• As was mentioned here in October, WPS will indeed play an 18-game schedule next season. There will be a two week break during the Group Stage of the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, thereby axing a potential All-Star Game.

 

• The 2011 Championship game will be held on the weekend of August 27-28, approximately one month after the World Cup Final. WPS’ traditional playoff structure has been retained (smart choice) in the regular season winner will host the WPS Championship ($5 says it will be hosted someplace in the Northeast for the first time ever). Opening weekend will occur April 9-10 which is like, forever away.

 

• Last night Jeff Kassouf reported that the 2011 WPS Draft will take place at the NSCAA Annual Convention, its customary go-to location. This year the Convention will be hosted in Baltimore and the Draft will take place January 14^th. The Draft will only be accessible by team and league officials and media members only but it will be streamed live.

 

• For those of you planning on attending the World Cup next summer, it might be time to start drafting your itineraries. Today FIFA announced the times of each Group Stage match and they’re pretty much identical to the Group Stage matches of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Most of the matches will be on at very reasonable times for U.S. TV viewers, aside from the occasional 8am ET kickoff. The opening match between Germany and Canada will take place at 6pm local time and 12pm Eastern. The USWNT’s first two matches against North Korea and Colombia will also kick off around 6pm local/12pm Eastern while the final group match against Sweden will occur at 8:45 local time and 2:45 Eastern. Check out all the times here.

 

• The 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup already has a presence in NYC subways apparently.

 

• The Torneio Internacional Cidade de Sao Paulo kicks off tomorrow and features four quality teams in a head-to-head tournament. Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the Netherlands will meet over the next week and a half. Canada’s squad includes pretty much everyone you could ask for, aside from collegians like Sophie Schmidt and Jonelle Filigno who would probably rather be hanging out in Sao Paulo than doing finals and stuff.

 

• It was media day for the tournament on Tuesday and Marta was inevitably asked a few questions. It seems like her future in WPS is still up in the air. She tells Globeosporte,

“I even intend to play (for a longer time) in Brazil, but not now. I’m not ruling out a return, but I might play for some WPS team. Here we still don’t have the same infrastructure we found overseas, it lacks the necessary investment. There I can keep playing at this level for a longer period of time.”

(Thanks, Marshall)

 

• The 2010 CAF Awards will be doled out in Cairo on December 20^th. Members of the Nigeria Women’s National Team were the only players nominated for Female Player of the Year. Perpetua Nkowcha, Stella Mbachu and Ebere Orji picked up nominations while Nigeria’s U-20s and Equatorial Guinea are nominated for Team of the Year.

 

• Chris Henderson dug up the USWNT U-23 December camp list and it’s chock-full of current WPS’ers, former WPS’ers and future WPS’ers. And hopefully there better be a couple prospective USWNT stars here too.

GOALKEEPERS (3): Kristin Arnold (Texas A&M; Centennial, Colo.), Bianca Henninger (Santa Clara; Saratoga, Calif.), Alyssa Naeher (Boston Breakers; Seymour, Conn.)

DEFENDERS (5): Amber Brooks (North Carolina; New Hope, Pa.), Lauren Fowlkes (Notre Dame; Lee’s Summit, Mo.), Nikki Krzysik (Chicago Red Stars; Clifton, N.J.), Kat Reynolds (Unattached; Medina, Wash.), Brittany Taylor (Sky Blue FC; Campbell Hall, N.Y.)

MIDFIELDERS (10): Bianca D’Agostino (Wake Forest; Longmeadow, Mass.), Becky Edwards (Unattached; Downington, Pa.), Sinead Farrelly (Virginia; Havertown, Pa.), Tori Huster (Florida State; Cincinnati, Ohio), Meghan Klingenberg (North Carolina; Gibsonia, Pa.), Allie Long (Sky Blue FC; Northport N.Y.), Casey Nogueira (Chicago Red Stars; Raleigh, N.C.), Elli Reed (Portland; Park City, Utah), Keelin Winters (Portland; Englewood, Colo.) Kylie Wright (UCLA; Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.)

FORWARDS (5): Michelle Enyeart (Unattached; Hemet, Calif.), Melissa Henderson (Notre Dame; Garland, Texas), Kelley O’Hara (Unattached; Fayetteville, Ga.) Christen Press (Stanford; P.V. Estates, Calif.), Katie Schoepfer (Unattached; Waterford, Conn.)

• Chris points out the omission of some players (Lauren Barnes, Rose Augustin, Hannah Cerone, Jessica Tsao, Amanda DaCosta, Teresa Noyola, Courtney Barg, Kendall Johnson, Victoria DiMartino, Kristie Mewis, Crystal Dunn et al.) is also telling.

 

• As espnW observed, Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy and Joy Fawcett retired from soccer six years ago today. The USWNT played to a 5-0 win over Mexico before 15,549 at the Home Depot Center. The game concluded the “Fan Celebration Tour” and by extension, a generation. Hamm contributed two assists in the match, capping her assists total to 144 in 275 games. Aly Wagner and Abby Wambach each scored a brace while Shannon Boxx completed the rout. US Soccer’s pre and post match reports.

 

• Some trivia from the match: Joy Fawcett did not appear in the match as she was recovering for a back injury. Five of the 17 players who took the field that night appeared in the USWNT’s second leg match against Italy in Bridgeview a week and a half ago. Kari Seitz was the match official. Hamm called a 19 year-old Heather O’Reilly “the future” after she subbed in for her at the 81’ mark. Maribel Dominguez did not appear in the match. Monica Gonzalez wore the captain’s armband. Hamm adorned a ‘Garciaparra’ jersey in the second half. Kristin Luckenbill appeared in goal at the end of the second half after Briana Scurry was clapped off at the 82’.  At the time, a 20 year-old Lindsay Tarpley had the third best points record for any 20 year-old in USWNT history behind Julie Foudy and Kristine Lilly. The 10-game “Fan Celebration Tour” averaged 15,614 fans. 20,435 attendees greeted the team at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City while a sell-out crowd of 14,870 people came out to see the team at the tour’s opening match in Rochester (the game was played at a baseball stadium, as the Marina Auto Stadium – home of the Western New York Flash – did not open until 2006).

 

• Getty Images has photos of the match.

 

• Thanks to the mystery reader who emailed in the image below.

 

• Please excuse the lack of updates this week. Year-end stuff has gotten in the way of obsessive consistent posting. Outside of the Draft, posts will probably continue to be sporadic over the next two months or so. This is really just the calm before the storm that will rage on uninterrupted between April and August December next year.