On today’s episode of The IX Sports Podcast, host Kathleen Gier is joined by Associated Press writer and contributor to The IX Sports Annie Peterson to talk about the latest in women’s soccer. They recap NWSL media day, and go over the top stories out of the most recent U.S. women’s national team training camp.
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First, Peterson talked about how NWSL media day and the media opportunities surrounding the USWNT have changed, as well as how the USWNT camp roster composition is evolving:
“It was an interesting experience because it was the camp was for obviously, only NWSL players, no Gotham players, none of the European base players. And so it was a lot of kids,” Peterson said. “… In the first match against Paraguay, the average … experience was just under 10 caps. And then the second game against Chile, the experience was just over five caps, which is the lowest it’s been in 25 years. So it was cool to be able to see those kids for soccer. Monday, I wrote about [Ayo Oke], and she was just so excited to be there … it was great when she came off the field, and she went through the mixed zone and everything. She just was smiling from ear to ear … she got her chance, right, and she hopes to do more. I thought she did an a really good job, and the fact that media day has grown, I mean, just from last year, it’s exponential. And so that, as a journalist, as somebody who’s followed the team for so long and the NWSL for so long, that’s really, really cool to see.”
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“Yeah, I was really impressed even by media day at the Finals the last two years,” Gier added, referencing the NWSL Finals. “Kind of a similar setup, … with that instant access, right to the players, and ability to ask those questions, but also, the stress of a scrum, but I think that it’s nice, as you said, because there are some of those players that don’t get a lot of attention and it does give you that access to talk to somebody who maybe isn’t getting all the headlines, until you have to race over and make sure you get every single word [Trinity Rodman] says, because that has been such a focus.”
Then, Gier and Peterson discussed how more and more women’s soccer players are no longer putting off having kids until after their careers were over. Peterson explained how certain policies at the NWSL and FIFA level, as well as strong examples at the forefront of the sport, may have encouraged this:
“For a lot of the NWSL and a lot of the national team, people had waited until their careers were over to have babies, and that was the deal,” Peterson said. “And we even had players freezing their eggs, like Becky Sauerbrunn froze her eggs so that when her career was over, … they would still be there. And so it’s interesting that in just this shorter period of time, that it’s flipped. You kind of saw the writing on the wall when the the union, with the collective bargaining agreement, was making guarantees for women who decided to start families in mid-career. But it extended beyond that, because FIFA also instituted rules internationally that said that you have to give women space to have babies and then space to recover, and that their careers cannot be jeopardized by that. And also you need to pay them. So these are all important steps.”
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“I did not expect it to flip this fast, I kind of expected that we would keep going along a little bit with the waiting until your career is over kind of thing,” Peterson continued. “But I do think that Alex Morgan and Crystal Dunn obviously really paved the way in that direction that showed you could absolutely do it, you know, you could, ‘have it all,’ where you have your career and your family and so I think that those two players specifically showed people, especially national team players like [Sophia Wilson] and [Mallory Swanson], that it is possible … you can come back. It’s not going to be over for you … it doesn’t end with starting a family. It can be just, part of the journey.”
Tune in to hear more about NWSL media day, who impressed out of January’s USWNT training camp, and what to look forward to as NWSL kickoff approaches on March 13.
Make sure to subscribe to The IX Sports Podcast for in-depth coverage of women’s soccer, hockey and basketball; and tune in each weekday morning for a quick overview of the biggest headlines on Women’s Sports Daily.
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