Some Reflections on LA Sol, Marketing, and the FC Gold Pride match (Amway? Really?)

Before heading into the stadium I checked out the shop - no skort, or wrap, or whatever it is. The guys working there laughed when I asked if they carried it. Looking at the pile of Marta shirts, I found myself contemplating not the name on the back, but the name on the front. Amway? I decided I'd rather wear a Brazil shirt.

[Note to the Galaxy/SOL marketing folks: Why don't you sell national jerseys for all your international players - that'd be half the SOL squad. How great would that be to see national kits on display (and for sale) for Duan, Miyama, Frisk, Abily, Marta, Wagner, etc.?! China, Japan, Sweden, France, Brazil, and the US?! Seems like a no-brainer to me. I'd have picked up a bunch of those for my nieces.]

Amway is a SOL sponsor - and, well, just look at their wikipedia entry, which has a whole section on the "controversy" pertaining to their not-illegal pyramid scheme, and the cult-like culture of the organization which lures people in to work as distributors for their products with promises of the money they will make as they lure more people in to work as distributors for their product. Sound familiar? It should: Herbalife works the same way, and that name is plastered on the front of the Galaxy shirts. From the Guardian's obit for that company's founder (Mark Hughes: Purveyor of Californian Health Cures to the Credulous/June 19, 2000):

During the next few years the firm [Herbalife] was formally criticised at least three times by the United States Food and Drugs Administration, and subject to a CNN television exposé, a senate investigative committee inquiry, denunciations from a medical watchdog organisation and an $850,000 penalty payment imposed by the California attorney general for making false medical claims and marketing an illegal pyramid sales scheme. This recruited 750,000 "distributors" in what Hughes claimed were 48 countries, including Britain.

I've always been puzzled by the Herbalife thing. It seems really backwards to have a weight loss/vitamin supplements company sponsoring a soccer team. Think in terms of fitness, for example - wouldn't the Galaxy want its message to be something like - get out there and play? Not: "take these magic pills and it will be as if you have played"? And then think in terms of marketing: do you really want to associate your team's identity with a company that's been stained with accusations of not only making false promises to its consumers about the health benefits of their product, but also of falsely representing how much money their distributors will make by signing on?

[Laurie at The Offside commented about the creepy marriage of Herbalife, The Galaxy, and AYSO last year - Welcome to Herbalife World. You Will be Assimilated. For the similarities between Herbalife & Amway see Pyramid Scheme Alert: Herbalife Class Action Settlement. And on Amway & the Sol see this March post on Bigsoccer.com.]

Add onto this the cozy relationship between Amway, the Christian Right, and the Republican party (see, for example, Rolling Stone's 2005 article The Crusaders and this more recent article from Religion Dispatches, Worse than Madoff). You have to wonder why these teams are running around with different words for shady on their chests. Then remember that AEG is headed up by Philip Anschultz - who supports bigotry campaigns against gays and lesbians (read through "the movie, the media, and the conservative politics of Philip Anschultz" on mediatransparency.org). It's all just super creepy.

The more I learn about the corporate architecture behind the Galaxy and now the SOL, the more depressed I become.

All this aside - not that it can really be put aside - it was an entertaining game.

It didn't start that way, though (See Nick Green's post, with great quotes from Aly Wagner about the rough start).

Yesterday it was about 94 degrees in Carson - so neither the SOL not the Gold Pride looked quite right. In the opening minutes there was a general lack of fight for the ball - especially when asked to run it down. The game definitely picked up as the players adjusted to the heat. Looking over the WPS calendar I have to ask why on earth the Sol and their opponents are playing games at 1:00pm and 3:00pm in June, July, and August? The Galaxy play mostly early evening home games, with a few exceptions.

They'll get used to the heat, I guess. But, wow. So much for the weaker sex! They'll be a lot tougher than their corporate siblings. (They are already much, much more fun to watch than the Galaxy.)

A lot of the game's energy was generated by the two Japanese stars on the field: Aya Miyawa for the Sol, and Erico Arakawa. They both worked from start to finish, and were quick, great on the ball, and just all around dynamic - superstars, really. And I absolutely loved watching Formiga and Marta go up against each other. They seemed really well matched as Formiga won the ball off of Marta a couple times - I am a huge fan of hers, and can't wait to see her play again.

