The Female Galacticos

Galácticos (or superstars) is a Spanish term used to describe expensive, world-famous football players, having either positive or negative connotations. This term came into use to describe the policy pursued in the first tenure of Florentino Pérez's presidency at Real Madrid, where he purchased at least one galáctico in the summer of every year.

Perhaps I'm overstating things slightly to say that my new home town team, the Atlanta Beat, are the WPS version of Real Madrid. After all, the Beat are so new they have yet to even hold a practice. So, I'll agree I'm overstating things. Slightly.

From where I'm sitting the Beat appear to be about to take over the world. As I described in my recent post, Atlanta Beat, or Umeåtlanta Beatrottsklub?, the Beat front office had successfully signed three players from the Swedish women's football giants, Umeå IK. Among these newly signed players is a nineteen-year-old with realistic ambitions of being the best player in the world: Ramona Bachmann.

Why be content with only one superstar, though? Why not have two? At the recent WPS main draft in Philadelphia, the Beat had the first overall draft pick. It was a surprise to no one that they selected three-time All-American Tobin Heath. Although only twenty-one years old, Heath has an impressive array of accomplishments. During her four years playing for the North Carolina Tarheels she helped them to win three national college championships. She won her first international cap at age 19, and was the youngest member of the gold-medal winning US Olympic team in Beijing. Basically, she's awesome.

Since the majority of my readers are not American I'd better take a moment to explain what a 'draft' is. Rather than just let teams fight over young prospects with little regulation, most professional leagues in America have a system for distributing young talent to the teams that need it most. Because high-school and college sports in America is not only very competitive, but also well financed, elite athletes normally stay in these programs until they are about twenty-two years old. At that point, if their prospects are good, they will enter themselves into a professional 'draft.' Each team selects players in turn, normally with the weakest team going first. As the Atlanta Beat are a brand-new expansion team they got the first choice of this year's crop of college seniors. They would not confirm in advance who they were going to pick, but nobody had any doubts that Tobin Heath was going to be their choice.

What does this mean for the Beat then? Are Heath and Bachmann going to be the Gerrard and Torres of the WPS? Well, maybe. It's too early to say, and as Real Madrid have shown repeatedly, it takes more than just the best players in the world to win a title. Head coach Gareth O'Sullivan still has a huge challenge ahead as he tries to fashion a group of players who have not even met before into title contenders. At least he now appears to have the right ingredients to do it with.

Heath also offers the Beat something else that all professional teams need: a player with star quality off the pitch. For the Beat to succeed long term it is more important that they conquer the hearts and minds of the Atlanta sporting public than the teams they face on the pitch each week. This won't be easy. Atlanta's main paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, shows little interest in the city's new team. They declined to even cover the draft at all. It's going to take someone with charisma and charm to get the Atlanta media to take an interest, and Heath is probably the Beat's best shot.

The Beat also picked up six other players in the WPS draft. Blakely Mattern, a two-time All-American defender from South Carolina, was their second pick. I'll admit that as a relative newcomer to women's football, I didn't know who Mattern was, but she is well known to Coach O'Sullivan. 'Blakely is a very solid defender,' he said, 'who I have seen play on a number of occasions.' She was the only pure defensive player the Beat took in the draft, so I hope she is solid. She sure was excited to be drafted, though:

'I couldn't be happier. I'm just on cloud nine right now. It's literally a dream come true to even have a chance to be here, and to think I'm going to be playing professional soccer is unbelievable to me. It still hasn't sunk in yet. It couldn't have worked out any better!'

The Beat potentially set some sort of sporting record (I'm sure someone keeps up on this sort of thing) by selecting twin sisters in the same draft. Shameka (defender/midfielder) and Shaneka (forward) Gordon originally hail from Old Harbour, Jamaica. They both played together at the University of West Florida.

The Beat also selected three more forwards (O'Sullivan has said he wants the Beat to have an attacking style of play!): Jill Hutchinson from Wake Forest, Kasey Langdon from Okalhoma State, and local girl Carrie Patterson from the University of Georgia.

With twenty-one players now signed or drafted, the Beat must be coming close to completing their squad. The only obvious opening is another keeper to back up Allison Whitworth. Will the Atlanta Beat fulfil their promise to be 'the best in the world?' I think they might just do it.

Atlanta Beat, or Umeåtlanta Beatrottsklub?

