rkomar

I know that Bianca St. Georges got drafted by the Chicago Red Stars last year, but I don't see her on the First or Reserve rosters on their website. Has she been dropped by the team, or is there somewhere else draft picks can end up for development?

It's all opinion and feelings; there's no pressing reason to be as "correct" as possible in your rankings. Next time, join the poll and cheer for your favourites. The more the merrier.

Activity here has been going down for a while even before that. I'm not sure why, but it looks like people just don't care as much about women's soccer anymore. For example, interest in the NWSL seems to have dropped off a cliff around here. To be fair, interest in the MLS seems to also have waned judging by the drop in posts in that forum, too. Maybe there's some general influence at work here?

I'm not sure if anyone really stood out this year, so it's making it hard for me to decide. I'll go with success as the differentiator. 1 Steph Labbe (NWSL champion, usually the starting goalkeeper) 2 Kadeisha Buchanan (UEFA champion, not always playing) 3 Jessie Fleming (NCAA semifinals) Sinclair would normally have got a vote from me, but she made slow headway this year in her quest to surpass the all-time international goals record, so I'm not including her in my top three. P.S. I hope we aren't supposed to vote just based on performance on Team Canada.

UCLA were bested by Stanford 4-1 in the tournament semifinals. Judging by the box score, they were out-shot by a wide margin. Too bad for Fleming and the Bruins, but no NCAA championship title for her. It will be interesting to see what comes next for her. She seems to be excelling academically, and I wonder if her sports career will have to mesh with her engineering career over the next while?

cbcsports has a detailed article on Fleming at UCLA: article. It mentions that Faulknor was suffering from a hamstring injury, which explains her disappearance in November. Apparently she is good to go for their next game against Standford. Hooray!

UCLA whoops reigning champs FSU 4-0 to advance to the final four. Gabby Carle got undressed for the second goal, but when you lose 4-0, you don't have to wear the goat horns for a single play. Three of the four final teams are from the PAC-12 conference. It looks like the strong inter-conference competition is forging better teams there. I'm keen to find out how well UCLA does against Stanford in the next game. If they win, they will likely go up against North Carolina. Those are two top-notch teams for Fleming to test herself against.

Two more wins and UCLA are through to the final eight (along with three other PAC-12 teams). Still no sign of Kennedy Faulknor in the box scores. Gabby Carle is also there with FSU (knocking out Evelyn Viens' team today).

With iatv no longer supplying feeds, and almost no UCLA women's games showing up on youtube anymore, I didn't watch much of Fleming and Faulknor this season. The team has made it to the NCAA tournament and won their first game against Lamar (4-1). According to the box scores, Faulknor hasn't been on the roster since the Oct. 31 game against Oregon. It would be nice to know why. I hope the team makes it far into the tournament, but without seeing the games, there isn't much I can comment on. Too bad Forgedias doesn't post his detailed desciptions here anymore.

Delgado has also won me over this year. I think a lot of the negative feeling towards him is based on previous seasons. He has improved over time, and is now dependable and effective, even in attack. He still isn't great at shooting on goal, but that's the only knock I have left against him.

I wasn't sold on DeLeon for quite a while, but he has won me over this season. Very versatile, and never seems to get overawed by the situation. He seems like a "glue guy" that makes the team closer and stronger. Kudos to Vanney for using him so well.

That's a good argument for the owners to make, but as a fan, I don't care if they have to spend a lot more for a better player. The money's not coming out of my pocket. MLSE is swimming in profit, and I'm not crying over them overspending in places. (Last I heard over 10 years ago, the Leafs generated a profit of about $100 million) I'm hoping that decisions about playing only come down to performance. Not about whether a player is too old or too young, or if they cost too much. I'll only care about that stuff when the season is over. Back on to Laryea, he seems to lose his temper and overreact pretty easily. I wonder if that figures into his not starting a lot of games. I'm hoping that he settles down some with age.

We hear the same things about Bradley, but he looks pretty good to me the last while. As Craig Button says, "don't judge a player by the calendar". Wait until you have a better player before replacing someone simply because you expect them to drop off at some point.

I'm not liking how TFC change their style of play when they get a lead. They switch from possession soccer to hoofing it back to their opponents instead. They have lost plenty of leads that way over the last few months. Thankfully, they kept the pedal to the metal in today's extra time and grabbed a big lead before toning it down. I hope they keep that same mindset for the rest of the playoffs.

This should put paid to those claims that Herdman is nothing more than a snake oil salesman. The tactical details made my head spin, and I used to be a nuclear physicist!