A little change of pace: USC women's soccer forward Amy Rodriguez has been selected to the US Women's Olympic team and will be playing in Beijing this summer. Rodriguez, who was the MVP of the Final Four on USC's national championship team on the strength of a performance that included two goals against ucla in the semifinals, has had a good showing in the recent Peace Queen Cup*, scoring the only (and winning) goal against Brazil in group play as the US women's team moved on to beat Italy in the semi-finals and Canada in the finals.

Rodriguez is the first Trojan to play Olympic soccer for the US, and joins with Stephanie Cox of Portland College as the lone collegiate players on the team.

US Women's coach Pia Sundhage selected Rodriguez on the strength of her recent form: "The way she's been playing and actually running at people has been very good."

This is fantastic news: the US is not short on talented women soccer players, so to be selected for the national side for the Olympics on the merits is a real vote of confidence - Fight On Amy! And best of luck in Beijing.

*In case you were wondering, the Peace Queen Cup is an eight nation tournament organized by the Unification Churh (of the Reverend Moon fame) which is intended to facilitate cultural exchanges and promote world peace... it also has a $200,000 prize to the winning team, in case fostering peace isn't incentive enough.

The USC Women of Troy won the NCAA Women's Soccer National Championship, the first for USC, beating the Florida State Seminoles yesterday, 2 - 0, in College Station, Texas. In another landmark, USC coach Ali Khosroshahin is only the second NCAA coach to win a championship in his first season in the sport. You can get a good read on the game here.

USC got into the final by beating UCLA 2 - 1, which marked the first and only goal that USC conceded in the College Cup. The press and other response to the result against UCLA was to write about it as if USC had gutted out a win by being well organized and determined - soccer code for "compensating for lack of talent by hard work." And while USC is hard-working - Khosroshahin instituted grueling practices - consisting of running, running, and for variety a bit of running  - when he arrived, it's not just hard work. After all, UCLA's season record showed only one more win than USC's when they met the other day.But enough about the bruins.

I was able to catch a fair bit of the USC - FSU game yesterday, and it was a well-earned win for the Trojans. Florida State is a good team and has a fair few international players - including Mami Yamaguchi who plays for the Japanese women's national team, Sanna Talonen of Finland, and Kirsten van de Ven from the Netherlands. FSU is extremely fast on the attack and plays good one-touch ball, wherein passes are immediately converted to shots on goal.

The Trojans' approach to the game was to prevent FSU from using that speed - they made a real effort to get the ball forward and spend more time in the FSU half of the field, and shut down the central midfield, which is where FSU launches most of their attacks. FSU spent a lot of time on the defensive in the first half especially, and had trouble with USC's controlled passing.

The Women of Troy's effort was rewarded when Marihelen Tomer seized on a botched clearance at the FSU goalmouth and headed in the ball.

AP Photo / Matt Slocum

FSU showed flashes of their skill, for instance they were able at one point to play Yamaguchi through behind the USC defense - a rare lapse that lasted for no more than a few seconds before USC's goalkeeper Kristin Olsen took the ball from Yamaguchi's feet - a ballsy thing to do; get it wrong and you've got a boxer's nose to show for it...

Olsen was huge in the goal, figuratively and literally (when your star midfielder Amy Rodriguez is 5' 4", a 6' goalie is towering over the competition). She consistently defused set pieces from FSU, and on the rare occasion that she was wrong-footed, someone was there to back her up.

In the game thread, I mentioned that by the end of the first half, FSU looked a bit gassed - they came out firing in the second half, with Amanda DaCosta freed up to make more runs especially on the right wing, but they couldn't sustain the pace for the half. Going down to 10 players - after Libby Gianeskis attempted a shirt-tackle and got a straight red card for trouble - didn't help their cause, and eventually Carrier scored the second goal for USC that iced the game.

I'll be honest, I don't watch a great deal of women's soccer, but I was tremendously impressed with USC on the field. As I mentioned above, a lot of the press coverage and blog blathering implied that they were there because of tedious organization and their defense - and while that's true to some extent, that doesn't account for the fantastic tackling and taking of the ball on defense, the quick passing into space, and the speed and nimbleness on offense. There was more than one time where Amy Rodriguez was pulling moves that wouldn't have looked out of place on a field in Madrid or London. As for the reputation of scoring opportunistic goals: they can't all look like something by Samuel E'to or - in a nod to our rivals across town - Benny Feilhaber's goal against Mexico. Any coach will tell you that the ability to get goals when the opportunity arises* is a very valuable trait - and USC demonstrated it twice yesterday.

Congratulations to the Women's Soccer National Champs!

* I hesitate to use a phrase familiar to Arsenal fans, the "fox in the box," because I don't want to appear to be commenting on player's appearances when it's a womens team... but if the shoe fits...

Don't know how much of this game I'll be able cover live, but USC is playing Florida State in College Station TX in the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship.

2.25 EST: about the 17th minute. USC's been playing well so far - good use of the long ball to keep FSU in their half. Rodriguez is doing well. However, FSU is incredibly fast on the counter-attack, which they are doing at the moment because USC is one player down. Sanduval was on the receiving end of a nasty tackle and has been getting treatment off the pitch.

2.26 EST: this commentary team is one of the worst I have EVER heard for soccer, and that's saying something in a world where ESPN allows Eric Wynalda on air.

2.30 EST: A bit more even now in terms of possession. FSU is trying to come up the center of the field and not getting much out of it - SC is well organized on defense, as advertised. SC's having some luck working the wings.

2.31 EST: Shit that was nearly ugly. SC's goalie got caught out of position and FSU was threatening to score - but a foul for a high kick against FSU and a quick recovery save the day.

2.35 EST: I suppose the A Rod to A Rod comparison was inevitable. Without wanting to be too patronizing, Amy Rodriguez is much better looking than the baseball player, for what that's worth, and she's a hell of a lot better on the counter.

2.35 EST: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL USC! An FSU defender managed to ricochet the ball off the crossbar, the FSU goalie botched the recovery, and Tomer scores for USC! 1 - 0!

2.37 EST - SC nearly scores again - cripes that was close. FSU would have been in real trouble if that had gone in.

2.41 EST - great save by the SC goalie - an FSU forward got behind the defense and Olsen got the ball off her feet. Nice work.

2.45 EST: game's getting a little more physical. SC needs to watch out here - FSU has players from Japan (Yamaguchi plays for the national team), Finland, and the Netherlands, and they are going to be well able to exploit 50-50 fouls.

2.47 EST: corner for USC, nothing comes of it.

2.49 EST: another lovely save by Olsen. SC needs to be less casual with possession in their own half - FSU's not shy about using the long ball.

2.49 EST: Yellow card on an SC player (Brown?) for a "hard tackle" - total crap; unlike Sanduval earlier, the FSU player didn't need treatment. Get a grip, ref.

Moving below the jump so I don't take up the whole page... forgot I was supposed to be doing this in the comments!

Update [2007-12-9 18:36:31 by Paragon SC]: Congrats Ladies!!! Way to play it! DC Trojan will be by later with a complete game wrap.

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