We review the expansion franchises of the United Women's Soccer League (the one-year old summer amateur league in the U.S.) and we discuss the appointment of Carolina Morace as Trinidad and Tobago's new women's coach.
UWS Adds Four Teams in the Midwest
The United Women's Soccer (UWS), which launched last season after the W-League folded in the U.S. following the 2015 season, is expanding beyond the East Coast and West/Southwest for 2017 with the addition of four teams in the Midwest. The amateur summer league will include the Detroit Sun F.C. and Grand Rapids F.C—both in the state of Michigan—and Fort Wayne United F.C. and F.C. Indiana (South Bend)—both from the state of Indiana.
Detroit Sun F.C. is a newly formed semi-professional women's soccer team and will host their home games at Ultimate Soccer Arenas: a facility based in suburban Detroit (in Pontiac, MI) that can hold 2,500 spectators.
Grand Rapids F.C. was formed in 2014 and has a men's team in the amateur National Premier Soccer League (NPSL). Grand Rapids F.C. President Matt Roberts said: “We are very excited to start a women's side during the 2017 season. One of our objectives is to continue to grow the game at the grassroots level and starting a women's team will allow young female players in West Michigan the opportunity to watch, interact with, and learn from top college and post-college players." Fort Wayne United F.C. was created in 2013 from the merger of the Fort Wayne Fever and Citadel Futbol Club. The organization will be led by FWUFC Director of Coaching/Operations Bobby Poursanidis, who coached the Fort Wayne Fever (2004-09) when they were part of the now-defunct W-League. They made the playoffs in their first year but were out of the running in subsequent years, but had a strong organization and hosted regional USL playoffs and the Fort Wayne region has long been a source of talent for colleges throughout the Midwest. (On the men's side four-time U.S. World Cup team member DeMarcus Beasley grew up in the city). Poursanidis said: “We are excited to bring back high level women's soccer back to the Fort Wayne area and to provide a top tier of our development pyramid. There is a strong group of local players that are now older and they will form the core of the team. The structure is in place for us to succeed and we look forward to playing these great organizations." F.C. Indiana has been one of the most successful Division 2 women's organizations in American soccer history, winning two WPSL and two U.S. Open Cup titles. The team is led head coach and technical director Shek Borkowski, who is currently the Technical Director for the Haitian Women's National Team. FC Indiana has been a member of the WPSL for years and will actually field a team in both leagues—according to Borkowski who talked to Tribal Football.com shortly after the announcement. Fielding teams in both amateur leagues is a creative innovation that has always marked the way that FC Indiana defines itself as a leading franchise for women's soccer for over a decade. FC Indiana has long imported star talent from around the world and has used a core of young Haitian players over the past few WPSL seasons, as they have come to Indiana to train for 6 months during the Spring/Summer. Having two summer amateur teams will help the organization to field top caliber internationals while developing a core of young, Indiana-raised talent.
F.C. Indiana Director of Development Justin Crew explained the rationale in joining the second year league: “F.C. Indiana is excited to partner with the United Women's Soccer league and continue to grow the game at all levels. For our club, the development of youth players is of prime importance. Now, with the ability to provide another path for player development, this represents an incredible step forward in our commitment to youth and developing the next generation of professional and national team players." F.C. Indiana Director of Operations Sharisse Yoder added: “It is a testament to the U.S. women's soccer model to see that the developmental pyramid created by F.C. Indiana provides a pathway all the way from the junior developmental level to the professional level. The strides F.C. Indiana and the F.C. Indiana Girls Academy are making to find the most competitive environment for players will serve to elevate the game at the local, regional, and national level." A league spokesman told Tribalfootball.com that he anticipates that three more sides will be added to the Midwest Division before the 2017 season begins in May (ending in July).
Morace named new Trinidad and Tobago Women's National Team Coach
Carolina Morace was appointed earlier this month as the new head coach of Trinidad and Tobago's Women's National Team, on a two and one-half year contract through the 2019 Women's World Cup in France. Morace, 52, was an international star as a player, scoring 105 goals for Italy in 153 appearances from 1978-1997. She coached Italy's senior and U-19 women's team from 2000-2005 (failing to make the 2003 World Cup in the United States) and Canada at the 2011 Women's World Cup, when the side finished dead last among the 16 teams. I have known Morace for years and she is a solid coach and fair to the media--if not terribly gregarious--but I find this a very curious choice for Trinidad. I have covered Canada closely for years and was at Canada's second 2011 World Cup Match in Monchengladbach, Germany versus France—a dispiriting 4-0 loss to end their tournament hopes. Morace said after the game that she couldn't blame the players for their World Cup performance, that they gave everything they could with the support that they had from their federation. It was an interesting dodge by Morace as the Canadian Soccer Federation had funded the side for months to train in her native Italy ahead of the World Cup. I talked to a number of players that night as well and they looked exhausted and just wanted to spend some time at home. Largely this same group, led by New Zealand's head coach at that event—John Herdman—finished with a bronze medal at the London Olympics the next year and repeated the accomplishment in Rio this past summer. The players were largely the same—what was different was the coaching staff and philosophy.
