Five Area Players at Camp
The heirs apparent to Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and Briana Scurry gather in the Home Depot Center today as the United States under-19 women’s national team opens a weeklong camp at Carson.
The U.S. is the defending world champion at the under-19 level, having won the inaugural title under Coach Tracey Leone in Canada in 2002.
The world championship will be played in Thailand in November, and the seven-day camp is intended to prepare the U.S. for the CONCACAF qualifying tournament at Ottawa and Montreal May 28-June 6.
Leone, who as Tracey Bates was a member of the U.S. team that won the first FIFA Women’s World Championship in China in 1991, said she wants to use the camp to “identify the core of our team.”
Leone has called up 26 players, including five from Southern California: Stanford defender Rachel Buehler of Del Mar, Virginia defender Shannon Foley of Rancho Santa Margarita, El Modena High forward Alexa Orand of Orange, Foothill High forward Megan Rapinoe of Redding and Portland forward Angie Woznuk of El Cajon.
Buehler and Woznuk were members of the 2002 world championship team; Orand, 16, is the youngest player in camp.
Also still age-eligible from the 2002 team and called into camp were forward Kerri Hanks and goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris.
A fifth world champion who is almost certain to start in the CONCACAF tournament but is not attending the camp is North Carolina striker Heather O’Reilly, who led the Tar Heels to the NCAA title this month.
English Leaders
Defending champion Manchester United maintained its top spot in the English Premier League with a 3-2 victory over Everton on Friday.
Brazilian World Cup winner Kleberson and David Bellion each scored their first goals for the team after Nicky Butt had given United the early lead.
Arsenal kept pace, only one point behind, by defeating last-place Wolverhampton Wanderers, 3-0, on two goals by Thierry Henry after Patrick Vieira had scored the first goal.
Chelsea, however, fell into third place, four points out of first, when it was trounced, 4-2, at fifth-place Charlton Athletic.
Fulham climbed to fourth with a 2-0 victory over Southampton on goals by French striker Louis Saha, who is being pursued by Manchester United, Liverpool and others.
England’s Daily Mirror tabloid reported that Chelsea will offer Italian champion Juventus $44.3 million for 26-year-old French striker David Trezeguet, who is said to want to leave Italy for personal reasons.
River Plate Coach
River Plate, which finished a disappointing 14th in Argentina’s Apertura championship despite winning the Clausura championship title as recently as June, has hired one of its former players, Leonardo Astrada, as coach.
Astrada, 33, played 452 games for River Plate in a 14-year career with the club. He replaces Manuel Pellegrini, who quit last weekend after River Plate lost the Copa Sudamericana final to unheralded Cienciano of Peru.
Quick Passes
Barcelona has withdrawn its appeal against a two-game stadium closure imposed on it by the Spanish soccer federation.
The ban came after crowd trouble at 98,000-capacity Nou Camp during last year’s match against Real Madrid, when a pig’s head was one of many unsavory objects hurled by Barcelona fans at Portuguese international Luis Figo of Real Madrid.
Japan’s J-League has voted to expand its first division to 18 teams and to do away with the two-stage format and go to a single league season in 2005.
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Times wire services contributed to this report.