The game was fun. Especially since I migrated from my $40 seats to the sparsely populated mid-field and found myself behind these gals.

New Brunswick, NJ - A Secret Center of the Women's Soccer World?: Left Wing Meets Charlie Naimo [And Indugles Herself in NJ Fantasies]

Yesterday I got to meet Charlie Naimo, who is currently the coach of the W-League league champions The Pali Blues and is also the manager to the WPS Los Angeles team (whose name will be unveiled this weekend at Sunday's Galaxy game).

Walking into the Pali Blues office in Santa Monica, my eyes went first to the Formiga jersey on the wall (framed by shirts from Kelly Smith and Marinette Pichon). If you read my blog, you know that I am a huge fan of the Brazilian international. Turns out that during his years coaching the New Jersey Wildcats to the top of the W-League tables, Naimo successfully recruited Formiga to play for his team - using a guy he met at local gas station who spoke Portuguese to facilitate their first discussions over the phone. (Naimo is standing second from the right in this picture of the 2005 championship side.)

This ignited my imagination - the Wildcats are based in Mercer County, NJ. [Note: I originally wrote this assuming they were based in New Brunswick, NJ - home to Rutgers, alma mater for me and my sisters -see comment below.] Naimo was at Rutgers from 92-94, and it was there that he met Denise Reddy, who worked with him on the coaching staff for NJ Sky Blue. She also played and coached with the Wildcats - and is now Assistant Coach for the Chicago Red Stars. Rutgers, as fans of the women's game know, proudly claims Carli Lloyd among its recent graduates. And we also know Alexi Lalas, too, as Rutgers guy (though he left one course shy of graduation - which is a very, very Rutgers thing to do). As we talked, I began to glimpse something of a New Jersey network...

We used to think of UNC Chapel Hill as the nexus of the women's soccer world, but as others have noted, times have changed and the women's soccer circuit has become more complex - New Brunswick (the setting for Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize winning The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) is clearly one of several sites from which movers and shakers emerge.

Thinking about what playing for this Wildcats team must have been like, I found myself wondering [mistakenly] where Formiga lived in the urban/suburban wilds of "New Brumfus." Did she ever eat at Szechuan Gourmet (the Chinese restaurant for which I worked as a hostess in the 1980s)? Did she ever hit the dance floor at The Melody? (Is that place, pictured here, still there?) What did (and do) the Wildcats do when they aren't playing soccer? What do their day jobs look like? What did French international, WUSA star, and Wildcats player Marinette Pichon think of New Jersey?

[Of course, I wrote the above willfully projecting the Wildcats in New Brunswick, which is about a 30-40 minute drive east of Mercer County - not all that far from Walt Whitman's stomping grounds, and closer to my family's home. I had strangely projecting the team along the line of my own commuting route between home and school!]

I digress. My point is that I was thrilled to learn that Formiga (who will probably be playing for the Bay Area WPS team) is practically a Jersey girl.

And Naimo, a North Brunswick native, is a Jersey guy. He definitely has a very NJ combo: matter-of-fact-friendliness balanced with a "don't fuck with me" vibe. (Think: Tony Soprano, or, even better, "Bruce" or Patti Smith.) You can see that balance making for a very competitive coach - soliciting a level of commitment from players with that approachability, but using that DFwM face to push players to match his level of commitment to the team.

And, well, his record speaks for itself. Every team for which he has worked is a well organized, well-funded group that ruthlessly slaughters its competition. I am not sure if I am reading this right, but it looks like in the past four or five years, his teams have had a combined 67-3 record.

Naimo was totally unapologetic about that dominance. He has little sympathy for other organizations that don't fund their teams adequately, and don't support them with professional training. What are you supposed to do? Play less aggressively? Of course not.

He is not much of a bullshitter, either. I especially enjoyed what he had to say about the challenges of soccer culture here in the U.S. But I'm saving that part of our conversation for another post.

MARTA MARTA MARTA MARTA!!!: Marta Viera de Silva is (SORT OF, maybe, Uhm...?) coming to LA!