After enduring what is (I hope) the last weekend of postponed matches here in England, it is getting harder to find things about Bath City to write about. Fortunately the news coming from my home town, Atlanta, Georgia, is getting downright exciting. The Atlanta Beat have been announcing signings on an almost daily basis. Everything is pointing to the new team having a very impressive roster come Spring. Rather than discuss all of them, though, I'm going to take a closer look at three of the most impressive signings: Ramona Bachmann, Mami Yamaguchi, and Johanna Rasmussen.

If you've really been paying attention to my previous posts about the Beat, you will remember that these three players had been until recently contracted to the Swedish powerhouse Umeå Idrottsklubb (or Umeå IK for short). As well as being the first word I have ever typed using the letter 'å,' Umeå IK is also one of the most successful clubs in the history of women's football. Despite the Swedish league (the Damallsvenskan) being the strongest in Europe, Umeå IK have taken the title in seven of the last ten years. Over the same period they have made five appearances in UEFA Champions League finals, winning two. To put it in perspective, no European men's team has achieved comparable figures (although Manchester United and Barcelona have come close).

The fact that Umeå IK have been such a dominant force in women's football for so long makes the Beat's successful raid on three of their best players hard to figure out. I will admit, when I first saw the players the Beat had selected in the WPS International Draft I thought it looked wildly unrealistic. I thought it looked fairly arrogant as well. Why would three world-class players from an established football giant want to sign up to an unproven WPS expansion team? If it went wrong then Atlanta had a good chance of coming away from their international draft empty-handed - something they could hardly afford to do.

With hindsight it is apparent that the Beat's front office have been very astute (and perhaps a bit ruthless) with their draft picks. Although Umeå IK have been beating all comers for most of the last decade, things have not been going so well lately. The Brazilian superstar Marta left at the end of 2008 to play in the inaugural season of the WPS for the Los Angeles Sol. That was not good, but Marta's departure was overshadowed by enormous financial problems that almost killed off the club entirely.

Umeå IK's general manager, Britta Åkerlund, recently revealed how badly the situation had deteriorated in a recent press release:

'A few months into this job I realized that the club had lived beyond his means for a long time. Just in time for Christmas [2008], we had to choose who would receive pay and who should be without... The focus of my work since then has been much about economics, or rather the lack of finances...In September [2009] the economic troubles culminated when the whole club's existence was at stake.'

The last date is key, because right as Åkerlund was trying to keep her club afloat, Beat GM Shawn McGee and head coach Gareth O'Sullivan were finalising their International Draft strategy. Umeå IK were vulnerable, a fact that evidently escaped the attention of fellow expansion club the Piladelphia Independence.

Before you go feeling sorry for Umeå IK (and painting the Beat as international soccer bullies) it is important to consider a few facts: (1) Umeå IK were suffering from problems of their own making. Åkerlund admits, 'the club had lived beyond his means for a long time.' (2) Umeå IK is not a club that rose to the top of the football world by developing local players. None of the three players that have left the club to join the Beat are Swedish. (3) Umeå IK had also made themselves even more vulnerable by utilising short-term deals. When listing the long series of problems to beset her club in 2009, Åkerlund says, 'the one-year contracts also played a trick on us.' Add it all together and it seems pretty obvious that a mass player exodus was on the cards. McGee and O'Sullivan were just smart enough to figure this out before anyone else did.

All of this is a boon for the Beat, but it can't be forgotten that the result is that three players are now coming to join a new team in a new country. Danish international Johanna Rasmussen is a veteran player, and at 27 should be mentally strong enough to make the transition. Mami Yamaguchi, a Tokyo native, has a huge advantage as she had a stellar college playing career in America at Florida State. It is the teenage phenom Ramona Bachmann that will perhaps have the hardest time making the switch.

Although rated as one of the best players in the world, Bachmann only turned 19 last month. She has been playing in a foreign country for several years, but Georgia will undoubtedly be a bigger adjustment than Sweden was (no one eats grits in either Sweden or Switzerland). The Umeå IK website gives a touching account of her decision process. It appears in Swedish, but here is a translation:

Ever since it became known that the Atlanta Beat could "draft" her, Ramona said she wanted to play with the best players. She wants to be where she thinks she'll get the best chance of making progress towards her goal of becoming the world's best female footballer. At Umeå IK we have really done everything we could to persuade Ramona to stay with us. We have stressed that she would need some additional years to develop in a safe environment before she takes such a big step: not only changing her club, but also going to a new continent and culture.

