The 2010 draft happens this Friday, January 15 @ 10am ET (so 7am for us West Coasters) in Philadelphia, PA, home to the new Independence expansion team.
In case you are not fully up-to-date on the draft intrigue that has been building over the past few months, below are a ton of links to get you ready for what’s coming tomorrow.
And ‘cause I am feeling so helpful today, I am going to put up a second post with the order of draft picks and a couple ways you can follow the event tomorrow. (will link when it's up)
For those truly not in the loop, the United States has a new Women’s Professional Soccer league running into it’s second season. The 9 teams are as follows:
Team Website | Team Twitter Account
Atlanta Beat (NEW expansion team for 2010) | @AtlBeat
Philadelphia Independence (NEW expansion team for 2010) | @WPSPhilly2010
As you can see, the last two teams are new to the 2010 season and created an interesting expansion-special post season for 2009, including an expansion draft, but the expansion phase has ended and the league is jumping back on track with the college draft.
Getting To Know You
The WPS worked hard to get a bunch of articles out on their website to help fill fans in on the top prospects, starting with the “Getting to Know You” series. According to the WPS Web Coordinator’s blog (Soccer Science), the series was put together by the “content team, lead by the one and only Karyn Lush (@klush17 on Twitter).” (quoted from the aforementioned blog, here's the link again).
By the by, the Web Coordinator is Amanda Vandervort (@vandey01 on Twitter). Her blog puts mine to shame and she has a fantastic list of other soccer blogs in case you are looking to expand your collection.
Series Articles | College Bios
Expert Opinions
The league’s PR Director, Rob Penner (@RdPenner on Twitter), pulled together groups of soccer experts to put together rankings in the slow months of the off-season.
WPS Article| WPS Fan Corner Discussion
The WPS was not the only one commissioning these lists. Here are a few more thoughts on the Top Midfielders, Top Defenders and Top Forwards.
Draft Predictions: the Experts and the Fans Weigh In
Now that you know some of the top names, let’s see how the experts and the fans predict they will fit into the draft picks.
WPS Expert Prediction of the First Round 11 Picks
Fan Corner Discussion on the Top 5 Picks
Big Soccer Prediction Thread on the Draft
Bleacher Report Prediction by JR Salazar
If you want to engage in some great discussions regarding the WPS then jump onto Big Soccer and start going through their threads. If you're a die-hard fan, jump between the WPS Fan Corner and the Big Soccer threads to see how the thoughts differ (or don't).
The Bleacher Report
The Bleacher Report has been a great record of solid WPS coverage with beat writers assigned to every franchise, usually 2-3 writers deep. The draft is no exception and will be covered by 3 B/r writers. They will be providing some coverage (and an eventual video diary) of the WPS draft. Check my next post (I will link it when it's up) for links to some twitter accounts you can follow to keep up-to-date via these beat writers.
Not content with just covering the event, B/r actually held a mock draft on Twitter a week or so back with some staff standing in as GM’s for a day. Very well run by someone on the B/r staff, I stuck on my TweetDeck for a while to keep on top of their 3 round go at the draft.
Here is Kat Galsim’s play-by-play of her experience as the Washington Freedom and Philly Independence Mock-GM. It’s found on her blog, Team on 3. Shortly after posting that she wrote a B/r article about the real Freedom GM, Jim Gabarra. A nice double read if you are a Freedom fan.
The B/r draft was a bit predictable, but I expected that. It's hard to break out of the norm when only privy to the tip of the iceberg. The surprises I'm hoping for are probably going to come after each other, snowballing down the hill, after one brave GM breaks the norm.
For example, if Tobin Heath is not the first pick (which she 90% is, but I refuse to committing my last 10% to the Beat's set in stone secret decision...I'm hoping for an upset), then the rest of the field will get knocked around as teams scramble to adjust their lists accordingly. Oh to be in the room or a part of those discussions.
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