sports. It seems like certain things could have been settled before the final hours of free agency or even before allocation. That’s all I’m going to say.

    • vert2013

      I have a feeling A-Rods pregnancy is very recent. Farley is talking about her still playing Algarve and if that is true she can’t be very far along. As for LePeilbet, US Soccer knew about her knee injury well before allocation. A physical wouldn’t have changed either of these situations.

      • palifan

        According to US Soccer, she is due in August, making her between 10 and 14 weeks pregnant now. She would have missed a period (and had a positive pregnancy test) as early as end of Nov/early Dec or as late as end of December and could have easily had an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy by late December/early January. Of course, it is always possible not to realize you are pregnant until quite late but that is a whole other discussion.

        • http://twitter.com/hercircumstance hercircumstance

          I think, like the LePeilbet situation, no matter how strong conspiracy theories seem we have to assume the players didn’t know their situations. The alternative is a path we probably shouldn’t go down. It still sucks for Seattle. Hopefully the league does the right thing considering Seattle now has three NT player issues this season. Two of them were given to them and one was a surprise, but it still adds up.

          • vert2013

            I think they’ll probably get another free agent like Chicago did in LePeilbet for A-Rod, but as for Pinoe and Noyola, I doubt they’ll get anything. Portland has 2 players overseas, Chicago has 1, Washington had at least 1, I think possibly 2. They’re not alone in having players in Europe to start the season. They’re problem is just heightened because of that. I think if they were to give Seattle something for their European players and A-Rod, it would be unfair to the other teams starting short as well.

          • http://twitter.com/hercircumstance hercircumstance

            Maybe we can have a Seattle/Chicago rivalry instead. See who staggers to a win last man standing like. The way things have stacked (cough) up for Portland that isn’t going to be a fun match up for at least the first two months of not longer. I don’t care how the league promotes it I’m not buying it.

            Them missing Tobin and a late round draft pick they selected themselves is no comparison. Seattle gets to play them more games too unlike the other teams you mentioned. Seattle will start with one uswnt player, two Canadians, and one Mexican. That is the lowest number in the league. No 25k last second free agent can make up for that. Not unless an international star striker comes on a big discount. I’m thinking those players are employed elsewhere and are getting payed better elsewhere.

          • vert2013

            Their situation is marginally better than Chicago. They’re staring the year with 1 US player, 2 Canadians and 2 Mexicans and when Winters comes back…it’s Winters. It’s not like they’re getting Pinoe. I mean it’s not fair for Seattle, but if they were to give them something for Pinoe and Noyola, it would be unfair to the other teams once those 2 came back. There’s no “fair” way to do it. A-Rod threw them for a loop, but there’s nothing they can do about it now. It’s an unfortunate part of professional sports. It happens all the time in other leagues with injuries.

          • Steglitz49

            Loyalty does not seem a defining word for American women soccer players. Maybe that is why it has to be called women’s soccer rather than ladies’ football?

          • Christy Smith

            I tried to downvote your post, but my touchscreen registeredit as an upvote 3 times.

          • Steglitz49

            My screen only shows two votes, so be grateful for small mercies.

            The NWSL is the last chance saloon to create a professional ladies’ football league in north-America. If it flourishes the league and its second and lower divisions will stretch from the Yukon to Quintana Roo. All women must pull together to establish it.

            Yet the comment fields on this aricle and several other Equalizer articles are full of posts that draw attention to American players having signed to go to Europe to play during the spring after being allocated to teams. They not being abroad already but them went after.

            Thus, should Lyon (Ms Rapinoe) play PSG (Ms Heath) in the final of the French Cup on 9th June, which is not unlikely, both teams would want them there. Likewise, at the moment PSG is in the coveted second spot in the league, which gives them a place in the CL, but it is tight and should they lose to either Juvisy or Montpellier they may fall to 3rd in which case it is good-bye to the CL. (The French league relegates 3 teams at the end of the season, which is more severe than other leagues who drop only 2 teams, but there is no danger of that.)

            Meanwhile (the very first post here) again congratulations to ARod. Well done! This is great for her and her husband, but it is also great for the game. A couple of top American players have children, and in the Vancouver Olympics two ladies came back after having had babies – Kuzmina took a gold & silver and Smigun a silver (Shipulin is Kuzmina’s brother, so in that family ability seems genetic).

            That ARod grabs a camera and a microphone and interview her colleagues and load up somewhere – why not on The Equalizer? Maybe she already has cut a deal with WSU?

          • Steglitz49

            The NWSL won’t miss Ms Heath. As long as PSG feels safe in one of the 2 CL qualifying slots, PSG may well released Tobin early. It would be good PR, which is what PSG is all about — why else are they acquiring Beckham?

            Find a striker somewhere and sign her. There is the whole African continent to pick from.

        • randomhookup

          Let’s also consider the right of the player to keep a possible pregnancy private until it’s appropriate to announce.

  • Steglitz49

    Maybe NWSL could give A-Rod a task to do touch-line interviews, like the role that the IBU gave Kathrin Hitzer (now Lang) when she had to stop competing owing to her pregnancy. The bump got in the way of the lying shooting.

    Kathrin’s fellow biathletes enjoyed being interviewed by someone knowledgeable. It helped that she had a positive and outgoing personality.

  • Kernel Thai

    Well, congratz to A-Rod and poor Seattle. With most of the cream of the free agent crop going in the last 10 days it’s going to be very hard to fill two more spots. What the league should have done (sigh) in any of these allocation related defections, is not only provide the cash but allow them to sign additional internationals if they chose. Arguably the only way to get equal value talent wise for a lost WNTer is with a WNTer from another country.

