Monthly Archives: March 2012

U-17 USWNT: April Training Camp Roster, Annotated and Adjusted

(Edit: 15-Apr-2012, the roster for the CONCACAF Championship has been announced. For more detailed information about the players selected, please check out this separate post.)

Starting next Sunday (April 1st), the United State’s Under-17 Women’s National Team will hold one last domestic training camp prior to the CONCACAF Women’s Under-17 Championship in Guatemala, which begins May 2nd. The roster for the training camp (US Soccer) was released last week. Twenty-four (24) players were called up, including all of the 18 players who traveled to La Manga for the Ten Nations U-19 tournament.

The six players who did not travel to Spain will likely be competing for the final two roster spots on the 20-player CONCACAF Championship roster.

Continue reading →

U-17 USWNT: Known Line-Ups So Far This Cycle (through March 2012)

So, the Under-17 United States Women’s National Team roster for the team’s final tune-up camp prior to the CONCACAF Championship came out last week. As I was typing up the write-up, I noticed that some of the players had been listed under different field areas, than prior rosters. And, with everything else going on in soccer (e.g., U-20 CONCACAF Championship, Algarve Cup), I had not had time to thoroughly dig into the U-17 WNT roster.

This post is both a review of the past line-ups, as well as an exploration of the actual national team field positions for various players. Continue reading →

Women’s Soccer Cinderella Story of the Month: Uruguay’s U-17 WNT

[Updated] Uruguay’s Under-17 Women’s National Team has qualified for the 2012 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup in Azerbaijan in the most incredible fashion: By winning all its matches in the first group stage, and then by winning both its matches so far in the second/final group stage. That is six straight matches. To put this in perspective of Uruguayan women’s football, before this tournament, the combined record of all of Uruguay’s WNTs was 7-32-5 (W-L-T) in all Sudamericano championship competitions (senior, U-20, U-17). In the previous U-17 tournaments (2008 and 2010) Uruguay had only won one match. And, that was back in 2008 (a combined record of 1-7-0).

Continue reading →

USWNT Opponent: Japan’s 2012 Kirin Cup Roster Is Loaded With Defenders

Earlier today, Japan released its roster for the 2012 Women’s Kirin Challenge Cup, which begins April 1st, with Japan taking on the United States Women’s National Team. The 23-player roster is loaded with ten defenders, which is three more than were on Japan’s recent Algarve Cup roster.  From the Algarve Cup roster, head coach Naori Sasaki made five changes, although two are due to medical reasons.

The additional defenders may indicate that Sasaki is unhappy with his defense, which gave up four goals (3 during the run of play, 1 via a PK) versus Germany in the Algarve Cup final.

Continue reading →

Brazilian WNT’ers Erika and Maurine, ‘Orphaned’ By Santos, Have Signed With Olympic Training Center Team

Last week, A.D. Centro Olímpico,  an extension of the Brazilian state of São Paolo’s Centro Olímpico de Treinamento e Pesquisa (translates to “Center of Olympic Training and Research;” acronym is  “COTP”), announced that it had signed ten former Santos FC players, including Brazilian Women’s National Team players Érika dos Santos , Maurine Dornelles Gonçalves, and Gabriela Zanotti Demoner, to one-year contracts with its women’s soccer club team. All Santos’ players were “orphaned” in December when that club dropped its powerhouse women’s team due to financial issues (OurGameMagazine.com). Continue reading →

USWNT Rival Watch: Brazil’s Player Pool, 2012 Olympics (Detailed)

(Note: Some of the player’s positions have been corrected. The corrections are mostly due to a minor translation error on my part. Also, positions for other players have been updated, based on additional information.)

Last Wednesday, March 14th, the CBF released the names of 33 players who could be called up for Brazil’s Olympic team roster. This list is required to be submitted to the IOC, but I do not think that it is in anyway binding.

Since the CBF website does not maintain biographical pages for its players, I have listed those 33 players below, with details such as height, birthday, position information, plus relevant links to Wikipedia, FIFA.com competition summaries, etc., where available. Also, a quick summary of the list is provided as a table, which includes whether the player was rostered for recent matches, going back to the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany.

Continue reading →

USWNT Neighbor Watch: Mexico’s Cuellar, ‘We are on the right track’

After returning from the 2012 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship in Panama, where Mexico qualified for the 2012 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, Mexican Women’s National Team head coach Leonardo Cuellar, Mexico’s U-20 WNT head coach Roberto Medina, plus a handful of U-20 players, including senior national team goalkeeper Cecilia Santiago and U-20 team captain Nayeli Rangel, participated in a press conference. A video was posted (direct link, in MP4 format) on Femexfut.org.mx’s website and a text summary (in Spanish) was provided as well. Based on the summary, the press conference was rather uneventful, but did provide a few interesting quotes (translated to English using Google Translate as a starting point): Continue reading →

USWNT: 2012 Algarve Cup Recap (Catch-Up)

At the 2012 Algarve Cup, the USWNT won its first two matches, then lost to Japan 0:1, in the final group match. In its placement match, the USA defeated Sweden 4:0, with Alex Morgan getting her first international hat trick.

(No real analysis this time, this is mostly just bookmarking of links and notes.) Continue reading →

USWNT Rival Watch: Sweden at the 2012 Algarve Cup (Catch-Up)

In the 2012 Algarve Cup, Sweden suffered two straight 0:4 losses, first to Germany, and then to the USA. In its first two matches, Sweden defeated China 1:0 and Iceland 4:1.

Notables: (1) The back-to-back 0:4 losses; (2) Dennerby’s continued experimentation with the 4-2-3-1 formation; (3) Lotta Schelin earned her 100th cap in the China match; and (4) 21 year-old midfielder Antonia Göransson has 4 goals this year, to lead the team.

Continue reading →

USWNT Rival Watch: Germany at the 2012 Algarve Cup (Catch-up)

Germany won the 2012 Algarve Cup after winning all its group matches (versus Iceland, China, and Sweden) and then winning the first place match over Japan 4:3.  Celia Okoyino da Mbabi had two hat tricks (versus Sweden and Japan). Germany was missing several veterans due to injuries, including Simone Laudeher (meniscus), Kim Kulig (torn ACL in 2011 WWC) as well as two players who were on the squad’s Algarve Cup roster: Nadine Angerer, and Fatmire Bajramaj. Also, veteran strikers Inka Grings and Martina Müller were not available.

Continue reading →