KELLY SMITH WEEKLY COLUMN - 5th JULY

KELLY SMITH: Brit of bother in Boston showered with a win

By Kelly Smith

Some things are very English about Boston – I'm thinking mainly about the weather at the moment.

But when it comes to sport, you're soon reminded where you are. I've been trying to follow Wimbledon, watching it on ESPN, but it's just not the same. I miss the English commentary and there's something about way that the BBC do it that is lost over here.

And the only Brit they cover is Andy Murray, which is not a surprise, I suppose. When it comes to soccer, the U.S. men's team did really well in the Confederations Cup, but it still doesn't get that much coverage. It's way down the pecking order. I went out with a few friends to see one match in a special bar that's owned by soccer fans.

Centre stage: Kelly Smith tries to slow down a Washington Freedom attack during the Boston Breakers 1-0 win

It's obviously noticeable if you come over from England, where almost every pub seems to show football. In most places here, they'd be reluctant to put it on.

Maybe it will be different with the Gold Cup just kicking off here. It's the North American version of the European Championship and some of the Boston Breakers girls have tickets.

It was good to get last weekend off after a gruelling run of games. At the end of May/start of July, we played only once in three weekends. Then we went into a run of four matches in 11 days.

In a way it's good. You don't get to train as much; there's some recovery time and then straight into another match. And it's exciting because you know it's a chance to pick up points.

Thankfully, that's what we did. We'd had a frustrating run, but now we've won two in a row and are unbeaten in three. We were really happy with our performance against the Washington Freedom last time out.

It was only 1-0 and the defending was really good throughout the team, starting from the front. Everyone put in a shift and now we have to stay determined and build on that.

We're doing OK. I think everyone is fighting for second place at the moment, but we're trying to stay close to the Los Angeles Sol. It looks like they're pulling away more than they actually are, but if we were to win our three games in hand we'd be seven points behind and suddenly things look a little different.

We're still getting better and a little more confident. You can see us gelling and moving the ball quicker. There was a lot of one- and two-touch play against Washington, which you've not really seen from us as much before – so there's definitely progress.

Now we've got to keep it up with the next two games against Sky Blue FC, the New Jersey team.

After that, it's back to England for the last two friendlies before the European Championship in Finland, which starts next month.

England coach Hope Powell visited Smith in America

Hope Powell, the England manager, came over to see a couple of games recently. She was taking a holiday with her partner in Florida but couldn't pass up the opportunity to see me and Alex Scott, my Boston and England team-mate, in action.

We all went for dinner one night and her attention to detail never surprises me. She asked so many questions about training and our preparation, checking out the standard and also seeing where are heads are at. She's always keen to see if the girls in America are enjoying and getting the most of this experience.

We certainly enjoyed last weekend. A couple of friends were over and me and Alex took them to Provincetown – a cool place at the tip of Cape Cod, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Boston. There's a few galleries, theatres and it's pretty popular in summer.

We could just do with losing the English weather occasionally! From what I hear about the heatwave back home, it sounds like we've done a swap. The summer's used to be scorching when I lived in New Jersey, during university, and I hardly ever played in the rain.

But in Boston it seems to rain every time we play at home. I actually quite like playing in it but it's tough for some of the others and a bit depressing for the fans.

We got about 3,500 in for a midweek match in the rain, which is pretty decent when your stadium doesn't have a roof, but it's a shame when they can't have proper tailgate parties, which are a bit of a pre-match tradition over here.

The players just have to make sure there's something to celebrate.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1197679/KELLY-SMITH-Brit-bother-Boston-showered-hard-fought-win.html