Alex Morgan had a smoking game last night. She runs well and her ball control is superb. She also patient and determined. Morgan scored two goals and assisted Wambach with both of her goals. The final goal Morgan scored in the second half was a display of virtuoso skill. She patiently evaded the Canadian goalkeeper and two defenders before gently tapping the ball into the net. Sublime play.

I was surprised by the Canadians who didn’t look like the same team as the one that played against Costa Rica and Mexico. Christine Sinclair barely had her feet on the ball and even the darting and mercurial Desiree Scott didn’t appear to be able to keep up with the pace of the US women. It was a disappointing performance from the Canadians, but one that might work to their favor in the Olympics. The defeat last night might serve as a reminder that they will need to work hard to beat the likes of Sweden, France, and 2011 World Cup champion Japan.

Twelve teams will play in the women’s 2012 Olympic tournament. The draw for the three groups will take place on 24th of April. 8 of the 12 will advance to the elimination stage. The finals will be played on the 9th of August. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing the US women in Wembley Stadium that day.

If you haven’t yet seen women playing soccer, you should tune in tonight when the US face Canada in the finals of the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifiers. The match is streaming live on CONCACAF TV at 8 pm. And to make things just a little more interesting, there’s a derby going on between Christine Sinclair and Abby Wambach. Both are tied at 129 career goals in international play. The great Kristine Lilly’s record is 130 career goals. So who’s going to equal or surpass Lilly’s number tonight? It’ll be awhile before either can challenge Mia Hamm’s number, 158 career international goals.

WPS. I mentioned at the end of November some problems that Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS, the first tier league for women in the US) was having with one of their clubs, magicJack. See “women’s pro soccer struggling?” posted on 29 November 2011. Well, I was combing the Internet for blogs about women’s soccer and I found three that might be of interest (and which are current). On The Equalizer, a new blog run by Jeff Kassouf, there’s a story about magicJack: “WPS, magicJack, Settle on Semi-return.” The WPS needs a sixth team to fill out its 2012 schedule. It’s my understanding that the WPS might lose its status with the USSF if it doesn’t have at least six teams for this season. So it appears the WPS will be forced to play with magicJack even though it doesn’t want to. The official WPS line is that they’d rather let the whole league fold rather than let magicJack back in as a member of the league.

magicJack had some of the biggest names in US women’s soccer on the roster including player-manager Abby Wambach and star goalkeeper Hope Solo. All these players are without a contract for the 2012 season. Which could be a good thing for the US Women who are headed to the Olympics in London this summer.

The WPS’s compromise with magicJack is that the team will be allowed “to play seven or eight exhibition matches for each of the next two years.” So magicJack can play, they just won’t be officially part of the league, nor will they be able to compete in any playoffs or championship matches. This is not any different than what the Cosmos U-23 team did last year with the PDL (a lower tier men’s league). The Cosmos U-23 played exhibition matches with league member teams in preparation for a formal entry into the league for the 2012 season.

In the news. Another source of coverage of the women’s game is All White Kit, a blog by Jenna Pel with well-written and current coverage. And then there’s Our Game Magazine which has a nice looking blog which covers the US game and international play. The magazine is bimonthly and you can download a pdf version of it. Unfortunately, the magazine isn’t pretty to look at (a bit amateurish in design) but the content is what’s important. The scope of Our Game Magazine is interesting as well, since it appears they are able to cover women’s leagues in other countries. And they keep tabs on Americans playing abroad. So bookmark those and keeping checking them for developments in the world of women’s soccer.

The US Women played well, but they didn’t seem as sharp against the Costa Ricans as they were against the Mexicans. Perhaps the Costa Ricans were applying enough pressure to throw the US off their game? I was surprised by the number of weak or missed passes in the backfield and in the middle. More than a few times the ball went astray off Shannon Boxx’s foot. Could be a speed issue. The Mexicans and Costa Ricans both had some fast feet forward which were making Boxx’s job tougher.

Canada vs. Mexico. The Mexicans also showed up to play hard. With an Olympic berth at stake, every team that took the pitch last night was pulling out all the stops. And the Mexican side looked a lot sharper against the Canadians than they did against the US. Again, the final score (Canada 3 - 1 over Mexico) doesn’t really tell the story. Canada scored two goals early, but Mexico continued to look dangerous throughout the first half. And then when they scored in the second half, I was really thinking that the Mexicans could tie it up. The Canadians started looking a bit rattled and disorganized. But they got it together. When Christine Sinclair got her chip shot goal over the head of Mexican goalkeeper Cecilio Santiago that reënergized the Canadian side. You could just see the pressure lift from the Canadians as it seemed certain that Mexico couldn’t possibly rally to score two goals in the closing minutes of the match.

You can watch the final tomorrow (Sunday) on CONCACAF TV. It’s Canada versus the US. The kick-off will come shortly after 8 pm (EST). Nothing except pride is at stake in this match since both sides have already earned their Olympic berths, but I get the feeling that Canada will want to win in front of their home crowd. And the US ladies aren’t used to losing, so it should be a good match.

Both matches will be streamed live tonight on CONCACAF TV. You’ll have to register, but there’s no charge.

Other evenings he reads soccer books. He studies his Coerver manuals and fills out matrix forms with coded symbols representing the series of warm-ups and work-outs he thinks will turn his rowdy bunch of third graders into a cohesive, attacking side — a true goal scoring machine. He’s ever hopeful as he scours YouTube for instructional videos which will show him the proper way to execute a “slap stepover 360 pullback feint.” Then his son juggles a size one ball into the living room and says, “Hey pop, look! I can do the Rinaldo!” A lamp comes crashing to the floor. He smiles indulgently. “Good work, son.”

