Wambach scores No. 153 in 200th cap, US downs Scotland

Hi Don,

Thanks for your insight and background info into a great talent. As you know, we are both in agreement, Alex is a special player. She just possesses so many intangibles that can’t be taught. They’re inborn and instinctive, and she maintains a ferocious competitive drive during every game I see her play. On initial appearances based on her looks, one can easily stereotype her as a potential prom queen out there. The funny thing is that she is the complete opposite of that in style and spirit. I made this mistake the first time I saw her play, but immediately sensed she had major game and an odd toughness about her.

She’s also easily the best natural finisher I’ve ever seen in the women’s game. During the Olympic semi with Canada, I just knew she would deliver the winner. I was thinking around the 88th minute. Surprised it took to the 123rd. I remember watching the game with a few friends and saying please let the ball find her in the end. She will deliver. That’s what special players do. It is not luck, and it is no accident (same thing with the WC final and a myriad of other big goals she has gotten in her young career). I often look at the top women players and try to give them a counterpart to a male soccer star. For instance, maybe Marta can be Messi. For Alex, the easy one is to say she’s Cristiano. But I think she’s more of a deadly mix of Robin van Persie (arguably the most skilled and best striker in the world) and Theo Walcott (blazing pace that has to be accounted for at all times). Whatever she is, I’m glad she plays for the US, and is ours. Abby speaks so glowingly of her for two reasons; she knows she’s just at the tip of the iceberg of her potential, and in her heart of hearts, knows that she’s never seen anything quite like her.

Your Pia explanation is sound and reasonable, but in reality we both know it still defies proper logic and smarts. Once in a lifetime player: put her on the field. Case closed. She’ll quickly figure it out.

As for Press, I really like her. She’s not quite Alex, but I think she too possesses special qualities. Together, they would be the greatest tandem in women’s history in my opinion. Even better than Alex and Abby. The blind, back heel pass Press made last game in the box to almost set up a goal was the play only a great player could make. Not to rag on Pia, but this girl not being, at worst, on the final Olympic roster of 18, not just an alternate, is flat out criminal. She was robbed a gold medal. There is no excuse for that. You’ll see. Press is going to be special too. Paired with Alex, it will be downright unfair. I used to think Leroux would be the one with Alex. Now the better choice I feel is Press. Her game is better developed for such a young player and she just has that something that can’t be defined. Much like AM.

It is easy to forget that the USA won the OG SF.

OK, the Canadians did not have an Iwashimizu to handle Alex, but then Japan are World Champions and Olympic silver-medalists.

Ms Press went to play for Göteborg, the team in which a young Hope Solo spent a season. Christen has been a great success in Gbg, which with her help has collected quite some silver-ware. She took them all the way to the CL QF, where they are due to play the weaker of the French team. By all accounts, Christen was much loved in the football-capital of Sweden. Her manager was one of the “boys of 82″. *

Ms Press will now play for Tyresö, a team she helped beat for Gbg to take the Swedish cup (2nd year in a row). Her CL run is over for now. Tyresö has qualified themselves for next season’s CL. As one of Tyresö’s experienced strikers has joined ARod on the side-lines, Christen will have every chance to do well. Tyresö has much more money than Gbg.

*) The “boys of 82″ are held in quite some affection in Sweden. They were the last semi-professional (almost amateur) men’s club team to win a major European trophy in 1982, when against all expectations they beat Hamburg. (Gbg also won in 1987.) They also did well in the early days of the CL. Today that is not possible — and the ladies’ game is rapidly going that way.

There are more than enough excellent American players so if Christen prefers to play in Sweden let her – Marta liked it so much that she returned for a second sentence (a bit further south in the inhabited part this time). With so much talent in USA it is important that the ladies can go abroad to open up space for those below while at the same time feel safe that they will not be discriminated against for place in the NT.

There is a lot of information of the WSU site. At least three if not more keen Japanese write in regularly, and also several people in Europe though not Germany. Maybe there is an active German site that satisfies their needs?

There are also various websites with information (in the local lingo but fairly easy to navigate. For Germany and Sweden you have: —

http://www.weltfussball.de/zuschauer/frauen-bundesliga-2011-2012/1/
http://svenskfotboll.se/damallsvenskan/tidigare-ar/resultat-2012/statistikligor/?scr=spl
– but there are web-sites for almost all the bigger leagues. Search the web! The “Commander” should be able to tell you about the French D1 Féminine. I think attendance is very poor.

