Top Stories

Sundhage calls in 28 players for friendly with New Zealand

USWNTSB012712128

photo by Stephen Brashear/ISIphotos.com

Fresh off a successful Olympic qualifying campaign, U.S. women's national team head coach Pia Sundhage has called up 28 players for its upcoming friendly against New Zealand.

Nineteen of the 20 players on the Olympic qualifying roster were summoned by Sundhage for the Americans' first game on home soil this year, including Alex Morgan, Hope Solo and Abby Wambach. The lone exception is defender Ali Krieger, who suffered tears in her MCL and ACL in her right knee during qualifying.

Here is the roster for the match which will take place on Feb. 11 at FC Dallas Stadium in Frisco, Texas:

GOALKEEPERS: Nicole Barnhart, Ashlyn Harris, Jill Loyden, Hope Solo 
DEFENDERS: Rachel Buehler, Stephanie Cox, Whitney Engen, Amy LePeilbet, Heather Mitts, Kelley O’Hara, Christie Rampone, Becky Sauerbrunn 
MIDFIELDERS: Yael Averbuch, Shannon Boxx, Tobin Heath, Meghan Klingenberg, Lori Lindsey, Carli Lloyd, Kristie Mewis, Christine Nairn, Heather O’Reilly, Megan Rapinoe, Amy Rodriguez, Keelin Winters 
FORWARDS: Lauren Cheney, Sydney Leroux, Alex Morgan, Abby Wambach

What do you think of the roster Sundhage called in? Hoping to see Morgan start versus New Zealand? Think the Americans will win?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Ha Ha. I wish I had 10,000 friends… but really attendance wasn’t their problem. Their average was 7,233. Which is about on par with the English League 1.

    Reply
  2. I blame AEG because the Sol had the best attendance in their one season of playing. Sure it was lower than even the lowest MLS average. But it was better than some of the non-top tier football leagues around the world that seem to be doing just fine. It just seems ridiculous for AEG to not have even given it a couple years to see how it would work out. I’m not saying they should be throwing money away, but I would think they should’ve tried to get the best return on their investment that they could have.

    Reply
  3. There is something to be said about giving your bench minutes abut at the same time you need to be careful of who your bench gets minutes with. If you do nothing but start bench players for a few games sure they’d get experience and chemistry but that valuable experience and chemistry would be with other benjamin players and wouldn’t result in bench players getting chemistry and experience with the first team which is where they need it. It needs to be a mix of starters and bench for max effect

    Reply
  4. Well get 10,000 of your buddies in the LA area to care enough about WPS that they will regularly attend games and you’ll be on to something. It’s as easy as that, good luck.

    Reply
  5. Welcome to capitalism.

    People care about Beckham, Beckham gets $$$.
    People don’t care about WPS, WPS doesn’t get $$$.

    Why do you blame AEG, why should they waste money supplying a product that almost no one is demanding?

    Reply
  6. BTW as for “pretending to care,” I spent just as much on WPS as I spent on MLS, EPL, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, La Liga, etc. combined. So I guess I’m “pretending to care” about all of soccer in general. But I do what I can do within my budget. I talk about soccer with my friends (who, honestly, don’t care about soccer) and try to get them to watch games. And I did get some friends to watch the Women’s World Cup which I thought was quite the achievement. So it’s not all direct financial support that shows whether you care about something or not.

    Reply
  7. Well for starters I wonder where you get all this info on MLS profit, since it’s a private entity and does not release those figures? Secondly, the NBA is not profitable itself (hence the lock-out this season), so why would the WNBA be? In my opinion (and it’s just that opinion) the NBA has been mismanaged for a while now. And if you don’t think WPS has been mismanaged, then you really ought to do some research. The problems they are having now are not all because of Dan Borislow/magicJack. They had problems before that. That was just the latest in a string of mistakes.