It's been a long process for Ramona coming to this decision, and she has herself talked of her many tears and great distress. Up to the end of this season the United States was her preferred option, but then for a brief period favoured staying with Umeå IK. It was a personal visit to Atlanta with her dad, however, that finally persuaded Ramona that the U.S. would be the best option for her continued development.

Bachmann's desire to be the best in the world is a constant refrain in her media coverage. Part of what must have persuaded her to put pen to paper with the Beat was the club's slogan, 'the best in the world.' With every new signing this looks less and less like marketing hype. Don't believe me? In four days the WPS will hold its main draft and the Beat still hold the number one pick. Expect another marquee player to be joining the squad soon.

When I first read the announcement that Atlanta had been awarded a new franchise in the WPS I decided to follow it out of curiosity as much as anything else. I have always enjoyed sporting novelties, especially if they happen in my home town. Women's football had never really been on my radar screen. The more I learn about the Beat, though, the more I think that something special may be about to happen in Atlanta. So far there are only promises of good things to come, but as far as promises go these are very beguiling.

On the Way to Being the Best in the World!

Time for a catchup with my new home town team - the Atlanta Beat!

As explained previously, the Beat are a new team in America's women's professional soccer league (aptly named Women's Pro Soccer or WPS). My last update, in early October, analyzed the recent 'International Draft.' As an expansion team, the Beat were allowed to chose any five non-WPS players in the world to have exclusive negotiating rights with. Setting their sights high, the Beat chose several key players from the Swedish women's football giants, Umeå IK. As they were only receiving rights to talk to these players, and had no guarantee of signing them, I will admit it all seemed a bit fanciful to me. The near total silence from the Beat head office for the following two months was also worrying.

The other WPS expansion club, the Philadelphia Independence, were far from quiet, though. Soon after the draft they announced several headline signings, including USA International (and Maxim model) Heather Mitts. The good news from Philadelphia was so frequent, and lack of news coming out of Atlanta so noticeable, that I began to wonder if my home town's new team was already struggling before a single ball had been kicked in anger. As I learned later, I was completely wrong.

On 1 December, Atlanta Beat owner, Fitz Johnson, announced a partnership with Kennesaw State University to build the world's first purpose-built women's soccer stadium. It will have a capacity of 8,300 and be built at a cost of $16.5 million. The pictures look stunning, and by the time this announcement was made construction was already well underway (with a planned completion of Spring 2010). Although the facility will be shared with the Kennesaw State women's soccer team (the Lady Owls), the Beat will certainly be the primary occupant. Considering that the Beat's previous incarnation (2001-2003 in the old WUSA) had two makeshift homes in American football stadiums, this is an impressive achievement.

Actually, it has taken me a while to get round to thinking it is an impressive achievement. To be honest, my first reaction was pretty negative. Kennesaw State? Kennesaw is not Atlanta. It is an outer suburb of Atlanta, and even saying that might be stretching things. As is probably common for an Atlanta native, my only experience with Kennesaw is from field trips in grade school to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. I have no doubt that Kennesaw is a nice place, but I'm just being polite really. I have no idea what Kennesaw is like at all.

It's not a minor point, either. Kennesaw is on the outskirts of a huge metropolitan area. Public transport is not great by European standards, and barely exists outside the Atlanta city limits. While it is perfectly possible for someone from Kennesaw to have a happy working life commuting to downtown Atlanta by car, it is considerably more awkward for soccer fans from other suburbs to get to Kennesaw. The drive from Snellville, another outer suburb, to Beat matches will be almost fifty miles. Another problem is that Georgia's highways are built to help people get into central Atlanta, but not to get from one suburb to another. Residents of nearby Alpharetta are only fifteen miles from Kennesaw as the crow flies, but the only realistic way of getting between the two places is a thirty mile dogleg towards Atlanta and back.

There is one other drawback to Kennesaw which is rooted in snobbery. Big professional sports teams in Atlanta have always played in the downtown area. Despite the fact that precious few people live downtown anymore, it is still seen as the place for proper 'major league' teams. It is possible that by basing itself in Kennesaw the Beat will fail to be taken seriously by the bulk of Atlanta sports fans. In fact, there has never been a successful professional sports franchise based in the suburbs. At first glance, it looks like the Beat have made a serious mistake.