When it gets late and he wants to relax, he puts a match on his TV. He pours a beer and settles into the couch to watch the professionals do what they’ve trained a lifetime to do. Dynamic geometry and dazzling one-on-ones. That’s what he wants to see. “Which team are we routing for, Pop?” asks his son. “Both of them. I want to see some good football; that’s all.” But the boy wants to pick a winner. “I think the blue team will win,” he says when Maicon curls the ball across the field depositing it with pinpoint accuracy at the feet of Wesley Sneijder.

Savings and loan. January is the off-season for the US Soccer fan. The MLS is just gearing up for spring play which starts in early March. Meanwhile, the rest of the world plays football. The Europeans play in the cold, the pouring rain, and in thick fogs that roll into the stadia making it nearly impossible for goalkeepers at the opposite ends of the pitch to see each other. The spectacle of all-weather play is streamed to our televisions screens, a stop-gap until our own boys of summer take to their home pitch.

Across the pond, the English whine about “semi-retired” players passing their golden years in some MLS club returning to the Premiership on loan. Thierry Henry is back with Arsenal. Temporarily, of course. On loan. One American podcast commentator asks, “Why aren’t Red Bull fans angry?” Why should anyone be angry? It’s a game, after all. Who wouldn’t want to see Thierry Henry put a few in the net against Man U on Sunday?

Landon Donovan is doing his annual loan stint at Everton. And it appears that Edson Buddle (remember him from the USA’s 2010 World Cup run?) will be joining Everton as well. Temporarily, of course. And Irish footballer Robbie Keane, who made the MLS Cup run with Beckham, Donovan, and the rest of the LA Galaxy crew, will be joining Aston Villa. Temporarily, of course.

And few of us here in the US are worried by this loaning out of “MLS players” to the Premiership. If the English Premier League clubs need help in the form of MLS off-season loans, then we’re more than happy to help our British friends. The clock is ticking though. You’ll only have them until March. Make it count.

I’m priming my kids to become Cosmos’ fans. I ordered Cosmos jerseys and Cosmos soccer balls for the girls and my son and we passed the warm Xmas afternoon kicking our logo emblazoned balls around sporting our new logo emblazoned jerseys. Patrick shouted enthusiastically that “I’m going to play for the Cosmos when I grow up.” I didn’t try to explain that entry into the MLS is by no means certain.

But the MLS isn’t the only league. And the Cosmos did field a U23 team to play an “exhibition season” with the Premier Development League (fourth tier), the same league the Long Island Rough Riders compete in. Which leaves me in a bit of a quandary as to who to support, Rough Riders or Cosmos U23? Not that it matters since actually seeing a match played by either side will be difficult since PDL matches aren’t likely to be televised, and the Rough Riders’ play at a stadium that’s about 45 minutes from my house (not impossible, but it’s still a hurdle). And then there’s the fact that I have a bad taste in my mouth about the Rough Riders since one of their U9 teams stomped our U9 boys 9-0 in a tournament match (their goalee even scored against us).

I’ve got a few months to decide since the PDL 2012 season won’t kick-off until May.

Sela Sport is a major worldwide sports company with offices in New York, UK, Hungary and Saudi Arabia. According to news reports, Sela Sports represents a number of athletes, both retired and current players, including former Brazilian and Cosmos captain Carlos Alberto, ex-Bulgarian and Chicago Fire great Hristo Stoitchkov, among others.

The company spent more than a reported $40 Million in an attempt to help secure a bid for the World Cup and has represented the Saudi Arabian National Team for the past six years. Sela Sport also has partnerships with several Saudi professional clubs. [from “Will The New York Cosmos Ever Join The MLS?” in Soccer Nation, 6 November 2011]

Evidently, the Cosmos bid to enter the MLS isn’t as developed or far along as I thought. The Cosmos brand, clearly, is worth something, but interpreting Garber’s comments before the MLS Cup: the MLS wants another club in New York, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be the Cosmos, just the club with the most money. But we knew that’s how it was going to go.

The 20 spot. The MLS will add a twentieth team at some point. The Cosmos are not the only contender. According to ESPN Florida, clubs in St. Louis, Atlanta, Miami, and Orlando City are wooing the MLS.

…the best coaches at the youth level coach the least. The most important point, and this is relevant to all youth sport, is that it should be fun. Period. [from All Things Futebol, 19 August 2010]

That pretty much sums up how Joe and I approach coaching the Strikers.

In a move that many expected, WPS terminated the franchise rights to the South Florida-based magicJack team on October 27. Unlike the other four teams that have folded for financial reasons during the past three years—Los Angeles Sol, FC Gold Pride (San Francisco Bay Area), St. Louis Athletica and Chicago Red Stars—magicJack was jettisoned by the league to put an end to the turmoil caused by magicJack’s owner Dan Borislow. Read more…

The article goes into some detail about Borislow’s mismanagement of the team. magicJack had some familiar names in women’s soccer: Abby Wambach (who took over as play-coach after the Women’s World Cup last summer), Shannon Boxx, Megan Rapinoe, Christie Rampone, and Hope Solo — all stars of the Women’s National Team.

The WPS (according to the article) will likely add another team (operating out of Connecticut) to the league to replace magicJack.