WPS teams had something like five weeks to prepare for the season, with some teams losing significant players from their rosters during that time to international tournaments (say, the Algarve) and friendlies, so it's no shock that some of the early games were shaky at best. The girlfriend and I have seen a marked improvement in play over the past couple of weeks, though, including an absolute gem of a match last week between Washington and Bay Area that FSC has already replayed a couple of times, and then today's damp but sparkly Washington-St. Louis match.
Washington's passing game was superb, with through ball after through ball delivered with such precision that we howled oh my god did you see that ball? And this one was another goalfest with plenty of last-ten-minutes drama, although only one of Athletica's three goals was really a quality strike rather than a biff by the second placeholder keeper who's trying to keep the box warm until MacLeod's visa problems get resolved (visa problems? for a Canadian who's not even half Muslin, as far as we know?).
The only downside was the officiating, which was generally crap. I'm a ref, so I'm allowed to say that. Athletica decided to play the Brazil defense against Wambach, meaning she got hammered hard four times with only two whistles and one card resulting. The most egregious was a full-on fucking body check in the box delivered by Kia McNeill, who should have received a second yellow rather than seeing a goal kick awarded. I went into the game kinda pulling for St. Louis since they hadn't even scored yet this season and I kinda like their uniforms, but I quit on that once it became apparent that they decided to take the hacking route.
Anyway. Come on you Stars!
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