U.S. Women Face Stern Challenge
When last heard from, Coach April Heinrichs and the United States women’s national team were about to vanish for a few months as its players went off to their Women’s United Soccer Assn. clubs.
Well, the inaugural WUSA season has come and gone and Heinrichs will have the chance this week to see what effect the new professional league had on the team.
The U.S. has three challenging games in eight days, starting today when it plays European champion Germany at Soldier Field in Chicago. Tuesday, it faces Japan at Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, and Sunday it plays China at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.
All three games will be shown live on ESPN or ESPN2.
According to Heinrichs, the existence of the WUSA has given her a much deeper pool of players.
Of the 24 players she called into camp in Chicago last week, 19 were from the new league and five were college players.
“I can now say we have six goalkeepers, a dozen or so defenders, the same number of midfielders and at least eight forwards,” she said.
“It’s a great position for me [to be in], to know the depth chart at every position.”
The three U.S. games are part of the four-nation Nike U.S. Women’s Cup, which opened Friday with Germany defeating Japan, 1-0, in Buffalo Grove, Ill.
The Americans are unbeaten in this competition, having won all seven previous editions while compiling a 20-0-0 record and outscoring opponents, 91-8.
This time around, things might be different. Heinrichs calls this field “the most competitive ever” and describes it as being “similar to a group of death in a major tournament.”
Today’s game will provide the first test. The U.S. managed to avoid Germany at the Sydney Olympic Games, where the countries won the silver and bronze medals, respectively.
Germany was dominant at the European Women’s Championship in July, when Coach Tina Theune-Meyer’s team swept the early rounds before edging Sweden, 1-0, in overtime in the final in Ulm, Germany, where Heinrichs was an interested observer.
Last Time Out
In the U.S. team’s most recent game--and its only game on American soil this year--it earned a far-from-impressive 1-0 victory over Canada at Blaine, Minn., on July 3.
The victory, which improved the U.S. record to 2-5-2 in 2001, marked forward Cindy Parlow’s 100th appearance for the national team, making her, at 23, the youngest to reach that mark.
Tiffeny Milbrett, the eventual WUSA scoring champion and most valuable player while starring for the New York Power, scored the game’s only goal, her 85th for the national team.
Milbrett, along with Brandi Chastain, who led the Bay Area CyberRays to the WUSA title, believe the league’s existence will have a positive impact on the U.S. team.
“Not only is it lengthening our careers as veteran players because you get to play on a daily basis for months,” Milbrett told the Associated Press. “It’s giving younger players a chance to be seen and to show what they can do.”
Chastain, 33, said the WUSA has “given me the opportunity to actually think about participating in the next World Cup”--in China in 2003--by providing a means of staying in shape year-round.
Other veterans on the U.S. tournament roster include Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Shannon MacMillan, Joy Fawcett, Lorrie Fair, Julie Foudy and Kate Sobrero.
Five for the Future
The five collegiate players who were called into camp last week were members of the U.S. Under-21 national team that won the Nordic Cup in Norway in July.
They were goalkeeper Hope Solo from Washington, defenders Cat Reddick and Jena Kluegel from North Carolina, midfielder Aleisha Cramer from Brigham Young and forward Abby Wambach from Florida.
Heinrichs praised the players’ respective college coaches for being willing to release them for national team duty.
“For these young players to make the 2003 World Cup roster, the time to invest in them is now,” she said.
Roberts Returns
Perhaps the most sensible move Heinrichs has made in a long while was recalling defender Tiffany Roberts to the national team.
Roberts, a 1996 Olympic gold medalist and 1999 world champion, was inexplicably left off the 2000 Olympic roster and has not played for the national team since Oct. 10, 1999.
But the San Ramon native enjoyed a strong WUSA season with the Carolina Courage and deserved her recall, even if it lasted only until Saturday, when Heinrichs trimmed the roster to 18.
Four of the five college players survived the cut, Solo being the exception.
Quick Passes
One notable player absent from the national team this week will be defender Christie Pearce, who is sidelined for six months after tearing a ligament in her knee while playing in the WUSA for New York.... China’s team for the tournament will feature six WUSA players: Fan Yunjie and Wen Lirong of the San Diego Spirit, Goa Hong of the Power, Sun Wen of the Atlanta Beat, Bai Jie of the Washington Freedom and Liu Ailing of the Philadelphia Charge.