    As for my attendance, yes you are correct that I didn’t go to any games last season. I live in Los Angeles. I’m not gonna fly out to the east coast just to see a soccer game (and it doesn’t matter if it’s WPS or even the World Cup finals, I couldn’t afford to do that). But I did watch every WPS game shown on FSC. It’s the best I can do for now until they bring back an LA team (if they ever do). I do partly blame AEG for that, since they can afford to pay Beckham big bucks but can’t afford a WPS team…

    You are correct though that the biggest problem is most people don’t care about professional women’s soccer. But I still think that having solid management would help turn things around. I’m not saying I think WPS would ever rival any men’s league, but I think the MLS guys could figure out a way to make it sustainable which means not losing money.

    Reply
  8. “mismanagement”

    Who says the problem is mismanagement? Where did you get that from?

    How many WPS games did you attend? How many jerseys did you buy? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess NONE.

    You’re just another person pretending to care. But how many people actually want to spend their time and money watching women’s professional soccer (not the US national team)? Not very many. That’s the problem. No one cares, not even many WNT fans.

    Reply
  9. Get out of dreamland and back to reality, that doesn’t make ANY sense.
    By that logic the WNBA should be making money because the NBA is successful. Well guess what, it’s not.
    And I like how you said MLS was “able to build and grow”… nice wording. MLS is certainly growing and is a success, but even it is NOT MAKING MONEY… so if they’re not, why will the third attempt at a women’s league make money just because MLS is behind it? It won’t.
    The bump provided by events like the Womens World Cup and Olympics are nothing, they last for a month or two and only apply to the cream of the crop WNT players, Hope Solo, Wambach, Morgan, etc. This has happened like FOUR times already. That’s how WUSA started in the first place, and it lost ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. The WNTers like Foudy and the bra girl didn’t want the first womens league to be associated with MLS because they thought MLS would be riding their attendance coattails. Well those coattails went away in a few months and the WUSA folded after three years.
    Instead of spouting nice pie in the sky ideas learn some history.

    Reply
  10. Actually, I’m hoping would not start the regulars. Ya gotta give time to the bench and at this stage it would be nice to see our other goalkeepers get quality time. The more time the non-starters get, the better this team will be as a unit.

    Reply
  11. If MLS did step in and support WPS, they could surely turn it around so it’s not losing money. I mean, they were able to build and grow MLS in a hostile environment. There’s no reason why they couldn’t do the same with WPS. It’s just a shame that right after an exciting World Cup and with the Olympics this year, the mismanagement of WPS is resulting in the league being cancelled for the year so they are unable to build any momentum from the large tournaments that provide so much exposure for women’s soccer.

    Reply
  12. no one said pro them up finacially. I said they should operate as an actual club system where the women’s team is a part of the club. it seems to work in England, so what about that makes no sense? WPS has problems we have a growing mens league here why not bring the women’s teams into the MLS clubs. that’s not propping up anything that could be beneficially for both parties. the numbers don’t lie, look at other nations that follow this format.

    Reply
  13. after watching the women’s world cup and seeing some really great soccer I’m sad that the WPS is facing such tough times. I hope that exhibition games will be organized at the very least to give these really talented players the opportunity to do this for more than a hobby in the US.

    Reply
  14. I totally agree with your assessment of the current US WNT. I watched two of the last 3 qualification games and was disappointed in the quality/technicality of their game. They need better quality in regards to ball control, team/game strategy and finishing skills. They should watch and copy the WC Japanese team to get better.

    Reply
  15. Abby Wambach the WPS assassin…why call her in?

    Let her go play for the Dan Borislow barnstorming team.

    Hell yes, start Alex Morgan and Sydney Leroux up top!

    Reply
  16. Player for player, this current group is nowhere near the finest starting XI in the history of the game. You must not go back very far with the game.

    Reply
  17. why won’t WPS and MLS do something together where they are more like actual clubs? wouldn’t that add more stability to WPS? Just saying.

    Reply
  18. I agree. What is Pia looking for? She has, arguably, the finest starting 11 in the history of women’s soccer, and best bench. Don’t really know what the point of it is.

    Reply

Leave a Reply to abc Cancel reply