Major League Soccer (MLS) has never been the most popular kid on the “sports” playground in terms of garnering the interest of the American people. With the Major League Baseball and the National Football League dominating the TV screens of the American people, in 2007 the MLS thought it had to do something drastic to increase viewership. Enter British-icon David Beckham. Suddenly, the MLS became relevant. Now, ten years later, they have found themselves becoming the last-chance retirement home and signing world class European players who have aged out...and that is a problem.
Since David Beckham stepped foot onto the StubHub Center in his LA Galaxy uniform, the MLS has gone on to sign once world-renowned players such as Ricardo Kaka (Real Madrid/Portuguese National Team), David Villa (Barcelona/Spanish National Team), and Andrea Pirlo (Juventus/Italian National Team), to name a few. The issue? These players are far past their peak. Their speed of play has declined drastically, their body isn’t as fresh and athletic as it once was, and they are ready to slow down and enjoy a happy retirement. While it is commonly stated that the state of Florida is filled with retirees from the East Coast and Midwest, the MLS has suddenly become the Florida of the professional soccer league scene.
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Professional women’s soccer, like most everything else in the United States (and even the world), is extremely political. In order to get drafted in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) you need to play for a highly ranked and extremely reputable NCAA Division 1 college program. But, in order to play for a reputable NCAA Division 1 college program, you need to play for a well-known youth club, which requires a substantial amount of dedication both in terms of your time as well as your bank account. Because of this systemic flaw which cuts out a large portion of extremely talented, yet disadvantaged, youth players from having the opportunity to play at big name programs, the National Women’s Soccer League misses out on drafting players that would prove to be very talented players at the professional ranks. It is because of this that the NWSL needs to institute a player combine, similar to that of the MLS or the NFL.
By instituting a player combine, NCAA programs, regardless of their record or national ranking, would be able to have their tops players potentially be awarded an invitation to the combine where they would compete against the well-known players from perennial powerhouses such as Stanford, UNC, Notre Dame, and UVA. By being able to compete against these talents, players would be able to show scouts how they stack up against the supposed “best of the best.” Not many soccer players have the talent, let alone the opportunity, to find success at the professional level. For recent Chicago Fire draftee Daniel Johnson, playing professionally has been his dream for as long as he can remember. Thus, it should be no surprise that he was willing to do whatever it took to make that dream a reality, even if it meant moving away from his family for a spot at a world-renowned English Premier League’s youth team. Add the fact that he was only twelve years old at the time, and his story becomes just that much more remarkable.
“I never looked at it as a trial. I never thought it was a trial,” Johnson said in a recent interview with ESPN. “The first day I got there, it ended up a [U-13] game was canceled on the weekend, so they had a makeup game just by happenstance, and I was thrown right into it...and immediately after the game, they pulled my parents and I into a room and said, 'We'd like to bring you over fulltime. If you want to make a real go of this, if you want to do this professionally, we think we should have you over here, develop you.'” Margaret (Midge) Purce has been a force to be reckoned with since she cracked the youth national team scene by scoring a record 12 goals in the 2012 CONCACAF Under-17 World Cup Qualifying tournament. Since then, Midge has been scoring goals left and right for the Harvard women’s soccer team. Recently, Midge put her lifelong goals of becoming a doctor on the back burner to pursue another one of her dreams: becoming a professional soccer player. We recently caught up with Midge, only two weeks after being drafted as the number 9 overall draft pick to the Boston Breakers.
Ryne Sieracki (RS): Thank you so much for taking the time to answer our questions. To start with, can you provide us with a little background information about your previous soccer accomplishments? Midge Purce (MP): I grew up playing in the Elite Clubs National League and competed for various youth national teams. I committed to Harvard University when I was a Junior in High School, and will be graduating from Harvard this May. I was also recently drafted as the number 9 overall pick in the NWSL draft to the Boston Breakers. From Virginia to the Pro's: Three Former Cavalier Women's Soccer Players Looking Forward to the NWSL3/15/2017 Brittany Ratcliffe, Kristen McNabb, and Meghan Cox are all products of the University of Virginia women’s soccer programs – a top ten nationally ranked Division 1 women’s soccer program in the NCAA. All three women have experienced various levels of success at the collegiate level, and have all gone on to different levels of professional success. Ratcliffe, a 2016 graduate from Virginia, was drafted 17th overall in the 2016 NWSL draft to the Boston Breakers. McNabb, a 2016 graduate, was drafted 37th overall in the 2017 NWSL draft by the Seattle Reign, and Cox, an expected 2017 graduate, was not drafted in the 2017 NWSL draft, but will be trying out for the Portland Thorns as an uncontracted free-agent. I conducted an interview with all three to gain some insight from about their different experiences with their draft process, as well as their thoughts about the NWSL draft.
Ryne Sieracki (in bold): To start with, can you give us a brief background of your past soccer experiences and accomplishments? Kristen McNabb (KM): I started playing when I was three years old with my dad and older sister. I played on two different club teams when I was younger and lived in California. When I moved to New Jersey I played for the Player’s Development Academy from 7th grade until the time I went to college. We were the Region 1 [Northeast] Champions and the [New Jersey] State Cup champions 4 times. We lost in the [Elite Clubs National League] national championship game two years in a row my sophomore and junior year of high school. I attended three National iD2 camps in middle school and high school, which is basically like a camp where they pick the top players from across the United States and they train together for a few days and get exposure to college and the national team scouts. I also attended various national team camps for the for the u14, u17, u18, and u23 age groups. In college I was on the ACC all-tournament team, second team NSCAA All-Southeast Region team, the ACC Player of the Week multiple times, as well as second team All-ACC and second team NSCAA All-Southeast Region. |
Ryne SierackiSenior at the University of Michigan studying Kinesiology and Movement Science CategoriesArchives |