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NWSL supplemental draft order determined

Jeff Kassouf February 1, 2013 21

The National Women’s Soccer League supplemental draft order was revealed on Friday. The draft will take place on Feb. 7, as previously announced.

The Supplemental Draft order is as follows:

1) Washington Spirit
2) Seattle Reign FC
3) Boston Breakers
4) Chicago Red Stars
5) Sky Blue FC
6) FC Kansas City
7) Western New York
8 ) Portland Thorns FC

The order was determined by factors including the order of the college draft, the allocation process and the expected short- and long-term absences of said allocated players. The draft will last six rounds.

POSTED IN » News, NWSL
About the author: Jeff Kassouf View all posts by Jeff Kassouf
  • LCLondoner

    It seems to me that the Thorns are rather getting shafted. Boston, KC, and Sky Blue each have had no issues with allocated players and their squads are looking increasingly settled, whereas Portland has lost Tobin Heath for most of the season, depriving them of a playmaking midfielder. I would have thought it a little fairer to bump them up a few spots – even if this is the last chance draft saloon.

    • Monique

      Thorns will be fine without Heath. Given they have Sinclair and Morgan, I don’t think many think they were shafted.

      • Steglitz49

        Odd, is it not, that the teams with bags of money chose Tobin and neither Alex nor Ms Sinclair. Wonder why? After all, Tobin’s team acquired Beckham ….

        • Don B

          I guess you’re assuming that either Morgan or Sinclair wanted to play overseas? I’ve never heard that they did, and in fact Morgan has said specifically that she would stay here if it were at all possible. As well, during a recent conference call with the media, the NWSL and USWNT pretty much declared her the players’ spokesperson.

          • Steglitz49

            I guess that she pulls in enough dollars off the field that she has no yen for the foreign €uro. She is in good company because neither Fritz Walter nor Uwe Seeler ever played for any other clubs than their own beloved Kaiserslautern and Hamburg, respectively.

          • Steglitz49

            I just remembered that there was a lot of speculation in The Equalizer that Ms Sinclair was about to join PSG. Instead PSG signed Ms Asllani.

          • http://twitter.com/JeffKassouf Jeff Kassouf

            Let’s clarify that said speculation did not come from the writers here. The most I heard on some U.S. and Canadian players going to France wasn’t even firm enough to report.

          • Steglitz49

            With respect, on Sept 10th The Equalizer run a piece with the heading “PSG headlines continued French transfer rumors, but sit tight” in which Ms Sinclair in the 2nd and 7th paragraphs are linked to PSG (as was Ms Wambach to be fair).

          • http://twitter.com/JeffKassouf Jeff Kassouf

            Fair enough. We did pass on that report, but certainly not our original sourcing. Hence our :”sit tight” advisory.

          • Steglitz49

            I think we can agree that by all accounts both Ms Wambach and Ms Sinclair and several other top players are committed to making a success of the NWSL. Would that the spectators are equally as loyal! Your team needs you! Pay for your season ticket today!

            At the same time one must not blame either Ms Heath or Ms Rapinoe for grabbing the chance to play for two of the top teams in ladies’ football. More power to their elbows — or ankles. There is enough strength in depth in Mexico, Canada and USA to hold the fort, so if these two ladies prefer to throw in their lot with their French teams, let them make hay while the sun shines!

            Sarah Hagen helped Bayern Munich win the DFB-cup. Maybe Tobin can do likewise for PSG while Megan lifts the CL trophy. Go, US girls, go go go!!!!

        • Anthony Clauser

          Tobin and Morgan are probably my first and second favorite players (with Wambach coming in a very tight 3rd) but to me Tobin and Morgan seem to have extremely different ambitions and they clearly are two very different types of players.

          That’s without even considering that their two positions are very different. Obviously Tobin’s role is possession and setting up other players while Morgan’s is… Doing every single thing possible to make GKs have a heart attack…

          Tobin wants to be the very best she can possibly be, and shes willing to pour every last piece of her soul into achieving that.

          Meanwhile Morgan has had every chance to learn from the very best from wherever she seems to be sitting at the very moment… First with Sinclair on the WNY Flash and than with Abby with the US national team. And you can really see where she has grown by leaps and bounds. I mean even something as “straight forward” as heading the ball… She never used to do that… The only thing she has not picked up seems to be their physicality, and she just isn’t built for that type of play.

          The one thing I want to make very clear – Every single player on this team has a crazy amount of soul on this team or they wouldn’t be on this team and by saying Tobin has the most I don’t want to take anything away from anyone else. Tobin probably also has the least amount to lose from a friends and family aspect because she is so fiercely independent. On the flip side? Morgan may be the biggest about friends and family (she is so sweet, caring and compassionate).

