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Meet the U.S. Women's Soccer Team: Abby Wambach

The 2015 soccer Women’s World Cup begins on Saturday, June 6 in Canada. The United States team is one of a handful of favorites to win the tournament and they’ve got a great story. Despite decades of excellent play, the team has not won a World Cup championship since 1999. That’s a whole generation of dreams denied and all the reason anyone should need to root for the team this year. To help prepare you to root for team and country, we’re going to run a short profile of every player on the 23-person roster. When female athletes take their turn in the spotlight, they often receive coverage that is slanted toward non-game aspects of their stories — marriage, children, sexual preference, perceived lack-of or bountiful sexiness, social media activity, etc. In the hope of balancing things out, just a tiny bit, these previews will strive to stay on the field, with only a little bit of non-gendered personal interest when possible.

Abby Wambach

Position: Striker

Number: 20

National team experience: 242 appearances, this will be her fourth World Cup, and she has 182 international goals.

What to expect from Abby Wambach: Abby Wambach is the greatest of all time. She leads all international players, men or women in goals. It would be a vast understatement to say she looks like a woman among girls. When she’s at her best, Wambach is a jaguar among kittens. She’s simply bigger, stronger, and better than everyone else. Her specialty is going up in the air and scoring goals with her head. She’s so prolific and proficient at this, timing her jumps perfectly, out muscling anyone who gets in her way, and directing the ball exactly where she wants it to go, with pace, that it’s almost a surprise to see her score with her feet. She’s so monumentally good in the air that it’s easy to forget that she can pass, dribble, and shoot better than anyone else too. Wambach is tougher than nails and it’s not uncommon to see her play through broken noses or with blood streaming down her face from a cut on her head. Having just turned 35 before the World Cup started and with many hundreds of miles on her legs, there are questions about how much she will be able to play. She probably won’t start every game and may even be given a game or two off if the United States looks to be able to win it without her. When she is on the field, she’ll still be the most powerful figure out there. She’s not just someone to be reckoned with by opponents, her own teammates respond to her presence. Wambach is the undisputed leader of the team.

Video: Here are 100 of Wambach’s 182 goals. It’s almost funny how easy she makes many of these look. They’re not, she’s just that good.

Non-gendered personal interest item: One of the biggest story lines of the World Cup for the U.S. team this year is that Wambach, the greatest goal scorer ever, has never won a World Cup. She’s been up front about feeling that her career will be incomplete without one. It’s safe to say that the entire team would be driven to win the World Cup without this additional motivation, but at the end of 90 minutes, when legs and lungs are burning, it might provide them just a tiny bit of extra juice. As a fan of the team and of Wambach, the thought of her leaving soccer without a World Cup championship makes me about three times more nervous than I would otherwise be.

Links: There are hundreds of Abby Wambach profiles out there but the definitive record of this era in her career was written by Kate Fagan and published by ESPN last fall. Read it now! Check out Wambach’s website, her US Soccer page and follow her on Twitter.

Sports Forecast for Thursday, June 5, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

Meet the U.S. Women's Soccer Team: Hope Solo

Hope Solo

Position: Goalkeeper

Number: 20

National team experience: 170 appearances, this will be her third World Cup, and she has 83 international shutouts.

What to expect from Hope Solo: Hope Solo enters this World Cup as the best goalie in the world. This is an honorary she’s used to having. She’s been considered the best for at least the last seven years. Solo’s greatness is not obvious during most games. Part of the reason for this is that the U.S. team’s defense as a whole is so strong that she often doesn’t have a lot to do. That’s just a small contributing factor though. Largely her greatness is subtle because she understands the game so well. This means she’s virtually always in the right position. She knows how to use geometry to cut down on the available space an offensive player has to shoot at. When a shot is on the way towards her, she reads it and sets herself up to make the save with as much efficiency as possible. There’s very little wasted movement in her saves. She does have supreme physical abilities and reaction times, so she can wait to leap longer than most goalies. Almost uniquely among all the soccer goalies I’ve seen, Solo seems like she focuses not just on making the save but also on where she is going to direct the ball if she can’t catch it. Solo will play every game for the United States and the team should be able to rely on her to make all the saves she should be expected to make and most of them that she shouldn’t.

Video: Watch how relaxed Solo looks during this whole collection of highlights. Only once do I think she looks like she has to scramble and that’s when a shot deflects off a defender.

Non-gendered personal interest item: Hope Solo has had a long and sometimes sordid history as a celebrity. Perhaps her lowest point was this past fall when she was being compared to Ray Rice because of an assault charge she picked up after a physical altercation with her sister and nephew. By no means is Solo free from guilt about this and other infractions but that comparison was unfair. Ta-Nehisi Coates explained the falseness of the comparison better than I ever could in his article in The Atlantic.