A few days ago, having received an e-mail announcement of the international "draft" picks for the WPS teams, I wrote this:

MARTA has apparently been 'drafted' by the new LA professional women's team. I have a pickup game to join shortly, so can't do my research on this just yet - but OH MY GOD, I am so HAPPY! I am going to pass out from excitement! FORMIGA - first pick (are they reading From A Left Wing?) - is going to the Bay Area!!! Look out, though - Cristiane will be (might be?) playing for the Red Stars, who really seem to have their shit together. Look for a full report from moi sometime over the weekend. If you don't know who Marta or Formiga are, just read my posts below on the Olympics, or search their names on this blog. On reading the press material a little more closely, though - who knows. This could be smoke and mirrors? Who knows anything about the LA team?

Melissa from The Offside's WPS wing has done some of the homework to decode the WPS "international draft" statement. It's not a draft, it's a wish list. And it would be just like the top-down thinking at AEG to name Marta as their choice before they've, well, given the team a name and done any work to connect this future-team to the actual fans of the women's game in the region. My enthusiasm above is a sad, sad indication of how starved we are for information.
I tried e-mailing the contact address given for the LA WPS team on the WPS site, and got that query bounced back. Calls and e-mails to contact persons listed on the WPS LA website (which is, really, a virtual ghost town) are unanswered. Sure, it's just little ole me. Not the LA Times, or Sports Illustrated. But I don't see stories in those outlets which tell us what the hell is going on. Just this solid rant from Grahame Jones ("Hey Phil: Bring Marta to LA") on LA Times's new sports blog site, which is operating on just about the same level of information I've got. Which is nada.

The Offside explains why we don't see German players in the draft list. But why don't we see any of the Nigerian players either? Did anyone else watch those Olympic matches? The whole thing seems to be a lot of smoke and mirrors. Sigh. It isn't even worth getting angry about. The WPS announcement of teams wish list/declaration of intention to recruit doesn't seem to mean much of anything - beyond perhaps a warning shot to European clubs to start paying their better players better money.

Olympic Women's Soccer Semifinal - Brazil Levels Germany 4-1: Formiga Ends Angerer's Unprecedented Record in the Goal

Wow. All I can say is Wow. (Click here for FIFA match summary.) As Canarihnas just played the game of their lives against Germany (Check out Amanda Vandervort's article on them here). After a rocky start, in which Germany looked on path to beat Brazil at her own game in a repeat of the 2007 World Cup Final, Brazil came back from one down with a brilliant strike from Formiga (pictured here) and then followed up with a string of devastating attacks on goal - playing circles around the 2007 World Cup Champions to end the match with a decisive, and very entertaining victory (4-1).

Brazil's defense looked awful at the game's start, and I'm going to say one of the plays of the match has to be a save from Tania early on - at about 2 minutes, she dug deep and literally extended herself farther than one would have though possible to get rid of a very dangerous cross headed right to the front of the goal, where Germany's strikers were waiting. Overall, in the opening Brazil's defense was harrowing to watch and they looked bizarrely slow.

Meanwhile Bridget Prinz had her eye on the goal, and looked on pace to score. She's tall, and has a lot of physical presence - she's also lightening fast, and opened the scoring at ten minutes with a first rate run, out dribbling the opposition and taking the ball right up to the goal. It was a move right out of Brazil's own play book. My notes on this point: "WTF!?" That's a good "WTF", by the way, because it was a great goal - even if it made my heart sink.

The game was a rough one (3 yellow cards for Brazil, 2 for Germany) - as was the case with their opening match, neither team wanted to let the other team find its rhythm. There were some scary moments - early on (around 6 minutes), as Angerer raced in to protect the ball she threw herself in the way of Daniela's raised foot - she took it flat on the chest. It looked like a 50/50 challenge to me, as Daniela had no right to expect Angerer's body to be there, and Angerer did get the ball - the latter is 100% fearless on this point, and has made some insane-looking challenges in the past (giving up a penalty in the 2007 World Cup to Marta - which she then saved). It's part of her strength as a goalie, she makes you think twice about taking the ball close. She took a minute, but got up and was right back in it. She is tough as nails. She was then making one stop after another - and as impressive as many of these saves were, I found myself thinking that if Brazil kept up this level of attack, it would only be a matter of time.

