The winter period has seen several U.S. Women’s National Team regulars move abroad, and it appears Carli Lloyd is officially set to join them.
Sports Illustrated reported Tuesday that Lloyd is set to join Manchester City on a short-term deal with an official announcement coming as soon as Wednesday. The reported deal would see Lloyd return to her club, the Houston Dash, in June for the start of the NWSL season.
Lloyd will join Manchester City for the Champions League, which is set for the quarterfinal stage. Fellow USWNT regular Alex Morgan joined Lyon earlier this winter and will also take part in the tournament’s upcoming round. The two could face off if Man City defeats Denmark’s Fortuna Hjorring and if Lyon can top German powerhouse Wolfsburg.
The two are among several USWNT regulars to make the leap to Europe, joining Chelsea’s Crystal Dunn and Arsenal’s Heather O’Reilly in moving abroad.
Manchester City’s domestic season begins on April 22 while the Champions League resumes on March 23.
I have to say it was pretty sweet today opening up BBC and seeing “World Soccer Player of the Year Lloyd signs with Manchester City” on the front
First the US women put in their bargaining agreement that no one in NWSL could make more than US WNT players (including foreign players). Now that the whole EEOC complaint didn’t pan out they are bailing and going over to Europe. I would love for a soccer journalist to investigate the entire story behind all this because on the surface it appears as if some of the US women are doing much to undermine the continued development of the women’s game in the US and North America to their own self serving benefit. That’s fine, that’s their right but then why complain about the state of compensation for women’s players in this country, especially when your soccer federation has done more than any other federation on earth for the women’s game.
Even with Google at my disposal, I have no idea how well attended the women’s matches are within Europe or how much fanfare there is.
With that said, I have a hard time believing it’s worse than the States for the NWSL. Seems like there’s more structure, stability and meaning with the women’s set-up in Europe, but then again I have no idea.
Point being, I have no idea why the women wouldn’t want to ply their trade in Europe if soccer is their main professional focus.
Some of these clubs (from when I lived in Europe) are subsidized by their much richer brother clubs. Attendance is not great. It actually worse than NWSL which averages over 5000/game (especially the Thorns who put up ridiculous numbers for women’s club football (17,000/game) and the Pride (8,800/game)). Last I checked, the WSL (England) averaged about 1100 a game –roughly the same in France and Germany), but it is increasing each year.
However, you get to live in England in Manchester (although Liverpool is nicer, but smaller).
Appreciate the knowledge.