Sky Blue FC has been in the new a lot lately. In addition to Christie Rampone Day at her alma mater Monmouth University last Sunday (which Sky Blue FC staffers attended in support of Christie), here is more news on our Olympic gold medal drafted players. In addition, following the round of the draft this past Monday, Sky Blue FC and Ian Sawyers quotes are featured on college women's soccer websites such as the University of Portland and the University of North Carolina.
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New York Daily News - New York,NY,USA Also playing was Heather O'Reilly, who picked up her second Olympic gold medal in Beijing, and was the only girl on the pitch. "Playing with all boys is fun ... See all stories on this topic |
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Daily News reporter plays soccer with celebrities New York Daily News - New York,NY,USA ... Cups as the US's goalie), Heather O'Reilly (who just picked up a gold medal in Bejing with the US Women's National Team), and actor Mark Consuelos. ... See all stories on this topic |
10/5: Natasha Kai to appear on "L.A. Ink" - Star-Bulletin
10/5: Kai still draw in alumnae's 2-2 draw with UH varsity - Honolulu Advertiser
10/5: There's a new, more mature Natasha in town - Star Bulletin
Sky Blue was in the news a lot this week with the Allocations and the USWNT game. Here are some links to read up about Sky Blue's week so far.
9/18: U.S. women win without much fanfare - Star-Ledger
9/18: U.S. national team treats Morris residents to women's soccer win - Daily Record
9/18: Busy Day of Role Modeling for O'Reilly - USWNT Blog
9/18: Big job ahead for women's soccer league - Jersey Journal
9/18: Women's Professional Soccer latest to roll in NYC - am New York
9/17: Meet the "New" Jersey Girl: Hawaiian-born Kai wins over local fans - Big Apple Soccer
9/17: Sky Blue FC's roster will hold 3 gold-medal winners - Daily Record
9/17: New women's soccer league - Varsity Aces
9/16: W-Leaguers among WPS allocations - USL
9/16: New League for Women Seeks Longevity - New York Times
9/16: Top Soccer players coming to NY-NJ - The Record
9/16: Women, Gold, Blue - Allocating WPS-NJ - Pink Standard
9/16: Natasha Kai allocated to Sky Blue pro soccer team - Honolulu Advertiser
9/16: U.S. women's team to play Ireland at Giants Stadium Wednesday - Star-Ledger
9/16: Women's Professional Soccer U.S. national team allocation results - Examiner
9/16: The Original Three: Rampone, O'Reilly, Kai join to Sky Blue - Big Apple Soccer
9/16: Rampone allocated to Sky Blue FC - Asbury Park Press
9/15: East Brunswick's O'Reilly, Point Pleasant's Rampone to play for Sky Blue FC in WPS - Star-Ledger
Here's a great shot of Natasha Kai celebrating her game-winning goal against Ireland last night at Giants Stadium with her Sky Blue scarf (photo: Robyn McNeil)
Heather O'Reilly against Ireland (photo: Howard C. Smith/isiphotos.com)
Christie Rampone avoids the tackle of Ireland's Michele O'Brien, who played for Sky Blue's W-League team this past summer (photo: Howard C. Smith/isiphotos.com)
US Soccer President Sunil Gulati honors Christie Rampone for earning her 200th career cap (photo: Howard C. Smith/isiphotos.com)
Natasha Kai talks to reporters after the game with her Sky Blue scarf (photo: Howard C. Smith/isiphotos.com)
Sky Blue FC was officially allocated its first three players today - Olympic gold medalists Heather O'Reilly, Christie Rampone, and Natasha Kai. The press conference at the Sports Museum of America was a great success with Steve Nash helping MC the festivities. After the announcement, the three new Sky Blue FC players made a trip up to the top of the Empire State Building for some pictures.
Sky Blue FC's allocations were considered among the best in WPS - the starting US center back and team captain (Rampone), one of the team's top midfielders (O'Reilly), and a dynamic scoring threat (Kai). Boston and Chicago and can definitely challenge Sky Blue FC for top allocation honors. The Breakers got one of the all-time greats in Kristine Lilly, a breakout performer at the Olympics in Angela Hucles, and a starting defender in Heather Mitts while Chicago got three USWNT starters in midfielder Carli Lloyd and Lindsey Tarpley and defender Kate Markgraf.
Stay tuned for more updates from the allocation event including Sky Blue FC video and reactions from the players and head coach Ian Sawyers.
Frank Giase - the soccer writer for the Star-Ledger newspaper - provides some insight into the WPS allocations in an article in today's edition. Among the notes of interest are:
- The US Women's National Team players have submitted their preferences for which team they would like to be allocated to in the new league. These preferences will be shared with the teams, which will submit a preference list of their own to WPS. The league will then award three players to each team to complete the process.
- Carli Lloyd shunned New Jersey in her selections for preferred locations choosing to pick just two teams instead of the three allowed to each player. Her top choice was Chicago, followed by Washington DC.
- As a result of Lloyd's picks, Heather O'Reilly and Christie Rampone will almost surely be allocated to Sky Blue since NJ is their top choice.
- The final list of allocations will be revealed on Sept. 16 at a press conference in New York.
While Lloyd's decision to omit New Jersey is a pretty big surprise, Sky Blue can't lose if it gets two out of the three NJ girls. Lloyd may have scored the winning goal in the gold medal game at the Olympics but O'Reilly had a very consistently strong tournament and Rampone was the leader of the US defense that shut down Brazil and made Lloyd's overtime goal possible. Now for Sky Blue's third player ........ let the spectulation begin!
Lloyd's choice to leave NJ surely won't be the only surprise as far as allocations go. As Sky Blue owner Thomas Hofstetter says in the Giase article, there are so many considerations in the process and what may seem obvious to some is not always the case. Besides the player preferences and the team preferences, the league also has to take into account competitive balance and marketing advantages as factors in which players go where. Nevertheless, the excitement is starting to build for WPS fans that can see more and more the reality of the new league as we get closer to kickoff in 2009.
In case you haven’t seen the US vs. Norway game, I wanted to point out that in the second half of the game, the US lineup had FOUR girls from New Jersey on the field (Christie Rampone, Carli Lloyd, Heather O’Reilly and Tobin Heath). It was especially great to see Tobin, who is one of the youngsters and who played for Sky Blue in our inaugural season last year.
We shouldn’t take it for granted to see four NJ girls in the lineup. I think this is evidence of the long and hard work of our youth program in NJ. With roughly 180,000 registered youth soccer players in NJ, we have one of the biggest youth player pools in the country. Over the past 10 years, the development of youth players in clubs across the state improved drastically and the dedicated ODP program goes hand-in-hand with the clubs. I want to send a big THANK YOU to all the coaches in the NJ youth development program to the ODP program and to all the dedicated parents and managers that make it happen every week.
Our new professional league will be another important stepping stone in the development of soccer in the US. The Norway team showed what impact a league can have on a country’s national team. All of the Norwegian players play in European leagues where they are exposed to different styles, different coaches and different philosophies. Furthermore, they are playing meaningful, competitive matches in their leagues on a weekly basis. I think this is evidence for how important the new WPS league is for the future of United States women's soccer.
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