WPS Half-Term report - LOS ANGELES SOL

Who? What left is there to say about the Sol that has not been said or read already.

In this 1st half of the Inaugural season of the WPS, THE Los Angeles Sol so far have been the dominant, most consistent and yes… the best team in the league.

The league table doesn’t lie.And neither do the stats.The Sol sit at the top as of June 25th with 31 pts - Played 14 , Won 9, Lost 1, Draws 4. They have played two games more than the 2nd placed Boston Breakers but they are still comfortably in front.
They are currently on a 9 games unbeaten run - 6 of those are wins.
How? The team are playing well together. They play possession soccer. The midfield four have specific jobs and they are executing the jobs well and the defence are defending intelligently and as a unit.
The Sol are difficult to score against and ultimately to beat. Teams have tried and come close and even some have deserved to score and a win but they have come up short and not taken their chances.
The Sol offence when given a chance will most likely take that chance…thank you very much.

They lead the league in most goals scored 19 ; least goals conceded 5 ; most shutouts 10 and Top goal scorer , Camille Abily 7.

Players - Offence:
Marta is the star player. The Brazilian Attracts the attention of the opposition defenders, sometimes all of them at the same time, that just leaves space for the other Sol players to exploit. Which they have taken.
When Marta is not scoring she is setting up her teamates. She is 2nd in the goal scoring charts with 6 goals and 2nd in assists with 3.



Midfield:
Camille Abily is one player who has benefited from the attention on Marta. She has snuck in there almost unnoticed to score a league leading 7 goals. All from midfield. The French international brings a calm, technical game to the Sol midfield. An intelligent player who always makes herself available in midfield to receive the ball, hold the ball and pass it off to an open player without fuss. Abily is a fan favourite and although unknown at the beginning of the season to the American public she is now becoming a star there too as she was in her native France. No wonder Olympic Lyon were having a cardiac arrest when she moved to WPS. Now we know why.
Defence:
Alison Falk never gets mentioned too much by reporters or blogs. But here at womans soccer insider we believe she is vital to the Sol.The rookie…yes she is a rookie..from Stanford University has been the rock at the back. Started 13 games out of 14 and played 90 minutes in all ,Falk is tall, good in the air, deceptively strong and quick. Falk hasn’t put a foot wrong as she has gone up against strong, experienced and international players like Abby Wambach and Christine Sinclair and quick players like Lisa DeVanna and Eniola Aluko and been a match for all of them.

Mentions to - Brittany Bock - defender, midfielder, forward ? She’s been everywhere but in goal. Bock is a competitive player that gives 110% no matter where she is playing. Almost combative by nature she played the first 5 games as a centre-back having never played there before. Impressing the Sol coaches in training with her desire to compete for challenges. She was a midfielder/forward in college. She then spent the next few in midfield man marked Boston’s Kelly Smith out of the game in that position in the 0-0 tie at the Home Depot Center.
Moved to centre forward to give some assist to Marta and scored her 2nd goal of the season. Yes we had to mention Brittany Bock.

Karina Leblanc - KK to her friends - we will look at her closely further in the blog but the stats say it all.
13 games , 51 saves , goals against 5 , Goals against avg 0.38 , Saved a PK , 9 Shutouts. No1.

All those players have stood out to us but LA really have played as a team and we would be here all day and night if we had to mention all the players.

A- Excellent. Still room for improvement.(harsh,i know) Top of the class for now.