          Like I said – My first and second favorite players…. But they are so different…

          • Steglitz49

            All your points are well taken. Alex Morgan is today’s most accomplished attacking player. She makes as many goal-giving passes as goals, plus all her other passes. Alex can use both of her feet and her head. In the modern men’s game the obvious parallel is Zlatan, else, going further back, Pelé and Il professore (Gren). That special vision and reading of the game of the truly great.

            As regards the midfield, Aya Miyama is the queen and she is my favorite player of all. She is not as glamorous as Alex, Tobin or Saki Kumagai, but the most complete of all the current players. At one time LA Sol had Miyama, Marta, Abily and Frisk in their starting 11!

            I would not be surprised if one NWSL team signed Miyama as a foreign player, though how they would finance it is beyond me. The other established Japanese player to grab would be Iwashimizu, but some of their U-20 players are also class acts and probably a lot cheaper – maybe could study at university and play for free in a creative accounting deal.

            I think Tobin will have a fantastic time in Paris. She will teach the other players a lot and they will learn from her. It is a win-win situation and a wonderful experience. Maybe she will find love in the arms of a Parisian and never return?! (cf Michelle Kwan)

            The Wombat is another marvellous player. It was great that she got the diamond-ball or golden slipper or whatever that award is called that the gnomes of Zürich hand out. Wonderful skill and like Miyama a lovely temperament. Ms Sinclair would have done well learning from Wambach and Miyama. Miyama picked up a yellow card in the WC final and Abby one in the Olympic final, that is they got into trouble on the field when it mattered. Miyama never complained about the poor refereeing of the Olympic final and she made sure that none of her team-mates did either. To return to Alex, she came on as an unknown substitute in the WC final, scored the first goal and forced Iwashimizu into a challenge that led to the first red card in a ladies final. Morgan tumbled and Iwashimizu walked but USA did not score, something that Canada forgot a year later.

            As for staying close to family and friends, Alex is in good company with Walter and Seeler two of the icons of German soccer. Maybe a truly wealthy club with a ladies divison, like Arsenal or Barcelona, can buy her plus employ her nearest and dearest (to cut the grass if nothing else)? I recon Alex could fill the Nou Camp or Emirates … Nevertheless, were I her I would try Japan.

          • http://www.phasedma.com Anthony

            I just looked up Aya Miyama because frankly I suck at soccer outside the USWNT. She seems like a hybrid between Tobin and Rapinoe. I can very easily see how she is your favorite. A foot-working crossing, and scoring beast.

            Sinclair’s attitude really surprises me. Especially when looking at this video – http://youtu.be/XKdJ37yPfHU

            Honestly even to this day I think that video defines her correctly. I think she is a very sweet and laid back person who honestly doesn’t want the spotlight. Her problem… And this is obviously without knowing her… Is she gets frustrated. She legitimately gets overlooked on the world stage by people. What she needs to realize though is Wambach is the best striker on the planet, which a year ago was going to be fine, because Wambach was going to retire and she could take the fame she deserves. The problem is Morgan all of a sudden showed up, and while Sinclair will eventually have the most goals ever (Wambach will hit the milestone first, but she can’t keep it up), she knows that a healthy Morgan will very quickly take that milestone.

            The women’s soccer would be smart to embrace Sincalir and push her as much as possible. For crying out loud she is the epitome of everything that makes Wambach great. No one seems to care though because Wambach got there first and plays for the most famous women’s team in the world. Canada on the other hand? How many people even care about the country?? I don’t even mean that is as a dig, but you really need to be in the top 2, or 3 to be internationally recognized day in and day out. I mean really… I’m a big fan of the sport, but even I can’t seem to embrace the girls (like Aya Miyama) outside the US.

            [rant] I don’t know… Women’s soccer is a mess from a popularity standpoint and it deserves better. Of course the ones driving the horse don’t get it from the marketing standpoint. Look at what US Soccer did in Rochester. The Flash sold 15,000+ tickets for a club game and US Soccer caps the tickets for the Victory Tour at 13,000+???!!! They probably could have filled a 20,000 seat stadium in Rochester. Do they pay attention to their own sport??? Clearly not. It’s not like Rochester showed up out of the blue – We have been doing this for over a decade on the women’s side, and that was long before Wambach became our darling. It really is infuriating at times. [/rant]

          • Steglitz49

            Your point that women’s soccer still waits for its Pete Rozelle or Paul Giorlami to take the helm, is well taken. The person who cracks the marketing nut will go straight into the business school case studies.

