Tag: women’s sports

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.

Meghan Klingenberg

Position: Defender

Number: 25

National team experience: 32 appearances, this will be her first World Cup, and she has 2 international goals.

What to expect from Meghan Klingenberg: Undersized world class athletes, like 5’2″ Meghan Klingenberg, survive in every sport by having one or two remarkable qualities. For pint-sized NHL star, Martin St. Louis, it’s his freaky lower-body strength. For NBA legend, Allen Iverson, it was a mixture of quickness and complete disregard for his own safety. For Meghan Klingenberg, it’s speed. When you watch her play, she’s consistently a step or four ahead of her opponents. At times, her teammates will pass the ball in Klingenber’s direction but so far away that you think, “oh that’s a bad pass…” and then you watch Klingenberg catch up to the ball. Her speed and her experience in college as a midfielder make her perfect for playing the outside defense position as coach Jill Ellis likes to utilize it. In Ellis’ system, the wing defender is expected to move all the way up the field, helping the team transition to offense by playing give-and-go with central players before launching a cross into the penalty box. Klingenberg will be doing that for most of the World Cup — she’s played in all eight games the team has played in 2015 and started seven of them.

Video: My favorite part of this video is how, even after a goal as magnificent as this one, Klingenberg’s speed is what sticks in her teammates minds.

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

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.

Lauren Holiday

Position: Midfielder

Number: 12

National team experience: 122 appearances, this will be her second World Cup, and she has 23 international goals.

What to expect from Lauren Holiday: For the U.S. team to win the World Cup, Lauren Holiday must be one of their best players. Holiday plays as a holding midfielder. This is the person who plays in the center of the field, closest to the four defenders. Some players in this role are honorary fifth defenders — tough, physical players who anchor the midfield to the back line. Holiday takes a different approach. From the same position, she’s the team’s most common and potent playmaker. She’ll drop back to the defense, collect the ball, survey the field, and then play exactly the right pass to the right person to start a dangerous attach. She’s one of a handful of players on the team who look almost indescribably different from everyone else on the field. Holiday never looks rushed or out of control. She has extraordinary vision and technical ability. When she decides to score, she’ll often launch shots from distance and she’s got the chops to place the ball just where the goalie can’t reach it. Watch for her starting the attack in the course of play and also on corner kicks and set pieces.

Video: Okay, there’s something a tiny bit creepy about a fan cutting up game film to create a video of just one player’s every moves but particularly for a playmaker like Holiday, it’s actually a great way to see what she’s all about.

Non-gendered personal interest item: As she talks about in a video on her US Soccer player page, Holiday had open heart surgery when she was three years old. She’s also married (I know, we’re creeping up to the gender line) to NBA point guard Jrue Holiday. This is relevant because aside from perhaps a quarterback in football, a basketball point guard is the closest sports analog to the way Holiday plays soccer. It’s fun to think about a relationship between two people who have such similar instincts and skills in the sports they excel at.

Links: Read about Holiday in this Sports Illustrated article by top soccer writer, Grant Wahl. Check out her US Soccer page and follow her on Twitter.

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.

Tobin Heath

Position: Midfielder

Number: 17

National team experience: 90 appearances, this will be her second World Cup, and she has 11 international goals.

What to expect from Tobin Heath: You know that kid on your youth soccer team who just never stopped running? He or she might not have been the biggest, the most skilled, the strongest, the most aggressive, or the most clever player, but they just never, ever, ever stopped running. When your team was on the attack, she was there. When your team needed an extra set of legs on defense, there she was. And she never, ever, ever seemed even a little bit tired. That’s Tobin Heath. Heath plays an attacking midfielder role for the national team. In this World Cup, she’ll most likely be coming off the bench to replace Christen Press or another starting midfielder.

Video: In this package of Tobin Heath highlights, notice how many of her goals come from following up on an attack. Heath runs herself into goals. In one, she even basically kept running after she scored the goal as if to say, “no big deal, I just scored, now lemme run back to our side of the field so we can start the game again and I can run some more.”

Non-gendered personal interest item: Heath has made something of a name for herself on the internet with a series of juggling freestyle and trick shot videos. Enjoy!

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

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.

Ashlyn Harris

Position: Goalkeeper

Number: 24

National team experience: 6 appearances, this will be her first World Cup, and she has two international shutouts.

What to expect from Ashlyn Harris: Harris is everything you’d expect from a world class goalie. She’s aggressive, fearless, determined, and a little bit obsessed. At 5’9″ she’s got the physical ability and presence to command the area around the net. Harris would be the starting goalie for virtually every other country in the world but unfortunately for her, she’s stuck behind goalkeeping legend, Hope Solo. When Solo was suspended this winter, Harris got her chance to start and played well, cementing her position as the second goalie on the team. If Solo gets injured, Harris’ experience will come in handy. Get it, handy?

