USL News Release

Thursday, September 24, 2009

TAMPA – Player registration for USL’s W-League Combine begins today at 3:00PM ET at Mainsail Suites Hotel in Tampa, Florida. The 76 players attending the event will be housed at the hotel through Sunday, September 27. Each player will play in one, 70-minute match per day with the goalkeepers receiving an extra chance to show off their skills in a goalkeeper specific session scheduled for Saturday. All players will participate in a team training session tomorrow, beginning at 9:00AM ET.

“The primary objective of the 2009 USL W-League Combine is to provide players that have already graduated from college a platform to showcase their talent for the WPS coaches,” said former professional player and current USL-2 Director Amanda Duffy. “Last season the event was focused on players that had been competing in the W-League not only in 2008, but those who utilized the W-League as their home during the five years women’s professional soccer didn’t exist in the United States.

“We saw a lot of players competing in WPS that had W-League backgrounds,” added Duffy. “From that vantage point we had a lot of success in our first year and obviously we were pleased with the outcome. We hope to have similar success in 2009.”

The existence of an annual event such as the W-League Combine is a huge advantage for players coming out of the W-League and alternate development avenues – an advantage Duffy would have welcomed during the early stages of her career.

“For any player coming out of college in 2003, the final season of WUSA, and before WPS started in 2009, it was unfortunate there was not an opportunity for a female soccer player to continue her career as a professional in the United States,” said Duffy. “WUSA reduced their roster sizes in 2003. So a lot of players had to leave the country if they wanted to play as a professional, which was difficult to do in terms of contacting teams and sometimes covering initial expenses. Really, there was not much opportunity. Were there combines? Yes. But you really didn’t know who would be there so for us to be able to ensure all WPS have coaches or team representatives here in Tampa to watch the players our W-League coaches have recommended is a huge benefit.”

Perhaps harder than landing a roster spot in WUSA right out of college, Duffy is now charged with improving a W-League Combine that produced 35 WPS draftees in its inaugural season.

“This season we utilized the combine coaches more than we did last season,” said Duffy. “We actually used all of our W-League coaches, providing them the opportunity to recommend players throughout the W-League season. This enabled us to have a pool of quality players to look at and select from at the end of the season.”