That was my initial thought, but then I started thinking about my time with the old Atlanta Attack, a men's indoor soccer franchise. I worked there for a few weeks during Christmas holidays in 1989 (see here) and by most measures the club was doing well. The Attack had the highest attendance average in their league by a long way, sometimes drawing in excess of 10,000 spectators a match. In actual fact, the Attack's finances were in a parlous state. The main reason for this was their stadium lease. The only arena available for rent in downtown Atlanta was the 16,000-seater Omni Coliseum. Although the Attack sometimes drew big crowds, the average attendance was more like 6,000. It was enough to top the league stats, but not enough to break even on the rental agreement. Basically, every time the Attack played a match they lost money. As there was no media income to speak of, the only revenue the club would ever generate was from matches. In effect the Attack were killed off by playing their matches in the prestigious downtown Atlanta area. I was not there when the club closed its doors, but even in the first season everyone in the front office knew the Attack was living on borrowed time.

Like the Attack, match day revenue will make or break the Beat. There will be no lucrative national television contract. If the deal has been structured in a way to give the Beat a cut of the revenues from the non-soccer use of the stadium (like hosting conferences or corporate parties) then the Beat may end up in a much stronger position than any sports team outside the major American sports leagues. Having to draw people all the way to Kennesaw might be a disadvantage, but it would be easily outweighed by the financial independence this stadium might be bringing the club. There may be no precedent for a successful professional sports team operating in the suburbs, but there is a long history in Atlanta of failed soccer teams who rented the downtown stadiums built for Baseball and American football. If the Beat are going to succeed they won't do it by copying the strategies of their failed predecessors.

So, the Beat have a stadium to play in. Who is going to play in it? At the time of the stadium announcement only three player signings had been announced. And these included none of the Beat's expansion draft or international draft picks. Time to worry? No. Since then five more signings have been announced (including two expansion draft picks: Leigh Ann Robinson and Noelle Keselica). The big announcement (and I mean really big) came just about a week ago: the Beat have signed their first international draft pick. Her arrival could mark a change from expansion strugglers to league powerhouse.

Her name is Ramona Bachmann, and unless you follow international women's soccer closely, you probably don't know who she is. If you decide to follow women's soccer like I have, though, you will learn soon enough. Considered by some to be the second best player in the world after Brazil's Marta (who also played for Umeå IK before being drafted by the WPS's Los Angeles Sol), Bachmann's presence could turn the Beat into a sporting (and marketing) success. Although she is only nineteen she has played in a European Champions League final and been voted Swiss player of the year. The Beat have signed her to a two year deal (which by WPS standards is a long contract).

Things are looking up for the Beat, but there are still challenges ahead. After a season opener in Philadelphia in April, the Beat will not play a home fixture until at least May. This is because they have to wait for the stadium to be completed. Large construction projects, of course, frequently suffer delays and go over budget. Having great players is helpful, but as Real Madrid and Manchester City have shown, it does not automatically make a great team. Besides, at least eight more players need to be signed in the next two months to have a decent sized squad. Oh, and the whole concept of a successful professional women's soccer league is still far from proven.

Still, I think the Beat might be Altanta's best ever chance to have a soccer team with long-term success. Ever since he was awarded the Atlanta WPS franchise, Beat owner Fitz Johnson has spoken of the Beat becoming the 'Best in the World.' This slogan has even been used, with disarming immodestly, as a marketing slogan for the club. It is a concept that seems silly at first, but Johnson is taking steps to come good on his promise. Women's soccer is still wide open - there are no established powerhouses. With the stadium deal and the arrival of marquee players, there is no reason why the Atlanta Beat can't soon be the best in the world. Watch out Barcelona!

Check out my previous articles on the Atlanta Beat: Atlanta Turns on the Cash Taps and Goes Soccer Crazy, The Beat is Back, and The Beat Goes On. The next article will appeal in roughly three weeks after the WPS regular draft in January.

The Beat Goes On!

And now it is time to check in once again on my new hometown football club, the Atlanta Beat. That's the Atlanta Beat of the recently formed league known as 'Women's Pro Soccer' (WPS). Yes, I support a women's team. Got a problem with that? I hope not.

