Semi-pro United team trying to fill the void It sounds like Major League Soccer. But without the uniform and the name borne by the D.C. United Women, a far more humble existence is revealed.
Instead of their own training facility, they borrow a field at Catholic University in Northeast Washington. They practice at 9 p.m., after they’ve finished their day jobs. Some of them don’t know a single player on the club’s MLS affiliate and have never been to a D.C. United game.
“I’m glad that they’re letting us use their logo and be part of what they’ve created, but it’s sort of a distant connection for right now,” said United defender Marisa Abegg.
| Training camp roster |
| The latest U.S. training camp reflects the lack of a top-level professional league in the U.S., with 18 of 28 players listed as “out of contract” by the U.S. Soccer website. One player is based overseas, Gina Lewandowski (FFC Frankfurt), and two are in college. Kristie Mewis will be a senior at Boston College next fall and Adrianna Franch is a senior at Oklahoma State. Very few changes are expected before the Olympic roster is finalized. The next U.S. match is May 27 against China at PPL Park in Chester, Pa. |
| Goalkeepers » Nicole Barnhart, Adrianna Franch, Ashlyn Harris, Jill Loyden, Hope Solo |
| Defenders » Rachel Buehler, Stephanie Cox, Whitney Engen, Meghan Klingenberg, Amy LePeilbet, Gina Lewandowski, Heather Mitts, Kelley O’Hara, Christie Rampone, Becky Sauerbrunn |
| Midfielders » Shannon Boxx, Tobin Heath, Lori Lindsey, Carli Lloyd, Kristie Mewis, Heather O’Reilly, Megan Rapinoe, Amy Rodriguez, Keelin Winters |
| Forwards » Lauren Cheney, Sydney Leroux, Alex Morgan, Abby Wambach |
The same can be said of the women’s game in relation to U.S. Soccer. While the women’s U.S. national team gets set for the Summer Olympics after last year’s emotional and galvanizing performance at the World Cup, the professional game is headed back into the wilderness of uncertainty.
At the highest level, Women’s Professional Soccer suspended operations in January after three tumultuous seasons. While it could come back, the W-League — where the D.C. United Women play, opening their second season next weekend — and Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) have jumped in to fill the void, but both are semi-pro or don’t pay players at all. Plans exist to establish a top-level program as soon as next year.
But for now, the kind of pipeline that propelled Becky Sauerbrunn from the Washington Freedom into a regular spot on the national team, just as the WUSA launched the careers of Abby Wambach and Shannon Boxx, doesn’t exist.
Sauerbrunn had youth national team experience but had no immediate pro opportunities when she graduated from Virginia in 2007.
“I got to train with some of the best in the world and play one or two games a week in front of the national team staff,” said Sauerbrunn, who became a regular last year after two seasons of grooming in WPS.
She’ll be a part of the D.C. United Women for a few games this summer to tide her over when the U.S. team isn’t in camp.
Abegg might’ve made a similar leap. A U.S. youth national team veteran and Hermann Trophy semifinalist at Stanford, Abegg was drafted by FC Gold Pride in 2009, WPS’ first season. A year later she landed with the Washington Freedom, but that would be her last as a full-time professional.
“I thought she was right on the verge of making that next step to playing at the top level,” said former Freedom coach Jim Gabarra, who coached Sky Blue (N.J.) last season. “It gets difficult where you’ve got limited teams and limited opportunities for players. … It takes time.”
Abegg was also making ends meet doing coaching clinics and working as a nanny. These days she does clinical research at the National Institutes of Health, is engaged to a Marine and is planning to apply to graduate school. Soccer comes at least third.
“It was more of a practical thing,” Abegg said. “I was losing the passion that I had for it, and I didn’t want that.”
Of course, the U.S. team is hardly facing a shortage of talent. The nation’s best players always find their way into the pool, and the current U.S. squad has also spent most of 2012 as a unit in preparation for London.
“It’s not the end of the world that we don’t have a league because we have a lot of time together,” U.S. coach Pia Sundhage said. “That’s the good part of it. The downside of it is some of the players that have lost games. In order to improve your game, you need to play games because it’s all about decisions you are making and the stressful situations you play in a game.”
In 2013, they’ll start looking for those matches, perhaps in the U.S., where there are more domestic teams than ever before. Leagues overseas are also increasingly attractive. U.S. defender and Dumfries native Ali Krieger built her career in Germany, and U.S. under-23 midfielder and recent Georgetown grad Ingrid Wells plays for Goteborg in Sweden.
But without a top-level domestic pro league, the geography of the landscape that produces the U.S. team for the 2015 World Cup in Canada might look very different.
“We have a great wealth of resources at the playing level and coaching level, it’s something that is a real asset for us,” Gabarra said. “I don’t see it going away. I see it developmentally. It’s going to hurt not having a year of a top-level pro league.”
