Soccer newsletter: NWSL needs legends like Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm to rebuild league
Hello and welcome to the L.A. Times soccer newsletter. I’m Kevin Baxter, the Times’ soccer writer, and we start today with the train wreck that is the National Women’s Soccer League.
The NWSL had been riding high with soaring TV ratings, deep-pocketed sponsors and exciting new ownership groups in Los Angeles, San Diego and Louisville that will bring it to a record 12 teams next season. Now it faces a reckoning and what promises to be a long, tough winter after a detailed story in The Athletic that claimed longtime NWSL coach Paul Riley engaged in sexual harassment and other misconduct for years and league officials did nothing to stop it.
Riley was fired by the North Carolina Courage the day the story, written by Meg Linehan and based on interviews with two former players, was posted. Days earlier the Washington Spirit fired its coach, Richie Burke, after an investigation into charges of harassment while the league’s fledgling players’ union made a public call for an end to “systemic abuse” in the NWSL.
A day after Riley’s firing, the league canceled last weekend’s games, commissioner Lisa Baird resigned and FIFA and U.S. Soccer announced they would be opening investigations, with U.S. Soccer’s probe to be led by former attorney general Sally Yates.
The NWSL will conduct its own high-powered investigation led by Amanda Kramer, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. It reportedly will look into workplace policies for the league and its clubs.
That’s the way these kinds of scandals generally evolve: damning accusations; a couple of high-profile people are made scapegoats and resign or get fired; then investigations are begun, more as a way to placate criticism than as a sincere attempt to identify and correct the misdeeds that led to the scandal in the first place.
That won’t happen this time. Too many people are watching. Too much is at stake. And too many people recently have been educated about sexual harassment, gender equality and predatory behavior to allow this to be swept under the carpet.
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A confluence of events has brought us to a moment where only serious, meaningful and comprehensive reform will do. The #MeToo movement has brought the subject of sexual abuse and sexual harassment out of the dark and is giving voice and power to the victims and shame and punishment to its perpetrators. The social activism of players on the women’s national team, who have stood up to demand equal pay and equal treatment — among other things — has empowered women athletes around the world to do the same.
And finally, the burgeoning popularity of women’s soccer in general and the nine-year-old NWSL in particular has given players, fans and a growing number of stakeholders a solid foundation from which to push back and demand better.
What the league and the sport needs is meaningful change. Sweeping up the mess and apologizing, then carrying on as usual, would be ineffective and a waste of an opportunity to enact transformative change. In fact, Paul Kennedy, Soccer America’s Hall of Fame editor, believes the NWSL’s brand has been so sullied it has to fold, with a new league rising Phoenix-like from its ashes.
I agree.
Let’s start the reform at the top. While Baird, whose background is in marketing, was an effective administrator and led all of U.S. sport back from the COVID-19 pandemic by making the NWSL the first to return to play, that’s all she was: an administrator.
She was part of the USOPC leadership at a time when widespread sexual abuse was taking place in the gymnastics and swimming programs, though there’s no evidence Baird knew anything about that. Her marketing background no doubt was good for the league, but it failed her in focusing on the athletes.
NWSL missed multiple opportunities under multiple commissioners to act on credible allegations regarding Riley, the last coming just months ago when Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim, the two players interviewed by Linehan, offered to assist the league in investigating their former coach.
Baird did not accept.
Going forward, women’s club soccer in the U.S. must be led by someone who has the players’ interests in mind. U.S. Soccer was fortunate to have Cindy Parlow Cone ascend to its presidency when Carlos Cordeiro was forced to resign after he made remarks widely interpreted as sexist. A Hall of Fame player who went on to coach in the NWSL, Parlow Cone, 43, is a World Cup and Olympic champion who also served on the federation’s athletes’ council and youth task force.
An activist as a player, she has brought a similar approach to her job leading U.S. Soccer. The NWSL – or whatever follows it – needs similar leadership. Fortunately there are several candidates with the gravitas and skill set to do that.
Julie Foudy and Mia Hamm were World Cup champions and outspoken advocates for players’ rights in joining Parlow Cone in refusing to play for the national team in a pay dispute in 2000. Hamm also has the boardroom chops since she was a founding owner of LAFC and the fledging Angel City franchise and one of 13 directors for iconic Italian club Roma.
Jill Ellis, who coached the U.S. women to two World Cup titles and is president of the NWSL expansion franchise in San Diego, also should be on that short list. And what about Portland Thorns’ defender Meghan Klingenberg, who has overseen licensing deals that have earned national team players more than $1 million?
And finally there’s Angela Hucles, a former national team midfielder and current vice president of player development for Angel City. Hucles also was a sports envoy for the State Department and president of the Women’s Sports Foundation.
As Kennedy notes, the good news is the landscape for women’s pro soccer is a lot stronger than it was a decade ago. There are more investors, more commercial sponsors, more media partners and more fans.
With the right leadership, the sport can survive this and rebuild.
So what are you going to do about it?
Speaking of a lack of leadership, LAFC and the Galaxy issued a joint statement Monday after multiple posts on social media showing brawls between supporters of the two clubs following Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Dignity Health Sports Park.
