WPS

Friday, August 7, 2009

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As most of you know, I'm a bit of a soccer fanatic, to say the least. As much as I love men's soccer, I was growing up and playing when Mia Hamm and the '91ers were at their peak and have been following the Women's National Team ever since. After the WUSA failed because of lack of money, the National Team has been the only women's soccer that's ever on, until this year. The Women's Professional Soccer league started up this year with 7 teams [8 next year with Philadephia] and it's been awesome to have multiple games on every week! I had been trying to go to games all season but most of them are on Sunday's or during the week so I was unable to go because of babysitting. On July 26th, I was able to attend my first game, and it was definitely worth all the trouble it took to get there! Zach and I drove up that morning and met Caitlin, Hannah, and Maeve at Chuck's Southern Comfort Cafe which I highly recommend if you like barbeque and live in the Chicago area! We had time to kill after lunch so we all headed to Caitlin's to hang out for a little bit. We all parted ways and Zach and I headed to Toyota Park for the game which was Chicago Red Stars vs. Washington Freedom. Toyota Park is such a cool stadium. The fact that it was built for the Chicago Fire and used for other things and not vice versa makes it all the better in my book. We had amazing seats for the game and it was a great game, even though Chicago lost, meaning they were out of the hunt for a playoff spot.

I was able to go, a mere week and a half later, to another game this past Wednesday in St. Louis. This time it was Saint Louis Athletica vs. Chicago Red Stars. Kayla, Brittany and I drove down and picked up Sarah for this game. We had front row and almost dead center seats. I had a minor dilema though. After much deliberation, I've concluded that Chicago is going to be "my team". The only problem with this game was that my absolute FAVORITE player, Hope Solo, plays for St. Louis. I ended up wearing a Red Stars shirt but cheered for Athletica because it was in St. Louis and Hope plays for them, but don't worry Chicago...I'm working on the loyal fan thing. After the game, we had the incredible oppotunity to get our picture taken with the 4 Gold Medalists who played in the game, Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd, Lindsay Tarpley and Lori Chalupny, except Tarpley wasn't in the picture then because she tore her ACL in practice and didn't play. As I mentioned before, Hope Solo, is my favorite player in ALL of soccer, yes even more than Becks, so I was rather excited! Here are some pictures from the game...and the one with us and the players will be scanned in as soon as I get it in the mail!