The turning point of the match came at 43 minutes. Cristiane took the ball deep into Germany's half with loads of defenders on her - she nutmegged Stegemann and then made some highlight-reel worthy maneuvers around the defense - toeing and rolling the ball this way and that, to turn and send it right to the sweet spot in the middle: Marta, of course, was there (and marked). FIFA says she failed to connect - but this video suggests that she actually might have flicked the ball on (or not) - but an unmarked FORMIGA raced in and fired the ball into the net. Split between Cristiane (capable of shooting on target even when marked by two or three players), and Marta (ditto), and Formiga (there was no one left to mark her!) - Angerer was beat: For the first time in god knows how many minutes.

I have come to admire and respect Nadine Angerer so much that a part of me was sad to see her unprecedented streak brought to an end. Her record of minutes played without conceding a goal will, no doubt, stand for years and years to come.

Now - can I just say: I called it. Formiga! Not to take anything away from the twinned futebol goddesses Marta and Cristiane - but, as I've argued elsewhere, mid-fielder Formiga in many ways represents Brazil's strengths as a team. The talents of strikers like Marta and Cristiane are easier to measure in the very very limited space alloted to women's football, and you'll rightly see their names everywhere in coverage of the team's Olympic exploits. But with so little column inches given to writing about the women's game, we don't hear much about the John Terrys, Lilian Thurams, Petr Cechs, or even the Zidanes of the women's game. When I first started watching Brazil, I kept asking myself: What position does Formiga play? Because you'd see her clearing the line (as she did at least once in this game), playing well back, and then well forward - racing in to follow up the forwards, taking loose balls back and distributing. She is a very, very smart and fast player - with what I think they call "a great work rate." I would just love to have the stats on how many kilometers she logs in a match.

I don't think she's called Formiga because she's tiny. I think it's because playing her is like being covered with ants. She moves like she's got eight legs and like there is a thousand of her. She drives you crazy because you can't get rid of her. She plays like an army of Formigas! Formiga: I am a fan! So, I practically wept when she opened up the scoring - and it's fitting that she should hammer home a fantastic team goal, too.

Well - what else is there to say? Marta (getting past Stegemann here) and Cristiane (celebrating one of her goals here with a back-flip) put Brazil ahead with a classic collaboration - Marta takes the ball in close, draws one, two, three defenders and then slides the ball to Cristiane who exploits the space with a neat slide past Angerer. Later, Marta decides she needs a run and wants to score one too, so she takes the ball in close, beats the two defenders and with a tricky and risky little move she manages to get the ball just past an outstretched Angerer, using her left foot to do so. Cristiane puts the last nail in the coffin with her own attacking solo, beating four (yes, that's four) defenders before taking on and beating Angerer. Damn.

I'm so happy to see Formiga & As Canarihnas get past Germany (who deserve much recognition for their recent performances - truly an amazing team). And if we see the US go through (they are playing Japan as I write this), there will be lots on the line in that gold medal match, as the US will be looking for its own payback for last year's semi-final World Cup loss, and Brazil, too, for their last Olympics final which they very narrowly lost to the US.

Day One: Olympic Women's Football (Brazil/Germany; China/Sweden)

What an interesting day. Given my location & internet connection, I was only able to see Germany/Brazil (0-0) and China/Sweden (2-1). As much as I wish I could have watched North Korea and Nigeria (two really interesting teams for all sorts of reasons - skill, history, international football politics), and I wish I could have seen more than highlights (or, really lowlights) of the US/Norway match (0-2), I have a feeling I may have watched the best matches of the day!

Brazil held Germany to nil - no small accomplishment. If I remember correctly, the only team to do that in the 2007 World Cup was England (on the absence of a UK squad, see this post). Eurosport France announcers called it "un beau match", and it was. Lots of action, some great shots and you could feel the tension right from the outset - Germany's Angerer is a fierce presence in goal, and Brazil seemed intent on letting her know they weren't afraid of her, so she took a bit of a beating in this game (not with shots so much as with strong challenges for the ball).