Links: Check out Solo’s US Soccer page and follow her on Twitter. She also has a website on which she just wrote a beautiful birthday tribute to teammate Abby Wambach which I strongly recommend.

Sports Forecast for Thursday, June 4, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

How is the women's World Cup different from the men's?

Dear Sports Fan,

How is the women’s World Cup different from the men’s?

Thanks,
Derek

Dear Derek,

One of the beautiful things about soccer is that there are very few differences between the women’s version of the sport and the men’s. This is surprisingly rare in sports. Women’s ice hockey, field hockey, and lacrosse have drastically different rules, which mostly make them less rough and sometimes more difficult to play than the men’s version. The rules for women who want to play baseball are so different that we call the resulting sport by an entirely different name: softball. American football, long played exclusively by men, is only now beginning to be played by women in significant numbers. Ironically, this has led to women’s football being much more identical to its male counterpart than most other sports. The only real difference between men’s and women’s American football is that, like in basketball, women play with a slightly smaller and lighter ball. The Women’s World Cup is identical to the men’s edition (here’s a post on how that works) except for two major differences. Both differences are temporary and are likely to disappear as time passes.

You’ve probably heard about the first difference. The women’s World Cup will be played on artificial turf instead of grass. When this was announced, it was so odious to the majority of players that many of them banded together to sue the Canadian Soccer Association and FIFA on charges of gender discrimination. The men’s World Cup never has and never will be played on anything but grass. Any organizer that even dreamed of trying to use turf would get laughed right off the planet. Unfortunately, the lawsuit eventually failed despite reported offers by several companies to install grass fields for free. You can see why many of the World Cup players had a special reason beyond all the obvious corruption-related reasons to celebrate when Sepp Blatter stepped down the other day. Why is playing on turf so bad? Tactically speaking, the ball bounces and rolls differently on turf which changes how the game is played and offers advantages to some teams over others. There’s also the issue of injuries. Playing on turf makes the type of sliding and falling that’s common in soccer a distinctly painful experience. For evidence, we need look no further than a tweet from U.S. national team striker, Sydney Leroux:

https://twitter.com/sydneyleroux/status/323630086249140224/

Of course, there isn’t a single player on any of the World Cup teams that wouldn’t volunteer for that type of injury if it meant winning a World Cup. The bigger issue is the thought that turf contributes to more major injuries as well. If there are a rash of blown out knees and ankles during this World Cup, players, coaches, and fans will be pointing to the turf.

The second difference is that there are fewer teams in the women’s edition of the World Cup. Currently, the men’s World Cup has 32 teams. The 2015 women’s World Cup has 24 teams. This actually represents an expansion of the field for the women’s World Cup, which from its first tournament in 1991 has grown from 12 teams to 16 in 1999 and now to 24. It may seem strange to change the number of teams involved in the World Cup but the same evolution has happened in the men’s edition. It went from 16 to 24 teams in 1982 and then to 32 in 1998. The switch from 16 to 24 teams has a major impact on how the tournament works. Until now, with 12 or 16 teams, the tournament has started with a group stage consisting of groups of four teams each. The top eight teams from the group stage advanced to the single elimination knockout round. With sixteen teams, this meant that the top two teams from each group qualified to be in the final eight. This year, the 24 teams are divided up into six groups of four teams each. Instead of trying to winnow the field straight from 24 to eight, the organizers decided to add an additional knockout stage round in — a round with 16 teams.

Now bear with me for another minute, because here’s where the technical mumbo jumbo actually starts meaning something. With 24 teams in six groups of four each, taking the top two teams from each group only gives us 12 teams. We need 16 for the knockout round. So, the top four third place teams will qualify to the single elimination stage of the tournament. This gives an enormous life-line to teams stuck in difficult groups, of which the United States’ group is thought to be the most difficult. The way the third place teams will be compared to each other is the same as the tie-breakers within the group. The first condition is number of points (three for a win, one for a tie, zero for a loss) during the group stage games. The next is cumulative goal differential (goals scored minus goals given up) during the group stage, and the final way is total goals scored. If teams are tied after that, a coin will be flipped. Yep, your country’s fortunes could be decided by a coin flip.

The weirdest thing about adding four third place teams into the round of sixteen is deciding who they play. Usually, all the first place teams are rewarded by playing a different group’s second place team in the first knockout round. Theoretically this gives the first place teams an easier path to the second round. That will still be true for the winners of groups E and F. The first place teams in groups A, B, C, and D will play the third place team from another group as determined by this insane chart.

