The United States Women’s National Team will play Brazil in the USA’s second match of the Women’s Kirin Challenge Cup on April 3rd, in Japan. The last time these two teams met was just eight months ago, in the 2011 Women’s World Cup. Since that match, Brazil has changed its head coach, changed its captain, and changed its federation’s president. The one thing that has not changed is Brazil’s reliance on a three-back formation. Continue reading “USWNT: Brazil, Since Last We Met…”
Author: RD Welch
USWNT Rival Watch: Brazil’s (Old?) 3-4-3 Formation
Edit: So, I missed Ray’s Curren’s March 28th article at AWK on the Brazil-Canada match, which he attended in person. He notes that Brazil used a 4-4-2 formation, which does match the notation used in the CBF’s match report. Based on a closer look at some CBF news items on in-camp scrimmages earlier this year, it seems that new head coach Jorge Barcellos has been trying the 4-4-2 formation at least since January.
At this point, consider this post useful for historical, e.g., non-current, purposes. Although, with only a few months to go until the Olympics, it is possible that Barcellos may fall back to this formation.
Continue reading “USWNT Rival Watch: Brazil’s (Old?) 3-4-3 Formation”
USWNT Neighbor + Rival Watch: Canada’s Friendlies Versus Brazil and Sweden
The London-bound Canadian Women’s National Team played two friendlies recently, both against fellow Olympics-bound teams: a 2:1 victory against a far from full strength Brazil on March 24th, outside of Boston; and a 1:3 loss versus Sweden in Malmö, on March 31st. Sweden’s victory this past Saturday ended a two-match losing streak (0:4 losses to Germany and the USA during the Algarve Cup). Continue reading “USWNT Neighbor + Rival Watch: Canada’s Friendlies Versus Brazil and Sweden”
U-17 USWNT: April Training Camp Roster, Annotated and Adjusted
(Edit: 15-Apr-2012, the roster for the CONCACAF Championship has been announced. For more detailed information about the players selected, please check out this separate post.)
Starting next Sunday (April 1st), the United State’s Under-17 Women’s National Team will hold one last domestic training camp prior to the CONCACAF Women’s Under-17 Championship in Guatemala, which begins May 2nd. The roster for the training camp (US Soccer) was released last week. Twenty-four (24) players were called up, including all of the 18 players who traveled to La Manga for the Ten Nations U-19 tournament.
The six players who did not travel to Spain will likely be competing for the final two roster spots on the 20-player CONCACAF Championship roster.
Continue reading “U-17 USWNT: April Training Camp Roster, Annotated and Adjusted”
U-17 USWNT: Known Line-Ups So Far This Cycle (through March 2012)
So, the Under-17 United States Women’s National Team roster for the team’s final tune-up camp prior to the CONCACAF Championship came out last week. As I was typing up the write-up, I noticed that some of the players had been listed under different field areas, than prior rosters. And, with everything else going on in soccer (e.g., U-20 CONCACAF Championship, Algarve Cup), I had not had time to thoroughly dig into the U-17 WNT roster.
This post is both a review of the past line-ups, as well as an exploration of the actual national team field positions for various players. Continue reading “U-17 USWNT: Known Line-Ups So Far This Cycle (through March 2012)”
Women’s Soccer Cinderella Story of the Month: Uruguay’s U-17 WNT
[Updated] Uruguay’s Under-17 Women’s National Team has qualified for the 2012 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup in Azerbaijan in the most incredible fashion: By winning all its matches in the first group stage, and then by winning both its matches so far in the second/final group stage. That is six straight matches. To put this in perspective of Uruguayan women’s football, before this tournament, the combined record of all of Uruguay’s WNTs was 7-32-5 (W-L-T) in all Sudamericano championship competitions (senior, U-20, U-17). In the previous U-17 tournaments (2008 and 2010) Uruguay had only won one match. And, that was back in 2008 (a combined record of 1-7-0).
Continue reading “Women’s Soccer Cinderella Story of the Month: Uruguay’s U-17 WNT”
USWNT Opponent: Japan’s 2012 Kirin Cup Roster Is Loaded With Defenders
Earlier today, Japan released its roster for the 2012 Women’s Kirin Challenge Cup, which begins April 1st, with Japan taking on the United States Women’s National Team. The 23-player roster is loaded with ten defenders, which is three more than were on Japan’s recent Algarve Cup roster. From the Algarve Cup roster, head coach Naori Sasaki made five changes, although two are due to medical reasons.
The additional defenders may indicate that Sasaki is unhappy with his defense, which gave up four goals (3 during the run of play, 1 via a PK) versus Germany in the Algarve Cup final.
Continue reading “USWNT Opponent: Japan’s 2012 Kirin Cup Roster Is Loaded With Defenders”
Brazilian WNT’ers Erika and Maurine, ‘Orphaned’ By Santos, Have Signed With Olympic Training Center Team
Last week, A.D. Centro Olímpico, an extension of the Brazilian state of São Paolo’s Centro Olímpico de Treinamento e Pesquisa (translates to “Center of Olympic Training and Research;” acronym is “COTP”), announced that it had signed ten former Santos FC players, including Brazilian Women’s National Team players Érika dos Santos , Maurine Dornelles Gonçalves, and Gabriela Zanotti Demoner, to one-year contracts with its women’s soccer club team. All Santos’ players were “orphaned” in December when that club dropped its powerhouse women’s team due to financial issues (OurGameMagazine.com). Continue reading “Brazilian WNT’ers Erika and Maurine, ‘Orphaned’ By Santos, Have Signed With Olympic Training Center Team”
USWNT Rival Watch: Brazil’s Player Pool, 2012 Olympics (Detailed)
(Note: Some of the player’s positions have been corrected. The corrections are mostly due to a minor translation error on my part. Also, positions for other players have been updated, based on additional information.)
Last Wednesday, March 14th, the CBF released the names of 33 players who could be called up for Brazil’s Olympic team roster. This list is required to be submitted to the IOC, but I do not think that it is in anyway binding.
Since the CBF website does not maintain biographical pages for its players, I have listed those 33 players below, with details such as height, birthday, position information, plus relevant links to Wikipedia, FIFA.com competition summaries, etc., where available. Also, a quick summary of the list is provided as a table, which includes whether the player was rostered for recent matches, going back to the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany.
Continue reading “USWNT Rival Watch: Brazil’s Player Pool, 2012 Olympics (Detailed)”
USWNT Neighbor Watch: Mexico’s Cuellar, ‘We are on the right track’
After returning from the 2012 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship in Panama, where Mexico qualified for the 2012 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, Mexican Women’s National Team head coach Leonardo Cuellar, Mexico’s U-20 WNT head coach Roberto Medina, plus a handful of U-20 players, including senior national team goalkeeper Cecilia Santiago and U-20 team captain Nayeli Rangel, participated in a press conference. A video was posted (direct link, in MP4 format) on Femexfut.org.mx’s website and a text summary (in Spanish) was provided as well. Based on the summary, the press conference was rather uneventful, but did provide a few interesting quotes (translated to English using Google Translate as a starting point): Continue reading “USWNT Neighbor Watch: Mexico’s Cuellar, ‘We are on the right track’”
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