“Fan violence has no place at our matches,” the statement read. “The type of conduct displayed at the Aug. 28 and Oct. 3 games does not belong in the stands or anywhere in our game. LAFC and LA Galaxy are reviewing fan incidents that took place during last night’s match with local authorities, and a review of incidents that took place during the Aug. 28 match is ongoing. These incidents violate the LAFC, LA Galaxy and Major League Soccer’s Fan Code of Conduct and will not be tolerated.”
Fine. So stop it then.
The fact the statement listed two dates indicated the clubs know fan violence has been an ongoing problem with the rivalry since the first game in 2018. Yet it appears to be escalating and both teams share the blame for that.
Security on Sunday appeared to be lax and slow to react. And aside from vague threats to expel or ban fans who engage in violent conduct, the teams and MLS haven’t offered any ideas on how to stop it. Until there is a heavy and expensive price to pay for the violence, it will continue.
But the clubs aren’t really the problem. The problem is fans who think conduct that would get them arrested for assault on the street is OK in the stadium. It’s fans who think allegiance to a club is more important than allegiance to the human race.
Sunday’s match was a game, not a war. It really wasn’t that important and the fans who engage in violent activity are, pure and simple, bullies and cowards. They is no place in society, much less in a sports venue, for them.
Does anyone really think the players care so much about the outcome they’re willing to assault their opponents with cheap shots and sucker punches?
If the clubs are serious about stopping this behavior, they need to do more than issue toothless, mealy-mouthed statements. But in many cases the fans engaging in that type of behavior are their most passionate supporters; penalizing them with a ban or arrest could threaten the bottom line.
The teams stoke the fans’ passion and tribalism, then act surprised when it leads to this. We know better. We saw on Jan. 6 where unbridled calls for passion and tribalism can lead.
In the teams’ defense, making the stadium look like an armed camp with riot police and overzealous guards isn’t the solution either. The games should be fun and a distraction from real-world problems.
So it’s time for the adults in the room to take charge. It’s time for supporters’ unions such as the 3252 and the Victoria Block to step up, police the stands and weed out the criminal element that is embarrassing the teams and their fans and giving soccer in this city a bad name.
U.S. brings experience into second round of qualifiers
Before the last round of CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers last month, midfielder Tyler Adams said the U.S. was looking for a nine-point week. When the Americans emerged from the three games unbeaten but with just five points after two draws and a win, it felt disappointing.
There were no such lofty predictions for this month’s qualifiers, which the U.S. will start without injured forwards Christian Pulisic of Chelsea (ankle) and Gio Reyna of Borussia Dortmund (hamstring). Yet nine points appears a realistic goal this time for a U.S. team which will meet winless Jamaica in Austin, Texas on Thursday, then play in Panama on Sunday before finishing against winless Costa Rica in Columbus, Ohio next week.
That’s because the young Americans, who saw 16 players make their qualifying debuts last month, come into the second competition window with a better idea of what the tournament is all about, from a playing and coaching standpoint.
“The players learned a lot about what these environments are like, what the atmosphere is like and what the level of desperation is that the opponent brings to each game. That’s important,” said coach Gregg Berhalter, who appeared in 14 qualifiers in his playing days.
Berhalter and his staff learned about the important of rotations and substitutions during a compact schedule that is forcing teams to play three times in seven days. During the first three games, two of which were in Central America, he used 22 players, 21 as starters.
“That’s a lot to be juggling,” he said. “We need to use the entire squad to be successful.”
Berhalter may have tipped his hand regarding where he’ll rotate most frequently by naming 10 defenders to his original 27-man roster. although Tim Ream and John Brooks were forced to withdraw since the team was announced. Ream, who withdrew for family reasons, was replaced by Nashville’s Walker Zimmerman. No replacement was immediately announced for Brooks, who has a back injury.
The team, which includes players from clubs in 10 countries, also grew in another way last month with the suspension of Weston McKennie, who was sent back to his Italian team after repeated violation of U.S. Soccer’s COVID-19 protocols. Several teammates spoke last month of their disappointment over McKennie’s lack of discipline and Berhalter admitted the midfielder has something to prove this month.
“There’s a certain amount of trust that Weston needs to rebuild with the group. And he’s willing to do that,” the coach said. “His behavior was unacceptable. He took responsibility for it and we move on.”
Without Pulisic or Reyna, Berhalter will turn the offense over to former Galaxy forward Gyasi Zardes, Tim Weah of French club Lille and FC Dallas teenager Ricardo Pepi, who had a goal and two assists in last month’s win over Honduras. Pepi, 18, is the fourth-youngest player to score in a U.S. national team debut and, with his two assists, just the second to be involved in at least three goals in his qualifying debut.
With their five points, the Americans are tied with Canada and Panama for second in the eight-team, 14-match competition that will award three automatic berths to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Mexico tops the table with seven points.
The U.S. did not qualify for the last World Cup, ending a streak of seven consecutive appearances in the quadrennial championship.