            In some ways Sweden is the scariest example of neglect. Today’s attendances are abyssmal compared to 6-9 years ago. During the past 10 seasons attendance at German ladies’ matches has slowly inched up, yet their average is below Sweden’s at its peak though the population of Germany is nine times that of Sweden. Teams throughout Europe dream of the sort of attendances that Umeå and Djurgården could pull in those days. How the Swedish FA could let this position erode away is beyond understanding, totally bizarre.

            The most obvious difference between men’s and women’s soccer is the virtual total absence of the 20-35:years old women from a ladies’ match, yet they are the mainstay of men’s soccer. Women’s soccer the world over needs to sit down and thoroughly research, segment and dissect their markets and then expand into neighboring segments.

            Yet judging by the interest in season tickets, the NWSL may well turn all statistics on its head in its first season. Let’s hope all those tickets get sold and that the league can go from strength to strength. Women’s soccer the world over really would benefit from a vibrant NWSL — something that FIFA understood the same second as Kumagai slammed in that penalty in 2011.

            Women’s soccer must also occupy space in mainstream media. I know that American sports coverage is sexist in the extreme – even stars like Lindsey Wonn or Kikkan Randall hardly get noticed – but the US Soccer must fight for that extra column inch for their ladies. This is not just a USA problem because in the voting figures released by FIFA among the women players only Ms Rapinoe fared worse than all the Japanese players in the votes cast by the “Media”. The biggest benefiters of the Media’s votes were Ms Sinclair and Pia Sundhage.

            To finish the media image story, Alex Morgan got noticed because of body-paint while Magdalena Neuner became even more popular for refusing to be folded out in Playboy; instead she made videos about how to knit and felt.

          • http://www.phasedma.com Anthony

            First off topic… Anyone else here find the way comments are sorted insane?

            Marketing… I actually wish women’s soccer would market more towards me. I would love to buy a Alex Morgan, Ashlyn Harris and Abby Wambach jersey for the WNY Flash, but they don’t provide men’s cuts, and while I would proudly wear a girls name on my back I will not wear a girls cut jersey.

            There is the same problem with the USWNT… They don’t have men’s cuts. At least this year the men and the woman wear the same design so I bought a men’s jersey and put “HEATH” and “17″ on it. The problem is it doesn’t have the two stars above the US Soccer emblem. A deal breaker? Clearly not, but first of all I’m not sure how the profits get split, but that’s not even a huge deal but more importantly that team earned those stars (I know it sounds petty, but oh well).

            The club teams? Sadly I could see for financial reasons why they wouldn’t offer men’s cuts. But the most popular (presumably) women’s team on the planet not being able to make a profit? I find that absurd……. All for two lousy stars……..

    • http://twitter.com/hercircumstance hercircumstance

      Maybe it was based on the strength of their free agent pickups which the league knows about and we have yet to know. I’m betting Portland did just fine in that area. Can’t wait for them to tell us the rest. Right now we just got Flash and few half confirmed stuff here or there.

      • Steglitz49

        “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. Perhaps it is the end of the beginning.”

        Begin the begin ..- !

      • LCLondoner

        I’d imagine you’re right re the free agents. As it is, Portland went from #1, after the allocations, to probably #3 after the draft/players vanishing overseas, in my estimation. So, not shafted, I agree, but not as rosy. I count only one true midfielder (Long) on their books right now.

    • Steglitz49

      Each team is allowed to have 2 foreign players. There is a whole host of such waiting in the wings. We are waiting on tiptoe to see who acquires whom.

  • Steglitz49

    Frankfurt also took action on the winter transfer market by signing three new forwards, which some see as Frankfurt’s reasonable reply to Potsdam signing three Norwegian NT players – the Hegerberg sisters and Maren Mjelde.

    Rumour also has it that Yuki Ogimi’s sister, Asano Nagasato, has taken the Potsdam schilling. Let’s wait and see.

    Danish international Lise Overgaard Munk is from current Danish champion Brøndby. The 23-year-old has played 25 times for Denmark and has scored 5 goals. World Cup winner and Olympic runner-up Kozue Ando (30 yrs old) was being transferred from the financially stricken Bundesliga club Duisburg (who have won the CL) to Frankfurt. Since 2010, Ando has also won the DFB Cup and reached the Champions League semifinal in 2010.

    Australian international Tameka Butt leaves Brisbane Roar for Frankfurt. The 21-year-old made 48 W-League appearances and scored 26 times. With Brisbane Roar, she won the Australian championship in 2009 and 2011. She also briefly played for the Boston Breakers in 2012. All three signed contracts until the end of June in 2014.

  • slow_news

    Seems a fair enough draft order, though I’m not sure why the Spirit are up above Seattle and Chicago. It’s not yet confirmed that DCs players are going to be late to arrive, whereas both the other teams have entirely confirmed issues with their allocated players. I have to assume that the league knows something we don’t about their FA signings to date.