If I were a fan of a country stuck in group E or F, I would be angry that my team had no chance of picking up a relatively easy matchup against a third place team. I don’t know whether groups E and F are intentionally weaker to reflect this advantage or if it was just the (bad) luck of the draw.

Given the indignation about the turf, I don’t expect another women’s World Cup to ever be played on anything but grass. And in another decade or so, I expect the women’s World Cup will move to 32 teams and be identical to the men’s. That is, unless the men’s World Cup keeps expanding also. Only time will tell.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Meet the U.S. Women's Soccer Team: Becky Sauerbrunn

Becky Sauerbrunn

Position: Defender

Number: 4

National team experience: 81 appearances, this will be her second World Cup, and she has 0 international goals.

What to expect from Becky Sauerbrunn: Becky Sauerbrunn is a prototypical central defender. She’s strong, physical, and totally reliable. If you’re a midfielder, you feel secure knowing that if you make a mistake, Sauerbrunn is right behind you to clean it up. If you’re a goalie, you know you can count on her to keep the front of your net clear. With newcomer Julie Johnston taking over the other central defensive position and doing so with a distinct attacking flair, Sauerbrunn has become the leader of the back line and an even more firmly defensive player. Barring a major injury, we should expect to see Sauerbrunn on the field for every minute of the World Cup. She’s the only player to start in every match the team has played so far this year and she barely ever comes off the field. She’s used to being a workhorse — during her two years in the now defunct WPS professional soccer league, she was the only player in the entire league to play every minute of every game. At her current professional team, the NWSL’s FC Kansas City, she is captain and reigning two-time defensive player of the year.

Video: Like I said, Becky Sauerbrunn is the person you want cleaning up your idiotic mistakes.

Non-gendered personal interest item: Every player who makes a national team remembers their first game with the team. It’s a goal that many of them have been fighting toward for most of their lives. For Becky Sauerbrunn, that sublime memory was cemented and complicated by suffering a broken nose. Can you imagine what that would feel like? Not just the broken nose, but to have made it to the pinnacle of your profession only to break your nose in your first day at work? Crazy.

Links: Read Joe Steigmeyer make the case that Sauerbrunn is the “most important” player on the U.S. Team in the Bleacher Report. Check out Sauerbrunn’s US Soccer page and follow her on Twitter.

Sports Forecast for Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on:

For email subscribers, click here to get the audio.

You can subscribe to all Dear Sports Fan podcasts by following this link. Music by Jesse Fischer.

Meet the U.S. Women's Soccer Team: Amy Rodriguez

Amy Rodriguez

Position: Forward

Number: 8

National team experience: 123 appearances, this will be her second World Cup, and she has 29 international goals.

What to expect from Amy Rodriguez: Amy Rodriguez is the forgotten striker. At 28 years of age, she has played her whole career in the shadow of Abby Wambach, seven years older and, more to the point, the most prolific goal scorer in soccer history. She’s also not one of the new generation of strikers who are vying to inherit Wambach’s position: Alex Morgan, 25 years old, Sydney Leroux, 25, and Christen Press, 26. Caught between a rock (clearly Wambach) and three hard-charging pebbles, it’s easy to forget that Rodriguez started all but one of the games in the last World Cup. By the end of this World Cup, if things break right for Rodriguez, she might be much, much easier to remember. If Wambach shows any signs of age, if Morgan can’t get on the field because of her knee injury, and if Leroux or Press show any signs of immaturity, Rodriguez will be there to cooly do her thing. What is her thing? Rodriguez is a powerful player whose strength and low center of gravity help her excel in the crowded, chaotic areas of the field. She is often able to get to passes you think she shouldn’t be able to by throwing a shoulder into a larger defender as she runs by them. Once she has the ball, it’s very hard for the other team to get it back. She scores many of her goals by knocking a shot in from up close or by placing it over or around the goalie from afar. You don’t often see her smash the ball, her outside shots are surprisingly delicate for such a bullish on the ball player. It remains to be seen how much playing time Rodriguez gets but I would expect her to make the most of whatever time she does get.

Video: Pay close attention to Rodriguez’ physical play and technical outside shooting

Non-gendered personal interest item: As befits her low profile, there isn’t much out there about Rodriguez that isn’t about her “surprise pregnancy” or returning to play after giving birth. Way to gendered for this section. Instead, here’s a bonus video of her scoring five goals in a single match. In case you were wondering, that isn’t a record. The record is 13 (!!) scored by Australia’s Archie Thompson.

Links: Check out Rodriguez’ US Soccer page and follow her on Twitter.