CONCACAF World Cup qualifying table
Country, Points, W-L-T
Mexico, 7, 2-0-1
Canada, 5, 1-0-2
U.S., 5, 1-0-2
Panama, 5, 1-0-2
Costa Rica, 2, 0-1-2
Honduras, 2, 0-1-2
El Salvador, 2, 0-1-2
Jamaica, 1, 0-2-1
Next games
Thursday
U.S. vs Jamaica at Austin, Texas
Honduras vs. Costa Rica
Mexico vs. Canada
El Salvador vs. Panama
Sunday
Panama vs. U.S. at Panama City
Jamaica vs. Canada
Costa Rica vs. El Salvador
Mexico vs. Honduras
Wed., Oct. 13
U.S. vs. Costa Rica at Columbus, Ohio
Canada vs. Panama
Honduras vs. Jamaica
El Salvador vs. Mexico
Setting records all her life
USC senior Penelope Hocking has been creating milestones since the day she and sister Iliana were born 21 years ago. Their father, Denny Hocking, was a utility player with the Minnesota Twins at the time and his daughters were the first fraternal siblings born to a player in Twins history.
OK, so it’s not much of a record. But it is a good conversation starter.
“I thought that was pretty cool,” Penelope said. “I actually kind of say that in icebreaker things.”
Hocking attached herself to a much more meaningful milestone Sunday when she scored her 48th collegiate goal, equaling Isabelle Harvey’s 21-year-old school record, in the Trojans’ 4-1 win over Arizona. And once again her sister was involved since Iliana was playing for Arizona.
“It could have been any other game. But it just had to be the one that my sister was on the other side of the field,” Hocking said.
In fact, the whole family was there with nearly a dozen relatives traveling to Tucson for Sunday’s game. Many will be back Thursday to see Hocking try to break the record when No. 21 USC puts an eight-game winning streak on the line at home against Colorado. Whether or not she accomplishes that, she’s already added her name to a stellar list of Pac-12 scoring leaders that includes World Cup champions Julie Foudy, Kelley O’Hara, Sydney Leroux and Christen Press.
“To be on that list with such amazing players, I have no words,” she said Monday. “I would have never thought in a million years that I would be comparing myself to Julie Foudy and Christen Press and Kelley O’Hara. It just tells me that my future is pretty bright.”
The present’s not so bad either.
The three-time all-conference selection was named to the preseason watch list for the Hermann Trophy, soccer’s equivalent of the Heisman. Her six goals rank second on the team and USC, which won a national championship two seasons before Hocking arrived, could be headed toward another long postseason run this year.
Despite her lineage, Hocking said her father, a 13-year major league veteran, never pushed his daughters to play softball, which they found boring.
“We were best at soccer and we just loved it so much,” Penelope said.
Her father, who also played soccer growing up in Torrance, has coached Penelope on how to handle the mental side of her sport however.
“He always told me growing up that it’s a privilege to have pressure because there’s an expectation there,” she said. “That’s always stuck in my head.”
With one more goal she’ll have the privilege of being the most prolific scorer in school history.
Top 10 Pac-12 goal scorers
1. 83, Kim Lynass, Washington State (1990-93)
2. 71, Christen Press, Stanford (2007-10)
2. 71, Lauren Cheney, UCLA (2006-09)
2. 71, Traci Arkenberg, UCLA (1994-97)
5. 63, Catarina Macario, Stanford (2017-19)
6. 60, Danesha Adams, UCLA (2004-07)
7. 59, Sarah Rafanelli, Stanford (1990-93)
8. 57, Kelley O’Hara, Stanford (2006-09)
8. 57, Sydney Leroux, UCLA (2008-11)
10. 56, Laura Schott, Cal (1999-02)
And finally there’s this …
Galaxy defender Julian Araujo is expected to announce he will continue his senior international career with Mexico. Araujo, a dual national born in Lompoc, played once for the U.S. on the senior level and 15 times for age-group national teams, mostly recently in the Olympic qualifying tournament last March… MLS will announce Tuesday its 2022 All-Star Game will be played at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minn. The exhibition will match a team of MLS stars against players from Mexico’s Liga MX … The United Soccer League and its players association last week agreed to terms of a five-year collective bargaining agreement for the second-tier USL Championship, pending ratification by the union and the league’s board of governors. The contract, the first CBA for a second-division men’s soccer league in the CONCACAF region, will set a minimum compensation structure and new standards for player contracts, per diem rates and appearances. The deal also includes new requirements for working and living conditions and a new set of grievance procedures.
Podcast
Don’t miss my weekly podcast on the Corner of the Galaxy site as co-host Josh Guesman and I discuss the Galaxy each Monday. You can listen to the most recent podcast here.
Quotebook
“I see this from a unique vantage point now as a coach. People are spending their really hard-earned money to come watch us as athletes. And I feel like there’s an obligation to show up and do your job every time you step on the field. And so for me, I took that responsibility really serious. And this is the recognition of that. I’m very, I am very proud of that because I wasn’t always perfect. I didn’t always say or do the right thing. But I did care. And I tried to show up and absolutely do my best every time I stepped on that field. I’m grateful that they want to honor me in this way.”
Galaxy and national team legend Landon Donovan on being saluted with a statue in front of Dignity Health Sports Park last Sunday.
Until next time...
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