Morace was appointed as Canadian coach after Even Pellerud stepped down following eight successful years with the Canadian women, including a fourth place finish in the 2003 World Cup while developing a young group of players who would keep the program buzzing for years. (Interestingly, Pellerud went to Trinidad as women's technical director for a period before taking over his native Norway and guiding them to Canada last summer, falling to England 2-1 in the Round of 16). T&T didn't support and leverage Even Pellerud or American Randy Waldrum (Houston Dash), the latter taking them tantalizing close to Canada's 2015 WWC despite many logistics problems, including having to ask for donations—even Haiti's national team supported them with cash that their players had raised—to pay for meals and expenses ahead of the World Cup qualifiers in the United States. At least Waldrum knew the large diaspora community in US and Canada—Morace is not in the loop there. One soccer coach with strong connections to the island nation said, “As bad as this choice is, since Morace knows next to nothing about coaching in Trinidad, it is overshadowed by the selection of the men's head coach Tom Saintfiet." Trinidad and Tobago president David John-Williams introduced both the men's and women's national team coaches at the same time. Saintfiet, a Belgium native, who unbelievably was most recently coaching Bangladesh (three games: one tie and two losses) after years coaching in Africa—including national team jobs with Namibia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Malawi and Togo as well as a brief stint as Technical Director of Nigeria in 2012—wasn't even Trinidad's first choice. Frenchman Philippe Troussier, who coached Japan at the 2002 World Cup which they co-hosted with Korea Republic and coached national teams in Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and South Africa, was first choice but cost too much for the federation. Colombian Luis Fernando Suarez, who coached Honduras at the 2014 World Cup, was eliminated because he supposedly couldn't speak English—which was never confirmed by the federation.
Morace has been running an Academy in Australia, holds a UEFA Pro license and coached some camps in Trinidad and Tobago recently as a FIFA Instructor—the primary reason she was selected. It smacks of convenience and a lack of long-term planning, Trinidad and Tobago, which always seems to do things on the fly, needed local expertise for this team, or at least a North American of Trinidadian roots, as they did on the men's side with recently dismissed head coach Stephan Hart (who was Canada's National Team head coach before returning home).
National senior women's team player Ahkeela Mollon (who played in Sweden) describes the appointment of Carolina Morace as head coach and director of women's football as a positive move by her federation. She trained under Morace recently and was excited to work under a female head coach for the first time: “I am really excited to see what a brilliant footballing mind like Carolina Morace will bring to the table for women's football here in Trinidad and Tobago. It will be the first time in the history of Trinidad and Tobago football, that a female coach is in charge at a senior level, well at least since I have been around, which is like 18 plus years," Mollon told TTFA Media: “This signing by the TTFA is a major plus to the women's game here in Trinidad and Tobago, to bring in a female coach with so much wealth of experience, not only as a coach but a former player herself. I am sure much more players and individuals would share my sentiments when I say, this was the best move done by TTFA to strengthen the structure to the women's game."
I like Mallon (who played professionally in Sweden for years) a lot and certainly support the advancement of women coaches but I remain skeptical over this particular appointment. T&T was so close to making the last World Cup and needs a strong effort to qualify from a region where typically the U.S., Canada and Mexico are shoe-ins and Costa Rica has been very impressive of late. T&T seemed to have made a short team, rapid decision with Morace and didn't plan this out. I just envision a repeat of Italy's failure to qualify for the 2003 World Cup or Canada's absolute meltdown in Germany and Morace does not always take constructive criticism well plus she will not have an organized federation supporting her as she did in Italy and Canada. We hope for the best for T&T's sake—a wonderful country with a burgeoning women's soccer culture—but fear that this could be a train wreck of an appointment of epic proportions. We will follow Morace's tenure in Trinidad and Tobago closely.
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribalfootball. His latest book is Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women's football. Get your copy today.
Follow Tim on Twitter: @TimGrainey