Video: Here’s an almost ten minute package of Harris highlights. Within the first 30 seconds, she saves a penalty kick and then shows her focus, determination, and athleticism by recovering and springing again to knock the rebound out of danger.

Non-gendered personal interest item: Harris has a story that’s more common (or at least more talked about) in male/non-soccer professional sports. She comes from a small, mostly poor town in Florida. Her family has a history of addiction. Harris was a wild child who struggled in school (and in fact, was almost ineligible to graduate from high school because of her attendance record.) Harris is up front about soccer having provided her a “way out” to see the world, finish college, and support organizations that she believes in like the depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide focused non-profit, To Write Love on Her Arms.

Links: Read about Harris in an Florida Today article by Lyn Dowling. Check out her US Soccer page and follow her on Twitter.

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.

Lori Chalupny

Position: Defender

Number: 16

National team experience: 100 appearances, this will be her second World Cup, and she has scored nine international goals

What to expect from Lori Chalupny: Lori Chalupny is a versatile veteran player who will come off the bench in this year’s World Cup. She can play any of the midfield positions but is most likely to be used as an outside defender. Fans of Chalupny might feel as though she’s being underutilized in this role and perhaps she is. Over the last three years, playing professional soccer for the NWSL team, the Chicago Red Stars, Chalupny has starred as a central midfielder, a defender, and even a striker. As recently as two years ago, Chalupny was considered one of the best players in the world. Either she is being underutilized or age and her unique history with the National Team (more on this later) may have caught up with her. At 5’4″, she’s not a physical defensive presence but she can get up and down the field, transitioning from a defensive to an offensive role quickly.  That’s one of the primary skills asked of outside defenders by coach Jill Ellis, so it’s no surprise that’s what we’re most likely to be seeing her do.

Video: Although she plays defense now, Chalupny still has a well tuned scoring touch, as she showed on this corner.

Non-gendered personal interest item: Chalupny started every game of the 2007 World Cup for the U.S. Women’s National team. In 2011, she wasn’t even on the team. Now, she’s back. What happened? The obvious answer is concussions. After a series of concussions, the team and its medical staff decided in 2010 to drop her from consideration. They did not feel it was safe or smart to keep putting her out on the field. Chalupny disagreed as did the doctors for the series of professional teams she played for between 2010 and 2014. There seems to be some confusion about the mechanics of her getting back onto the team in 2014. The national team has received some criticism for not reconsidering her, considering that she has apparently not had a concussion since 2010, but its also possible that Chalupny had not applied to be back on the team. It’s a curious situation that smells political and I wonder if her role on the team is completely free from its aftermath. I certainly hope so. Moreover, I hope that she remains concussion free.

Links: Read about Chalupny’s reinstatement in an Equalizer Soccer article by Jeff Kassouf. Check out her US Soccer page, her website, and follow her on Twitter.

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.

Morgan Brian

Position: Midfielder

Number: 14

National team experience: 27 appearances, this will be her first World Cup, has scored four international goals

What to expect from Morgan Brian: At 22, Brian is the youngest player on the United States team. She played college soccer at the University of Virginia and won the Hermann trophy, given to the best college soccer player, in each of the last two years. She was the number one pick in this year’s National Women’s Soccer League draft. In short, she’s a rising star. One of the most interesting things about the biggest competitions in the world, like the Olympics and the World Cup, happening only once every four years, is how players react when the tournament catches them at an awkward stage in their career. If the World Cup were played in 2017, Morgan Brian would probably be the driving force of the U.S team. As it is, she’s being asked to fit in with more established players in a midfield stuffed with talent. Even so, Brian has managed to put her mark on the team. She’s played in every game so far this year and started all of the meaningful ones. Although she was a prolific scorer in college, in the context of the national team, she’s played a more defensive or holding midfield position. It’s not a natural fit for someone of her size (5’7″ but so slight that her college teammates nicknamed her, “Plankton”) but she’s more than held her own. When you watch the team, you probably won’t notice Brian, but she’s an essential part of the glue that connects defense to offense and makes sure nothing slips through.

Video: As you can see from these highlights, Brian stands out as clearly the best player on the field when facing college competition.

Non-gendered personal interest item: Nothing that I can find. This is a well coached young player who answers questions about how she gets an edge on her opponent by saying “to always work hard and bring the intangibles.” Sorry! She’s great at soccer and that’s about it, so far.

Links: Read about Brian in an Equalizer Soccer article by Ray Curren and an ESPNW article by Graham Hayes. Check out her US Soccer page and follow her on Twitter.