U.S. Team Is Heavy on Savvy
April Heinrichs, coach of the defending world champion U.S. women’s national team, tipped her hand Thursday when she named a roster of 20 players to compete in the March 14-20 Algarve Cup in Portugal.
The roster features experience and depth at every position and, barring injury during the upcoming WUSA season, these are likely to be the same players Heinrichs takes to China in September for the fourth FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Included among the 20 players are 13 who already have won either a world championship, an Olympic gold medal or both, with veterans Brandi Chastain, Joy Fawcett, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly forming the backbone of the side.
The team, which will leave March 7 and will play Canada, Norway and Sweden in the first round of the 12-nation event, features 17 WUSA players, two college players, Cat Reddick and Lindsay Tarpley of North Carolina, and one high school player, forward Heather O’Reilly.
MLS Update
The San Jose Earthquakes defeated FC Lyn of Oslo, Norway, 3-1, Thursday to win their final match at the La Manga Cup tournament in Spain. Goals by Ramiro Corrales, Brian Mullan and Arturo Alvarez paved the way for Coach Frank Yallop’s team, which finished seventh in the eight-team event.
The Galaxy, which plays Viking Stavangar of Norway today for third place in the La Manga Cup before returning to the United States to continue spring training in Florida, will launch a weekly one-hour soccer show on KMPC (1540) starting April 2, three days before the 2003 season begins. The show, to be hosted by Steven Cohen and Nick Geber, will air between 7 and 8 p.m. on Wednesdays and will include Galaxy, MLS and local youth soccer content.
UCLA’s Final Four
UCLA, winner of the NCAA men’s soccer title in 2002, will host the 2004 Men’s College Cup at the Home Depot Center in Carson, the school announced.
The event, set for Dec. 10 and 12, was to have been held at Southern Methodist, but SMU could not guarantee a suitable field condition because of other events it is hosting.
Mexico on the Air
Futbol de Primera, the company founded by Alejandro Gutman and broadcaster Andres Cantor that provides international soccer coverage to more than 250 radio stations throughout North and Central America, has acquired exclusive U.S. Spanish-language rights to all of Mexico’s national team games from the Anschutz Entertainment Group.
The four-year agreement gives Futbol de Primera the right to broadcast as many as 50 of Mexico’s matches, including World Cup qualifiers, between now and the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
The next broadcast will be Mexico’s game against Bolivia in Phoenix on March 19.
Meanwhile, the Japan-Uruguay game that had been set for San Jose on March 26 has been canceled.
Fire and Ice
The decision by UEFA officials to postpone Thursday’s UEFA Cup match between Wisla Krakow of Poland and Lazio of Italy because the pitch in Krakow was frozen did not sit well with the local team.
Bogdan Basalaj, the club’s president, accused UEFA of favoritism, saying: “Football is not only for sunny Italy or Spain; we play it from Iceland to Tel Aviv, in different conditions and on different pitches. UEFA always stresses that all teams and all countries have an equal chance. In my opinion, today we were short of that.”
As the result of UEFA Cup games that were played, Besiktas, Boavista, Celtic, Liverpool, Malaga, Panathinaikos and Porto advanced to the quarterfinals of the tournament.