Meet the U.S. Women's Soccer Team: Megan Rapinoe

Megan Rapinoe

Position: Midfielder

Number: 15

National team experience: 102 appearances, this will be her second World Cup, and she has 29 international goals.

What to expect from Megan Rapinoe: Every player on the U.S. national team is a great soccer player. Every player in the World Cup is probably better than anyone you or I have ever played with. But there’s something different about the few players who are truly world class. World class players just look different from everyone else. They have at least one skill that virtually no one else can match. Megan Rapinoe is a world playmaker. She has exceptional vision. Vision literally means the ability to see the field, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Rapinoe has exceptional vision in one way or another, but it also means the ability to understand where every player on the field is and to anticipate where they are going to be. This is truly where Rapinoe excels. She seems to know exactly where to put the ball. Her other exceptional skill, quite handily paired with vision, is her technical ability to pass the ball to just the spot she wants. In the flow of play, Rapinoe’s approach to playing midfielder is acquire the ball, survey the field, move the ball to the player in the position most dangerous to the opposing team. Rapinoe takes the majority of the more technical set pieces, including corner kicks. Her skill on the ball allows her to be a formidable goal-scorer, especially on shots from a distance, but it’s not her primary focus. Rapinoe missed the team’s last warm-up game with a thigh injury. How much we see her on the field during this World Cup depends a lot on her health. The more she can play, the better it will be for the U.S. team’s chances.

Video: This goal, the latest scored in World Cup history, gives me chills every time I see it. Its sheer improbability has a lot to do with the skill involved in Rapinoe’s cross.

Non-gendered personal interest item: During the 2012 Olympics, Rapinoe became the first soccer player of any gender to score a goal directly from a corner kick. Oddly enough, this type of goal has been known as an “Olympic goal” since 1924 despite having never been accomplished in the Olympics until 2012.

Links: Read Sam Borden’s fine profile of Rapinoe from a few years back in the New York Times. Check out Rapinoe’s US Soccer page, her website, and follow her on Twitter.

How to plan for the week of June 1-7, 2015

If you are a sports fan or if you live with a sports fan then your weekly schedule becomes inextricably linked with what sporting events are on at what times during each week. The conflict between missing a sporting event for a poorly committed to social event and missing an appealing social event to watch a game is an important balancing act in any kind of romantic, familial, or business relationship between a sports fan and a non-sports fan. To help facilitate this complicated advanced mathematics, Dear Sports Fan has put together a table showing the most important sporting events of the upcoming week. Print it out, put it on your fridge, and go through it with your scheduling partner.

Download a full-size copy here.

Monday: Free day! Oh sure, Uzbekistan is playing against Honduras at noon in the Under-20 Men’s World Cup, but… if you want to go see Mad Max or boycott Pitch Perfect 2, you should have time for that.

Tuesday: The French Open quarterfinals begin although the really titanic match-ups are more likely to happen on Wednesday.

Wednesday: If all goes as expected in the bracket and the weather, we should get a premature Djokovic vs. Nadal match in the French Open. Plus, the Stanley Cup finals begin in Tampa Bay. Nothing better than June hockey in Florida. All jokes aside, there really isn’t anything better than the Stanley Cup Finals.

Thursday: The French Open continues in the morning with the women’s semifinals. At night, after more than a week off, the NBA finals begin with LeBron and the other guys on the Cleveland Cavaliers in California to play the Golden State Warriors.

Friday: Date night! This week, the Sports Gods smile on your traditional date night by not scheduling anything too appealing on Friday night.

Saturday: For all the fanfare that that Saturday a month ago got for being a great sports Saturday, it’s hard to beat this one. Club soccer’s biggest tournament, the UEFA Champions League has its final, the Women’s World Cup begins with two games, one featuring host nation, Canada. Throw in the French Open Women’s finals and Game Two of the Stanley Cup Finals, and you’d have an amazing sports day even without the cherry on top. The cherry in this case is the running of the Belmont Stakes, a horse race whose profile goes through the roof on years when there’s a horse that’s won both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness. This year, that horse is American Pharaoh, and if it can win the Belmont, it would become the first triple crown winner since 1978’s Affirmed.

Sunday: Roll out of bed and watch the French Open Men’s final, spend a happy afternoon watching the Women’s World Cup, and finish your day off with Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

Caveat — This forecast is optimized for the general sports fan, not a particular sports fan. As such, your mileage may vary. For instance, you or the sports fan in your life is a fan of a particular team, then a regular season MLB baseball game or MLS soccer game may be more important on a particular day than anything on the forecast above. Use the calendar as a way to facilitate conversation about scheduling, not as the last word on when there are sports to watch.