Women’s Professional Soccer, Week 7: What David Bowie Wrote Songs About

You could say there have been a few changes in Women’s Professional Soccer since its last matchday, two weeks ago. Chicago Red Stars fired their coach, Emma Hayes, after a disappointing start. The U.S. Women’s national team had a dominant, 4-0 win over Germany, the team chasing them for the top spot in the FIFA rankings.

Oh, yeah: A team folded.

Time to face the strange changes, David Bowie sang, with a lyric that’s turned into a cliché. I can’t help but think of a different Bowie song, as the league goes from eight to seven teams.

Thanks to the negligence of Saint Louis Athletica owners, WPS is now stepping through the door. And they’re floating in a most peculiar way. Down to three games this weekend, the stars do look very different today.

The league is set to release a revised schedule next week, and all of Athletica’s previous results will stay on the books.

In the interim, matches. Actual soccer matches, and while none of the matches will (or should) quell the stories surrounding the team that used to exist in Saint Louis, each carrying enough drama to momentarily distract us, remind us that there are aspects of the league that are more intriguing than ownership gone wrong.

Well, maybe not more intriguing.

Sky Blue FC (10 points, 4th place) vs. Boston Breakers (6 points, 5th place), 7 p.m. Eastern, Piscataway, NJ - Christie Rampone could make her first appearance of the season for Sky Blue, having been out all season recovering from the March birth of her daughter. Rampone is coming off a season where two Sky Blue coaching changes left her as player-coach at season’s end. Her team made the playoffs on the last weekend of the season, won three consecutive matches on the road to win the league’s first title, after which it was announced Rampone was pregnant.

Sky Blue is also expected to get Natasha Kai back. Kai is the team’s primary (some would say only) goal scorer and has missed the last three matches with an hamstring injury.

While things are going in the right direction for Sky Blue, Boston carries a five match winless streak into this evening’s game. Expectations were high for Boston coming into the season, and after a win in Washington on the season’s first weekend, Boston looked set to move beyond last season’s disappointing finish. Since, the Breakers have scored only three goals in five matches, carrying forward their main ailment from last season.

Against a Sky Blue defense that could get their best defender back, Boston could struggle to end their streak at five.

Chicago Red Stars (4 points, 6th place) vs. FC Gold Pride (15 points, 1st place), 8 p.m. Eastern, Bridgeview, IL - I’m not saying Chicago has no chance, but you could argue that the struggling team got rid of their best asset this week when coach Emma Hayes was let go. No, the results weren’t there, but nobody who saw Chicago play could say the team was not playing hard and pushing their opponents. Their problem was finishing scoring opportunities, opportunities Hayes’s coaching helped create.

It’s possible Chicago will improve withoutHayes, but against the league’s best team, that improvement is unlikely to come this week. Gold Pride carries a five match winning streak into Toyota Park, and two weeks after a win in Boston that saw star Marta put in two goals, Gold Pride would have to drastically slip to give Chicago their fifth point of the season.

Washington Freedom (10 points, 3rd place) vs. Philadelphia Independence (11 points, 2nd place) Sunday, 6 p.m. Eastern, Boyds, MD - The most competitive match of the weekend (per the standings) was moved from Saturday to Sunday to hit the Fox Soccer Channel time slot. It will be a game that matches differing styles, with Washington playing creatively and relying on the league’s best player this season, forward Abby Wambach, to open up defenses.

Washington’s problem is (and always has been) defending. They were the worst defensive team last season and through four weeks had the worst goals allowed rate this season. However, the Freedom come into Sunday’s match with consecutive clean sheets. Perhaps something’s changed.

Philadelphia has little of Washington’s creativity or high-end talent, but the Independence play has hard (and physically) as any team in the league, a formula that’s got Paul Riley’s squad to second place despite their expansion team status. Having allowed only four goals in six matches, Philadelphia’s effort is paying-off defensively.

Philadelphia won the teams’ previous meeting earlier this year, 3-1, in a match where former Freedom midfielder Lori Lindsey had a goal and two assists. Should she replicate that performance, Philadelphia will be four points clear of Washington in second place, seven matches into their club’s history.