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Boston trades A-Rod to Philly for draft picks

The Boston Breakers have traded 2009 No. 1 draft pick and U.S. Women’s National Team player Amy Rodriguez to the Philadelphia Independence, as first reported by the Boston Herald.Philadelphia will also get Boston’s fifth-overall draft pick in the 2010 WPS General Draft in exchange for second-overall and 11th-overall selections.

The deal comes after Rodriguez struggled to live up to the hype as a top young international goal-scorer. She found net only once in 17 matches, and was in and out of the starting lineup. In The Equalizer’s post-season interview with Boston Head Coach Tony DiCicco, he indicated some clear disappointment.

“We didn’t get quite what we wanted with Amy, but if you look throughout the league, college players were really inconsistent,” DiCicco said. “Even though Amy is obviously a national team player too, her role with the national team is much smaller. On our team we needed her to be a goal scorer. We needed her to break down the opponent with her speed.”

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Now A-Rod will call Philadelphia home, something Independence Head Coach Paul Riley is excited about.

“I’m delighted to get her,” he said. “She wasn’t in the expansion draft so we realized we had to trade for her.”

Riley said that Rodriguez was on his radar to begin with, and received confirmation of what he thought when U.S. Women’s National Team Head Coach Pia Sundhage recommended Rodriguez.It won’t get any easier for Rodriguez. The expectations in Philadelphia are still very high.

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“We want 10 to 15 goals out of her,” Riley said.

That expectation may be an exaggeration, but Riley is excited to see what Rodriguez will bring to the City of Brotherly Love and he does not want to put too much pressure on her. He said that Rodriguez has great speed and will benefit from playing in a different system from Boston’s. He plans on having Philadelphia play an attack-minded 4-3-3 formation.

So, Philadelphia will get the fifth-overall pick and last year’s No. 1 pick in exchange for their two first-round picks. With the entire deal involving young, yet to be proven (or even identified) talent, it is too early to tell who got the best of the deal. However, Riley is confident that he did well.

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“I think we did a good piece of business,” he said with a laugh.

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