Women's Natonal Team vs. Sweden: 7/13 ESPN 7 pm...

US leads 1-0...from a goal from Amy Rodriguez. (I can't stand the A-Rod nickname...so annoying.) Cox and Rapinoe are both playing well. Cox served a nice ball to Wambach, and Rapinoe has had a few nice runs through the midfield...

1-1 tie. I hate to say it, but, the team didn't look very good. They came pretty close to losing the first friendly that they led in 7 years. Sweden's defensive pressure was pretty good, and their counter attacks were pretty dangerous...

Someone said Lilly seemed to be in the best shape.

I hope it was one of those conditioning issues that workouts have been too hard or something.

Because if your Grandma is in better shape than you are, something is wrong.

It's in the genes, man.

Kristine Lilly has (in the words of Steve Prefontaine) "the gift". She can run all day and then she can run all night.

She is amazing to behold (simply enjoy it while it lasts).

Geezaldinho wrote:Someone said Lilly seemed to be in the best shape.

I hope it was one of those conditioning issues that workouts have been too hard or something.

Because if your Grandma is in better shape than you are, something is wrong.

That was Tony DiCicio, the old coach who said that. Actually, his quote was that her conditioning was the best for his team in the WPS, The Boston Breakers. I'm not sure if he would argue that she was in the best shape for the women's national team.

I think that a lot of players move up from the U-23 team again when it's all said and done...
Kristina Lilly is still a tremendous player though. She had a nice center on the ball as soon as she entered the game. This team could use a few more veterans to go with the youth; the team looked kind of tentative yesterday...and some players like Wambach held onto the ball too long instead of taking early shots once they reached breakaway positions.
I'm used to seeing the men's national team do that, not the women though...

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."
- Steve Prefontaine

I don't see this u23 team making a huge inroads before the World Cup next year. They are all in College except Katie Schoepfer. Many are still juniors. It is a very young group. I see the couple of changes that will happen to the senior as coming out of the WPS.

I watched that game and you are definately correct. They looked horrible in the second half. They gave away the ball way to often. Also, I hate to say anything negative about anyone on the team, but Abby Wambach is overrated in my opinion. She no longer displays the skills that she used to have. I thought Amy Rodriguez
had a very good game and would like to see her and Lauren Cheney together and see how that plays out.

Yeah, I wouldn't go so far as to say that Wambach is over-rated, she is a tremendous player. In all fairness, this is only one game and it was a relatively meaningless friendly. There were some errors in many parts of the field, however, Switzerland is ranked #4 in the world and the coach seemed to be using this game as a barometer to see where we're at and to continue to make roster decisions. We've got to improve to beat Brazil and the best teams though and to avoid any future upsets...

As a Swedish-American I say, go, Sweden (even against USA) at this point. Swedes can play.