I thought Los Angeles was where my new life was going to start. So now Philly is a new start. I’m really looking forward to it. — Karina LeBlanc, Philadelphia Independence

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Goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc will be reunited with a few of her former Sol teammates in Philadelphia.

 

Karina LeBlanc laughed and said she never expected to find herself part of a soccer draft in which she would be selected ahead of Marta.  Brittany Bock laughed when reminded of a conference call nearly a year ago when she was mostly ignored by reporters who preferred querying Marta and head coach Abner Rogers.

“She’s such an amazing player, and not only that but she’s such a humble player,” Bock said of Marta.  “I’ve been around her for other interviews and she always directs it back to her teammates and everyone working together.  She always brought it back to the team and not herself.”

As of Thursday, Marta will be redirecting attention to her new teammates at FC Gold Pride.  Bock will not be one of them, and neither will LeBlanc.  They were dispersed, with the rest of the Sol roster, to the remaining eight WPS clubs one week after the league discontinued operations of the club in the midst of a last-minute falling out with a potential ownership group.  Most of the players the Sol projected to be on their 2010 roster, though probably not all, will find themselves in WPS this summer, but the team that set the standard for success on the field and at the box office is now a memory.  No one was laughing about that.

“For me personally it has just been emotional,” LeBlanc said of the past week.  “There’s a lot of excitement on one end (going to Philadelphia), but there is sadness on the other end.  I think I have talked to my (Sol) teammates more in the last week and a half than during the entire off-season.”

The Sol players found out the team was folding not long before the news made its way around the Internet, followed shortly by the official press release.  LeBlanc had heard whispers when she was in Philadelphia to emcee the PUMA uniform unveiling, but never imagined it would come to this.

“There had been rumors that we were battling trying to find ownership, but you just almost feel like this can’t happen,” she said after learning she will return to Philadelphia to play for the Independence.  “L.A. is a fantastic franchise and there are a lot of people out there who believe in this and who back this.  But it is a business.  It’s almost like you never really allow yourself to think it actually might happen this way.  You’re like okay, those are just rumors, it will work out.”

Bock was home in Chicago and “hadn’t been up on the websites in a few days,” when she heard about the conference call.  The news took her entirely by surprise.

“I didn’t really know what was going on until we had the conference call,” Bock said, “and that’s when I found out we were no longer a team.”  She added that hope remained for a 13th hour reversal until the eve of the dispersal draft when Sol general manager Charlie Naimo circulated an email to the team, thanking everyone for their services and wishing them well going forward.

“We still held out hope,” said Stephanie Cox, one of three players to arrive at U.S. National Team camp as Sol teammates only to depart as WPS adversaries.  Cox wound up with the Breakers, Shannon Boxx went to Saint Louis Athletica, and Casey Nogueira found her way onto Emma Hayes’s roster in Chicago.

“It has definitely been a roller coaster,” Cox said.  “It was kind of a hectic time to focus on the intensity of the National Team camp and then also try to sort out what was going on with the Sol and the dispersal draft.  There hasn’t been a lot of time to really let it sink in but I’m really excited about going to the Breakers.  They have a great team and I’m really excited about the city.  I’m happy where I landed.”

LeBlanc resigned from her assistant coaching job at Rutgers in December and was planning to move full-time to Los Angeles.  News of the Sol’s demise broke just in time for her to cancel shipment of her car from New Jersey to California.  Now she will be playing just down the road from Rutgers.

“Everything happens for a reason,” she said.  Of the Independence she said, “I’ve heard so many great things about the organization.  I thought (Los Angeles) was where my new life was going to start.  So now Philly is a new start.  I’m really looking forward to it.”

In Philadelphia, LeBlanc will be reunited with former Sol defender Allison Falk, whose sterling defense helped LeBlanc post the league’s lowest goals against average in 2009.  She will also be teammates with Val Henderson again, a bittersweet arrangement since Henderson is the goalkeeper who will likely lose a starting position with the loss of the Sol.  She backed up LeBlanc in Los Angeles in 2009 and was acquired by the Independence in the Falk trade.  Now it looks like she will play understudy to LeBlanc at least one more season.

“This is the tough part about it all,” LeBlanc said.  “Val and I get along so great.  When she got (traded) to Philly I was so pumped for her, I called her and was like, this is awesome.  But this is the one thing about Philly that was like, ugh, here we go again.  Val is a great goalkeeper.  There’s no words to describe how I feel and that’s why it’s bittersweet.  One of the reasons it is bittersweet is because of Val and the respect I have for her and the situation that has now changed.”

The wheels will continue to turn regarding a Los Angeles team joining WPS again in 2011.  As for the 2009 version, the memory will live on, even if the stunning loss to Sky Blue FC in the final made for a less than ideal ending.

“I try not to look back too much and get myself all upset about that,” Bock said.  “Even if the Sol come back in 2011, that first year of the Sol will definitely be an amazing experience.  But it definitely hurts to not have won that.”

“I think probably the players,” Cox said when asked what she will miss most.  “We had a great mix of players.  Our internationals were so much fun.  It just makes me realize to make the most out of every opportunity because you never know if you’re going to have that same experience with those same girls.”

Have a question, a suggestion, or a story idea? Did you see something we didn't? Let me know at thirtymtp@aol.com .

Dan Lauletta is a freelance writer and can be reached at thirtymtp@aol.com . The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author's, and not necessarily those of Women’s Professional Soccer or womensprosoccer.com.