As the Senate gets ready to vote on a new bill to stave off economic disaster, and Sarah prepares (feverishly) to debate, and George Will joins the ranks of those who see her as unqualified to serve ... and some (unfortunately) find themselves feeling sorry for the lipsticked pitbull ... my thoughts turn (feverishly) to [. Click to continue reading...

The Women's Professional Soccer League announced its allocation of members of the U.S. women's national team on Tuesday, establishing a foundation for the seven-team league set to kick off next spring.

U.S. Olympic team star Hope Solo and U.S. national team striker Abby Wambach were among the 21 players assigned to the seven teams.

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I read on The Writer's Almanac that it's William Carlos Williams' birthday today.  He wrote one of my favorite poems - The Red Wheelbarrow. so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. It makes me think of looking into crystalline water ... absolutely transparent and absolutely mysterious! Click to continue reading...

Boston Head Coach Tony DiCicco (far left) and WPS Part Owner and two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash (far right) pose with the Breakers three allocated players: Heather Mitts, Angela Hucles and Kristine Lilly. (Women's Professional Soccer) September 16, 2008 - Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) announced the allocations of the U. Click to continue reading...

It's been far too long since I've written about the women's game, so here's some fodder for that anticipated water cooler discussion.

I expected the returns of Angela Hucles and Kristine Lilly to Boston. No surprise there. With another recognizable name like Heather Mitts on board, the Breakers have positioned themselves well with their selections. Click to continue reading...

Germany-Japan are underway and Japan is looking goo so far (17th minute). meanwhile, I can't imagine what the USWNT must be feeling right now. Hopefully they are focused and confident. Their making it to the gold medal match is a wonderful accomplishment and, at the very least, has brought the eyes [. Click to continue reading...

Seeing Nicole Petignat on Monday reffing the USWNT-Japan game brought back some really, really bad memories. Having a moment or two, here, I thought I'd Google her and see what came of it. I found, as one might expect, that she's probably human, and probably interesting, and probably not the evil (or at least unnecessarily [. Click to continue reading...

The USWNT and Brazil both won in convincing fashion and will face off on Thursday morning (9AM ET) in the gold medal match. Germany and Japan (maybe it's me ... but doesn't that sound awfully World War Twoish?) will square off in the Bronze medal match-up (6AM ET). Kudos to Japan for making [...]SHARETHIS. Click to continue reading...

First (from The Writer's Almanac), a wonderful poem by Marge Piercy to start your day with something introspective - before diving into the usual sports-centric deluge! This poem runs along the thought-path I was pursuing last night just before sleep. Guess it may be time to get reacquainted with myself . Click to continue reading...

First, congratulations to gymnasts Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson on their gold and silver in the all around, and to Michael Phelps on his 6th gold and 6th world record. On the Browne front, I love it that Jackson Browne is suing the McCain campaign for stealing his music. How dumb are they? Another [. Click to continue reading...

Tomorrow at 6AM we'll start the next leg of the Olympic tournament journey. There's not a lot in the way of soccer news in the interim. The WNT Blog is a good place to track the USWNT's travels and preparation for tomorrow's showdown with Canada. An upbeat and determined Canadian squad is [...]SHARETHIS. Click to continue reading...

Yup - Michael Phelps won another gold in world record time. Just amazing! And yup, here we go with game three of the preliminaries, starting with Germany v North Korea and Brazil v Nigeria - both interesting match-ups - both now underway. Then, starting at 7:45 the remaining 4 matches get underway. Click to continue reading...

Grant Wahl has another excellent article on SI.com - this one focusing on Heather Mitts. Who knew that she ran with the bulls at Pamplona? ... and from the St. Petersburg Times, another take on this evolving USWNT - this by John Romano. He offers a nice summary of the challenges faced by [...]SHARETHIS. Click to continue reading...

On the USWNT front, Lindsey Dolich has posted a nice preview on ESPNsoccernet about this post-Abby team. Abby's injury "forces the issue" as far as the USWNT's transformation goes. And I have my suspicions that the "liberating" aspects of the change may be quite strong for this team that has played laborious and [. Click to continue reading...

So you read in today's story that Women's Professional Soccer may add an eighth and ninth team for its 2009 launch. Which cities are in the running? Let's ask WPS commissioner Tonya Antonucci:

- San Diego: "We're really actively involved in conversations with a group in San Diego.

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Quick roundup of scores to know:

The U.S. Under-20 women's team qualified for the World Cup with a 4-0 win over Costa Rica in the CONCACAF semifinals. If you missed seeing Tony DiCicco in world championships, you'll get your chance again. The Olympic and World Cup-winning coach is in charge of this team before taking his new duties with the Boston Breakers next year.

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This photo is of myself, Emma Hayes and Lisa Cole at the NSCAA convention in Baltimore, MD, January 2008. I recently caught up with Lisa Cole, who was just named assistant coach of the new WPS Boston Breakers, scheduled to begin play in 2009. I'm lucky to know Lisa through both Region 1 [...] Click to continue reading...