FIFA World Player of the year Marta fell to FC Gold Pride with the third selection in the Los Angeles Sol dispersal draft, instantly making the Bay Area club favorites in the 2010 title chase–if they can sign the Brazilian. Shannon Boxx was selected first by the Saint Louis Athletica. The Philadelphia Independence snatched goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc with the second.

Women’s Professional Soccer has finalized the dates of its 2010 WPS Season schedule. This year, the league will expand from a 20-game regular season schedule played in 2009 to a 24-game schedule in which each of the eight WPS teams will feature 12 home games and play the other seven teams in the league three or four times each. Opening weekend will include a full slate of four games on April 10-11 – the first time four WPS games will be played on one weekend – with the regular season running through Sunday, Sept. 12.

Two weeks ago last Thursday, on the eve of the Women’s Professional Soccer draft, Chicago Red Stars’ front office staff were running around like their hair was on fire in a desperate attempt to acquire a replacement for starting goalkeeper Caroline Jönsson. The resulting trade of team captain Lindsay Tarpley to St. Louis Athletica [...]

Another new coach, Finland’s Pauliina Miettinen, the arrival of Carli Lloyd from the Chicago Red Stars, new defenders, surgery to Natasha Kai, the team’s top scorer from 2009…Sky Blue FC have been busy–and that was before the WPS draft. ASN’s Lauren Barker takes an in-depth look at the team’s needs entering the draft and how it addressed them through its picks.

Fan favorite Lindsay Tarpley, the first to score a Red Stars goal and very much “the face” of the franchise in its first year, has been traded to the Saint Louis Athletica for goalkeeper Jillian Loyden. Just one in a series of surprises on WPS draft day.

The 2010 WPS draft will be conducted this Friday, at 9:00 am CST, ending months of speculation by Women’s Professional Soccer fans as to which players will be selected by which teams. For Red Stars fans who were paying close attention this past week, however, the next addition to their team’s roster may have already been revealed by coach Emma Hayes herself.

It has now been 12 weeks since the free-agency deadline for WPS kicked in and its collective general managers booted half their players to the curb. Included among them was Chicago Red Stars forward Cristiane, one of this year’s finalists for the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year Award. And while the Red [...]

FIFA announced the 10 finalists for its 2009 Women’s World Player of the Year Award last week and half of them—Marta, Cristiane, Sonia Bompastor, Kelly Smith and Abby Wambach—played last season in Women’s Professional Soccer. In spite of her accolades, however, only one of these WPS players, Cristiane, did not have her WPS option [...]

It was a bad day to be Brazilian in WPS yesterday as teams around the league handed seven of their “Girls from Ipanema” their free-agency walking papers. The name on that list that perhaps raised the most eyebrows was the Chicago Red Stars’ Cristiane.

ASN’s Craig Bennett was at Home Depot Center Saturday afternoon gathering photographic evidence of the inaugural Women’s Professional Soccer championship match between Sky Blue FC and the Los Angeles Sol (read ASN’s match report here).Click here to visit the photo gallery.All photos ©ASN/Craig Bennett, 112575 Media Inc. To see more of Craig’s work check out [...]