Women's Professional Soccer Draft & More
The new Women's Professional Soccer league conducted its third draft Monday, this one for American players not allocated when U.S. Women's National Team players were divvied up or international players not previously allocated.
Here are the complete draft results.
The as yet unnamed L.A. franchise (its nick name and colors will be announced later this month) chose Canadian National Team goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc, defender Kendall Fletcher, U.S. Women's National Team forward Christie Welsh and former Pac-10 Player of the Year Manya Makoski.
They join such players as Marta, Shannon Boxx, Stephanie Cox, Aly Wagner, Japanese midfielder Aya Miyama and and Chinese striker Han Duan who were allocated previously.
"The goal was to have a team that could keep the ball, play a poss style, but have a little bit of flair to them and I feel we've definitely gone in the right direction," said Coach Abner Rogers.
Also today, the WPS announced a broadcast agreement with Fox Soccer Channel that covers 20 regular-season games and the all-star game, as well as the two semifinals and the final on Fox Sports Net.
I'll have more on the WPS and the L.A. team in Tuesday's column, which I had better get on with writing.
A couple of quick notes:
*David Beckham may be out of form for the Galaxy, but he was still picked for England's next two World Cup qualifiers. Consequently, he'll miss Sunday's Galaxy game against Colorado.
*Chivas USA defender Shavar Thomas was also called up by Jamaica for WCQ.
In Sunday's college games it was:
UCLA men 3 (2-3-5) SDSU 3 (2-5-1)
UCLA women 3 SDSU 0
USC 2 (10-1) Cal State Northridge 1 (5-5-1)
CSUDH men 1 (11-1-1) Sonoma State 0
CSUDH women 6 (8-5) Sonoma State 2
LMU women 0 (5-4-3) San Diego State 0 (4-6-2)
St. Mary's 2 (2-6-1) LMU men 1 (2-3-4)
Cal State Northridge men 1 (5-4-1) UC Riverside 0
Finally, Cal State Dominguez Hills junior defender Kevin Gallaugher was named the Brine California Collegiate Athletic Association Men's Soccer Player of the Week after the Toros posted a pair of shutouts over the weekend, limiting opponents to a combined seven shots on target.
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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.
BTW, Nick, did you know that most of the Pali Blues players were drafted by other teams? If the L.A. franchise has a direct connection to Pali Blues, then why didn't L.A take those players?
Ah, AEG. The brown smell of failure follows you everywhere.
Nick replies: The L.A. WPS team did indeed intend to draft more Pali Blues players Monday. They were simply beaten to it in some cases, while Welsh's surprising availability relatively late on in the draft also caused a change of plans, club officials said. I'll have more on the WPS draft in the next post.
Thanks a lot for the LA WPS Team Info.
Beckham's out for the next game regardless since he picked up a yellow in the Columbus games and was on the warning list.
Nick replies: Actually, he's suspended for the Oct. 18 game against Houston.