    • http://twitter.com/hercircumstance hercircumstance

      Who is willing to come in as a free agent for 25k? Good international players make more than that. A lot more. Maybe this well respected coach can attract someone, but that’s asking a lot for a last hour signing from another country.

      • Steglitz49

        Why not give the team the money they were willing to pay A-Rod. I doubt if it was $25K but maybe it was.

        Many foreign young ladies would love to spend a couple of years playing in USA though $25k is probably too little. $50k would make it easier and $75k a walk in the park. Why not get the State Department to put up the lolly for 8 scholarships for young women from 3rd world countries as a new feature of international cooperation and development? What is $1m for the State Dept?

        • randomhookup

          Since she was an allocated player, the team was on the hook for $0.

          • Steglitz49

            Que?! If you are allocated a player whose market worth is $100k but who won’t actually play, then if you are going to replace her with a comparable player you need $100k, do you not?

            We have just learnt/ had it confirmed that Liverpool Ladies have signed Amanda DaCosta while Chelsea Ladies have bagged Sofia Jakobsson. It is a good thing for Seattle that there is a lot of talented lady footballers in USA, Canada and Mexico.

          • randomhookup

            Well, that’s a different matter. The teams aren’t paying the salary of the allocated players (or if they are, they are doing it through direct support from the fed). For right now, the rules seem to be — lose an allocated player, get a free agent slot (max 25K) and probably salary cap relief. Allowing the $60-80k that an allocated player gets to go to a free agent would cause all kinds of problems among other free agents who signed before this slot came available.

            This league isn’t looking to go shopping for “expensive” talent. It will make do with what is available in the local market.

          • Steglitz49

            The NWSL are artificially deflating salaries. This is good for foreign teams who want to sign American players. It may be good for the USWNT. Who else it is good for is a good question.

          • http://twitter.com/hercircumstance hercircumstance

            This is true. WNY Flash was given 25K to fill their empty allocation slot though. So while it’s really a 75k sized hole they have to fill as far as value even if the league helps out it won’t possibly equal the value they are missing by a loss of a level NT player. The cap means they can’t just throw more money at the problem too. And unlike WNY they are also missing two other NT level players for half the season and aren’t being compensated for that. One wonders why the league allocated them two players like that in the first place. One maybe, but two? No wonder they were confused why they weren’t given Perez. Unless some star forward comes over on a discount there really is no making up for the list of NT level losses.

          • Steglitz49

            As long as one is mindful that this whole NWSL caper seems a poorly disguised effort to provide a USWNT that can win the world cup in 2015 and. as a byproduct, pretty good NTs for Canada and Mexico, provided the MWSL teams play fair with those countries, then all will come out in the wash.

            The problem for US, Canadian and Mexican players is that by keeping salaries down, teams with a bit of dosh outside USA are having a field-day. OK, the USA’s strength in depth will see it through, but the centre of gravity in women’s soccer feels increasingly to operate on a European-Japanese axis.

    • http://twitter.com/hercircumstance hercircumstance

      Tasha Kai, Sarah Walsh, and DeVanna. Phone ‘em if they aren’t signed yet. Tasha might be available because she’s been way off the radar and the other two because of international cap on players might have kept them out. They are more likely to be ok with the money than top European players.

      • vert2013

        Seattle was hinting to an australian sign earlier, my money’s on DeVanna. Although with Rapinoe being in Seattle, getting Walsh wouldn’t be too hard a sell.

        • Steglitz49

          Ms Rapinoe may prefer to stay in France and enjoy the good life among the lavender fields, vineyards and family restaurants — Lyon is, after all, the gastronomical capital — and exploring all that Europe has to offer.

  • Monique

    *Rapinoe is playing for Lyon not PSG

  • becca o

    Though it’s not looking great right now I am not too worried especially if the Devanna and Ellertson rumors are true.

  • stephen

    Don’t forget that the absence of these players has to hurt the Reign in their competition with the Sounders. W-League teams have managed to attract foreign NTers in the past.

    • http://twitter.com/hercircumstance hercircumstance

      They aren’t in competition. No more than an NBA team is with a D-League team. One is a developmental/college player league and the other is pro. Different segment of players and different goals.

      • http://www.phasedma.com Anthony

        I would be careful with that analogy. I don’t think you would ever see a NBA team next to Syracuse regardless of the size of the city. You really don’t want to compete with a basketball team that can put 33k fans in the seats. Basketball stadiums are not even supposed to be that big.

        • http://twitter.com/hercircumstance hercircumstance

          Look at their attendance the seasons prior to last summer. I’ll be thrilled for them if they win the w-league attendance record this year, but where were all those fans before Solo and Morgan joined up? I think people are reremembering things because they are still mad at which owner won the bid. Not because they were lifelong Sounders Women’s fans. There were only a few hundred of those before last year.

          • Steglitz49

            In a mature NWSL structure, Vancouver, Puget sound and Portland ought to be able to support 6, if not 8, teams between them. Till that point is a reality, we have to be mindful that it is stars that put bums on seats and success is an even more potent pheromone. America invented the expression — “Coming second? That’s what we call losing”.

            One would like to think that after two abortive attempts, NWSL may observe Japan and Europe and figure out what it takes to hit the big time. Obviously, these regions will not be perfect models, but their approaches may contain grains of truth.

          • http://www.phasedma.com Anthony

            I was just saying it was a bad analogy regardless of what the NWSL does or doesn’t do. I was just trying to be funny in a very dry way. It’s my charm (or lack there of).

            As far as Seattle grabbing the attendance record this year? Fat chance with Abby in Rochester.

  • http://www.billoreilly.com/ Bill O’Reilly

    Season ending pregnancy. That’s rough.

    • Steglitz49

      Why?

      This seems pretty good timing on the whole. The young lady could very well be fit for the WC in 2015 if that is what she desires.