The Beat are what is called an 'expansion' team, meaning that they are currently being created out of whole cloth to compete in the WPS's second season beginning in Spring of 2010. This is being accomplished through a series of special drafts and free agent players. The first draft, a special 'expansion' draft, was reported about in a previous post (see The Beat is Back!). Last week the next stage, something called the 'international draft,' took place.

Although 'drafts' are a regular feature in all American pro sports leagues, even I struggled to figure out just how this one worked. It seems WPS rules allow each club to sign five international players, and the draft would allow the Beat (and fellow expansion club Philadelphia Independence) to fill these slots. As the WPS is the new global force in women's football I figured that it must mean they were to chose from a pool of players from around the world who had put themselves forward to leave their home countries and come and play in the States. Oh how wrong I was.

The Beat and the Independence were allowed, in fact, to select absolutely any international player in the world not already attached to another WPS club. This would not make them Atlanta Beat players automatically, though. The Beat would be in only obtaining the WPS 'rights' to the players. It would still be up to them to approach the player's club and the player themselves to negotiate a transfer just as it happens in the rest of the football world. All the Beat would be gaining, in effect, was a chance to try and sign foreign players without competition from other WPS clubs. Would that be meaningful enough to matter?

Even though it is only one season old, the WPS has already established itself as the premier women's league in the world. Anyone who paid attention to England's steady progression to the European Championships final would have noticed that its best players were registered with WPS clubs. Before last season the Los Angeles Sol were able to tempt away the world's best woman player (a Brazilian named Marta) from one of the world's top women's clubs (two times Champions League winners Umeå IK). It is early days, but the WPS on the road to being what the English Premiership is to the international men's game.

Speaking of Umeå IK, the Atlanta Beat obviously admire their program. Just take at look at the Beat's five picks in order from the international draft: Ramona Bachmann (nationality: Swiss, club: Umeå IK), Johanna Rasumussen (nationality: Danish, club: Umeå IK), Mami Yamaguchi (nationality: Japanese, club: Umeå IK), Maurine Dornelles Goncalves (nationality: Brazilian, club: Santos FC), and Therese Sjögran (nationality: Swedish, club: Malmö FF). So, basically, the Beat are hoping to pick off three of Umeå's top players. Umeå is a world powerhouse in womens' football. I can just imagine how eagerly the Umeå manager awaited a call from Atlanta as soon as he heard the news. It would be sort of like calling up Alex Ferguson and saying, 'I know you haven't heard of us before, but we would like to sign Rooney, Giggs and Ferdinand if you don't mind.' I could be wrong, but somehow I doubt the Beat are going to come away with all three.

I expressed my doubts to Atlanta Beat General Manager Shawn McGee, who (much to my shock) responded: 'We have done our due diligence by talking to players, coaches, and teams to select the players that certainly want to be in Atlanta and who are excited to play in the WPS.' I was very impressed to get an answer at all, but I don't think Mr. McGee was telling me the whole story. Why should he? I'm just some strange blogger living in England.

The reason I have my doubts is that the Beat have yesterday announced the signing of Mexican international Monica Ocampo. According to the press releases she is one of the top women's players in the world. She was a finalist for FIFA women's player of the year in 2006! It appears to be a real coup, and a welcome attacking option to what so far has been a primarily defensive lineup.

What is not clear, though, is why if Ocampo is so fantastic was shy playing the W-League (second division) last year, or why she was not one of the five international players chosen by the Beat last week (to be fair this could be because of some rule I am not aware of as I find some of the WPS regulations to be as Byzantine as anything the FA has ever come up with)? Is this signing to make up for one of the draft picks turning the Beat down? Ramona Bachmann was always going to be tricky as she turned down another WPS club last year.

To be honest, I'm not going to worry about it much. As any Bath City supporter can tell you, the signing of any accomplished striker is reason enough to celebrate. In another unexpected email response I got word from Atlanta Beat head coach Gareth O'Sullivan that he anticipates, 'playing with an attacking style.' Here is the first definite sign that he is going to get what he wants. Is it okay for Umeå IK to relax now? Probably not yet, but I will be letting you know.

And let's hear it for the Atlanta Beat management team, especially Media Relations Manager Christa Mann! Could they be any nicer? Everyone from Atlanta is amazing, actually. Just ask us.