2010 African Women's Football Championship- The CAF regional qualifiers have finished, and a Champion has been named. As I mentioned in an earlier post, both Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea, who were named the finalists of the tournament, automatically clinched a berth in the Germany 2011 Women's World Cup. The tournament concluded yesterday, with South Africa beating Cameroon 2-0 for 3rd place, and with Nigeria beating Equatorial Guinea 4-2 to be named Champion of Africa. Congratulations to Nigeria, who with this win, clinched their 8th title in the African region. Now that the CAF region has finished qualifying, that leaves only 1 more confederation to finish, which is CONMEBOL, aka South America.
2010 Sudamericano Femenino- The CONMEBOL regional qualifiers, which are set to end the 21st of this month, are currently in the 2nd stage. In the final group, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia are vying to be named one of the 2 finalists. I'll keep you all posted as the tournament progresses.
WPS- This is a big week for the league. This week marks the deadline for both the Washington Freedom and FC Gold Pride to have an investor and their deposit for the 2011 season. By the end of the week, the futures of both teams will be decided. Once again, I'm hoping all the best for both teams, and I hope that both have found an investor and have done everything they could to make sure the teams stay alive for the 2011 season. Also coming up is the Free Agency period. We're hitting Mid-November right about now, so teams will probably start negotiating with Free Agents, either trying to re-sign their current players, or maybe trying to land another player. If either the Freedom or Gold Pride fold, or if both fold, then there will be a lot of players who will have to be dispersed. And, it will set loose 3 FIFA World Player of the Year nominees (Wambach, Sinclair, and Marta), and I'm sure plenty of teams will be licking their chops waiting to land at least one of those 3. Let's hope there won't have to be any dispersal drafts though. The WPS website will likely announce the fate of both teams in the mid-late week. Also, if you have a little thing called facebook, be sure to join the Group called "Get Ellen DeGeneres to support Women's Soccer!". Here's the link just in case: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=121812224538638#!/group.php?gid=121812224538638
Now I'm sure many of you know the Ellen DeGeneres show. This group's objective is to get Ellen to get some WPS or USWNT athletes on her show, to help provide awareness of the league, and also to get Ellen to help support the WPS! Its a great idea, and you all should join if you have facebook, which I think almost everyone does these days! But seriously, how awesome would it be if the USWNT/WPS players could be on the Ellen show? I think it'd be pretty cool.
USWNT- The USWNT traveled to Italy yesterday, and will now have 5 full days to prepare for the upcoming match against the Italians which will take place on the 20th. The roster has been announced, and I have borrowed it from womensprosoccer.com so that you could see it here:
GOALKEEPERS (3): Nicole Barnhart (FC Gold Pride), Ashlyn Harris (Washington Freedom), Jill Loyden (Chicago Red Stars)
DEFENDERS (7): Rachel Buehler (FC Gold Pride), Stephanie Cox (Boston Breakers), Ali Krieger (FFC Frankfurt), Amy LePeilbet (Boston Breakers), Heather Mitts (Philadelphia Independence), Christie Rampone (Sky Blue FC), Becky Sauerbrunn (Washington Freedom)
MIDFIELDERS (10): Yael Averbuch (Sky Blue FC), Shannon Boxx (FC Gold Pride), Tina DiMartino (Philadelphia Independence), Kristine Lilly (Boston Breakers), Lori Lindsey (Philadelphia Independence), Carli Lloyd (Sky Blue FC), Heather O’Reilly (Sky Blue FC), Leslie Osborne (Boston Breakers), Megan Rapinoe (Chicago Red Stars), Lindsay Tarpley (Boston Breakers)
FORWARDS (4): Lauren Cheney (Boston Breakers), Alex Morgan (California), Amy Rodriguez (Philadelphia Independence), Abby Wambach (Washington Freedom)
Pia Sundhage has decided to take all 20 players that she took with her to Cancun to Italy, and has added 4 others, to make a full roster of 24 players. The new players added are Tarpley, Osborne, DiMartino, and Harris. Sundhage will choose 18 players to put on the USA's uniform in the match against Italy in Padova.
Here's some awesome news. You might already know this, but both the games are going to be on ESPN3.com. Awesome right? It may not be TV, but hell, as long as I get to see the game, I am certainly not complaining. I'll take getting to watch the USWNT with my own eyes over matchtracker any day. So yes, us fans will be able to watch our USWNT play Italy while in Padova and while in Chicago. Now, the match held in Italy on the 20th will be aired on ESPN3.com at 4:30pm in Italy, but here in the USA, the match will be aired on ESPN3.com at 10:30am ET. Feel bad for those of you on the West Coast, that means you guys have to wake up at 7:30am! Hey, anything for the USWNT, right? Right! That should be fun. The Chicago match, held here in the States on the 27th, will be aired at 1pm Central time, which means 2pm ET most likely. Can't wait for both of those games! Only 5 days!
Women's World Cup Train Ad- Well, since I commute regularly to NYC, I have to take the train, in particular the LIRR. As I was on the way home, my eyes were wandering around the train, when I thought I saw the Germany 2011 logo. And, I sure did. There was actually a Women's World Cup ad on the train, 4 of them that I counted (I'm sure there were more though, only was able to check the first half of the train). It was a Germany Travel ad, but it was based around the Women's World Cup. This was the picture on the ad:
Below this picture it said "On the ball with the beautiful game" and under it it had the Germany 2011 logo:
I thought that was pretty cool that first of all, they're putting up ads of the competition, and secondly, that they're doing so this early. Good job Germany Travel!
Well, that's all for now! I'll be back soon with all sorts of updates, probably news on the whole Freedom/Gold Pride debacle, the CONMEBOL qualifiers, and news of the USWNT.
See you again soon!
Denise
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