The problem with the statistics is that they present the figures for the means when they should be working with medians and inter-quartile ranges. Briefly, one well- or badly-attended match skews the mean while the median is not so much affected. In the Swedish ladies league, the overall mean attendance last season was 836 while the median was 563. Christen’s old club, Gbg, mean home attendance was 588 while the median was 382 (they had one atypically well attended home match) and for her new club, Tyresö, their mean home was 1951 but the median 2173.

All women’s soccer in Europe is subsidized. You cannot go by attendances. For example, last year Bayern Munich averaged 534 per match and this year so far they are at 279. The CL match between Arsenal and Potsdam at home in London had about 500 watching. PSG spent lots of money on advertising their home tie against Lyon, paying for billboards all over Paris – 1000 came. At the moment the top German sides Potsdam and Frankfurt manage about 2000 spectators per home game.

There are no firm figures for the ladies’ teams budgets but it is said that last year the salary budget for Lyon was $3.75m possibly $4m, while Potsdam and Frankfurt were about $2-2.5m each and PSG’s is not known but likely about $3m. What Arsenal and Liverpool put to their ladies is not known but Man Utd closed their women’s section, as almost did Chelsea.

To each their own. Rebecca Moros is having a whale of a time in Japan, as is Beverly. I would have thought Japan would be more interesting. A totally different culture and the experience would make you more unusual and therefore more marketable when you return to the US.

Interesting stuff on the disparity between the mens and women’s salaries, but not surprising at all. It also should be noted that Sweden used to be quite dominant in men’s tennis from the mid 70s to early 90s or so (Borg, Wilander, Stefan Edberg) and that sport has disappeared off their radar. I wonder why? In fact, Borg famously moved to Monaco to avoid the heavy Swedish tax on his winnings.

As for MLS salaries, Foxsoccer.com had an a good report on that a couple of months ago. The average MLS salary was surprisingly in the low high 30s to low 40K. I could be wrong here, but that seems absurdly low for a US professional men’s league. I would guess decent players to be making at least 75 to 100K. Of course, the designated players for each team like Beckham and Henry were making around 5 mil a year, but the median average was ridiculously low when you remove their salaries from the average. As for the WNT, I heard that each team member received around a 90K bonus for winning gold. As for their salaries, I would imagine Morgan and Abby to be making good money, but I really have no idea. As you know, all USWNT members playing in the NWSL have their salaries subsized by their soccer federations. Same holds true for Canadian and Mexican players.

Great point on Swedish women’s tennis players. I can’t ever recall one of note.

Also, terrific insight on the attendance of women fans at women’s soccer games. For the most part in the US, you’ll see the large contingent of young soccer playing girls (ages 10-14) with their moms and dads at the matches. I would say, more dads, who don’t need their arm pulled to go so Alex Morgan. The rest seem to be high school and college aged guys (also the Morgan factor in my opinion). You’re right, if young women in that 20-35 range supported the sport more, it might take off even more. Right now, most fans will come out to see the USWNT team. As a whole, they are extremely popular, get kind of rock star treatment at times, have a variety of unique personalities on the team, and are routinely drawing 15-20K a match for their friendlies and tribute tour. With that said, I still think Alex has a lot to do with those high numbers.

But the NWSL is going to be an interesting experiment once all the “stars” are now divided up. Even with salaries subsidized, I think attendance at matches will make or break the league eventually. Obviously, all Morgan matches will sell very well. I hate to put it that way, but it’s just the way it is. In the states, men view her more as a sex symbol than a soccer star. The games that don’t have Morgan can’t get away with (in my opinion) having 2K at the gate and have the league survive. We’ll see. I’m hoping it works, but it is going to be a work in progress.

I think you hit the nail on the head about Syd. Obviously, she’s shown great promise already at a young age, and does have a penchant for putting the ball in the net. But she was invisible in that Canada semi, which was the most important spot of her career to date. It was either her nerves because it was Canada or the moment was too big for her, but it was a mediocre performance when they needed her most.

Even though she’s being viewed as a major talent, there is something incomplete about her game. I understand that she is young and it may develop. But sometimes those things just don’t. She kind of reminds me of ManU’s Danny Welback. So much pace and talent, yet there’s an out of control element to his game that may never be fixed. Call it poise for a lack of better word. Although as a ManU fan, he scored a great goal this week against Madrid and played a terrific match. Maybe he’s ready for a breakthrough.

Alex and Christen seem to have great poise when given scoring opportunities. That can’t be taught. Regardless of how good an athlete you are. You either have it or you don’t. This is nothing against Syd at all. For all we know, she could very well turn out to be the best of the 3 in the long run. But I would bet that the unstoppable tandem now and into the future for the US will be Press-Morgan. The good news is that I think Sermanni understands. We’ll see.