I like the look of Brazilian midfielder Formiga - always have ("formiga" that means ant, right? her given name is Miraildes Maciel Mota). The lady is not afraid to hold onto the ball - she plays with a lot of confidence and has some nice - actually genius - moves. (Pictured above, as she works her way around Lingerof.) Everybody talks about Marta and Cristiane - but I think Formiga is the glue & the gas. Holds things together and gets things moving.

Anyway, some highlights include a fantastic flying fingertip save from Brazilian keeper Andréia (Did I imagine that? Because I haven't seen it mentioned in coverage so far). I was watching in a local sports bar, and they kept turning off the sound - and looked not so amused that I was there. In any case, I'm not sure whose shot that was (Smisek?). This was followed by a speedy counterattack & gorgeous cross from Marta right across the goal mouth to Cristiane who sent it over the net with a header as she raced into the space.

Toward the end of the first half I found myself thinking Brazil looked more nervous - sending balls too far up the field, kick and run except not really. They gave away a fair amount of balls that way, and you rarely saw Germany making these kinds of mistakes.

That said, Marta looked great - her speed is amazing, and it takes as many as three people to contain her. And Cristiane is an Amazonian warrior. Over all - as clichéd as it is to say this - Brazil was nicer to watch on the ball. Turning, twisting, playful sole-rolls and crazy little flips - plus, they play chancier football. Lots of speed, quick and surprising movements, and an ability to just pluck the ball from the air - they have a lightness of touch that feels risky from the stands if only because it looks like there are moments when no single player HAS the ball - the ball is moving so fast between them.

Germany are confident - they look almost unflappable. They made very few (no?) obvious errors - few careless or pointless passes. You can feel how well they know each other. Plus, they are sneaky as all get out. Don't let the Germanic-machine-myth let you think that this team is predictable. Prinz in particular is so quick with a shot - she shoots through an open space with a lightening reflex, and she's hard to read: she looks very, very hard to defend. One pistol shot from the top of the box went just wide before you knew it'd even left her foot.

Brazil looked fantastic (up to a point) in the second half - it felt like the game was mostly played in Germany's territory. Cristiane had a spectacular shot on goal which deflected off of Angerer (very unusual). Defender Costa followed up with a shot that hit the top right corner of the post and bounced just outside the goal area. Nevertheless, they struggled to convert - as usual, no lucky breaks. But, we make our own luck in this game, no? I kept thinking if Germany had these chances, they'd be up by six. But, amazingly, they hardly seemed get inside the goal's postal code.

Over all, neither team let the other get all that close to the goal. Brazil had more shots on target, but Angerer really never seemed stretched. The last few minutes were pretty boring as both teams seemed content to let the draw stand. It is not right that they are in the same group.

Re: China/Sweden -China looked fantastic, and not just because the Chinese WNT has the best haircuts. Check out defender Li Jie (on the left) - shortlisted for FIFA footballer of the year in 2007 - or forward Han Duan (on the right - who scored the game winner) - also highly ranked in the same year by FIFA. These mug shots from the official Olympics team site don't do them justice. The whole team looked amazing in every single way, and more than half were sporting what I think is called a shag. We see this in England a fair amount - a very punky, scrappy and cool look for the woman athlete who likes her hair and wants to resist the whole pony-tailed "I am not a lesbian" thing.

Based on today's performance, it would make a lot of sense to see the Chinese team in at least a semi-final match. They more or less ran circles around Sweden - they looked more fit, confident, and like they wanted the win more. And, no doubt, they do.

And, lastly, a word about the US defeat today. Why is it that when the US women lose, they look just plain awful? Great teams lose great games all the time. But the USWNT - which rarely loses ever - seems to only lose once in a blue moon in spectacularly bad games - by giving up own goals, making fatal passes, looking like they just woke up. They didn't lose today because Norway played brilliantly. They lost because they made two really nasty errors within 90 seconds of each other. Bad communication, a weak and amateurish pass. Not to sell the historic rivals short, but Norway would have been incompetent had they not capitalized on those errors. They certainly deserve the credit for coming onto the field ready to play!

OK. Back to my day job.