Marta, World's Best Female Player, Picked by L.A. WPS Franchise
Marta, generally universally acknowledged as the world's best female player, was picked today in the international draft by the as yet unnamed L.A. Women's Professional Soccer franchise.
All told, 28 foreign players were picked by the seven WPS teams over four rounds.
It doesn't mean the players will automatically join the league. It simply gives the team that picked a player the right to negotiate with them - if the club currently holding their contract agrees.
"The international draft was created to allow an equitable opportunity for the individual WPS clubs to develop their teams, by assigning the WPS-playing rights to the seven franchises that are beginning play in April 2009," said Commissioner Tonya Antonucci. "Now they can go out to the market - and after receiving permission from the player's clubs - put together the most competitive team they possibly can based on their selections."
Still, Marta is apparently interested in the WPS, even though she currently plays for a Swedish team. But she won't come cheap: L.A. picked third, so it's likely the first two teams to pick were scared off by her price tag.
L.A. also picked Japanese midfielder Aya Miyama, who has been compared to a female David Beckham by some British newspapers and Chinese striker Han Duan.
4 Comments
Leave a comment
About 100 Percent Soccer
Sportswriter Nick Green has written the 100 Percent Soccer column since 2005 for the Daily News, Daily Breeze and other Los Angeles area newspapers. The blog of the same name began in 2007. A native of England, he began writing about soccer in the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat in the stands for one in the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer and is married to a long-suffering soccer widow. Join Nick on FaceBook and follow him on Twitter.
This seems so likely and predestined given the pre-draft buzz that you have to think that Marta's reps had given the LA team positive vibes before the draft and sent negative vibes to the first two teams drafting.
Any chance you can do some digging on why no teamname/logo/colors have been announced yet or when that happens ?
Would be cool to have double headers MLS/WPS games from time to time.
If AEG signs Marta, that means Donovan's gone. Of course, AEG has two separate budgets for the Galaxy and the WPS team. But Donovan has so infuriated AEG with his honesty that AEG will let him go with its blessing, get a nice transfer fee and use the money somewhere else. Of course, that means that the Galaxy will be far worse than it is now, but AEG doesn't care about that. AEG cares only about profit. Besides, AEG has Beckham and we all know what kind of a player Beckham is.
I don't know J D'H... I think the Galaxy would be much better if they didn't have both Donovan and Beckham. They can only keep one player's salary out of the salary cap... so having both of the two highest paid players in MLS is a real detriment to the team.
Donovan seems to be doing more on the field than Beckham, but I would still rather see Donovan go. It would give him a better oportunity to develop and you can't deny how much buzz Beckham has created for MLS.