Beautiful weather, pristine fields, and a prompt schedule greeted the country’s top pro soccer prospects at the WPS Combines on either coast during December.

“The weather was sunny, warm, and beautiful all three days,” former UNC standout Maggie Tomecka reported after her experience at the East Coast Combine Dec. 18-21 in Tampa, Fla.  “The soccer was good quality.  Every player out on the field was talented and the games were very competitive.”

The goal for players was to show their stuff for the seven WPS coaches at the Combines (the West Coast Combine was conducted Dec. 11-14 in San Diego), and the goal for coaches was to help crystallize their plans for the 2009 WPS Draft on January 16.

“We still have to remember that it’s a pretty difficult situation for them to be in,” said Jim Gabarra, head coach of the Washington Freedom.  “We’ll just have to trust our eyes and our past evaluations of them.”

Gabarra, the original Freedom coach when they were founded with the WUSA eight years ago, is now one of the country’s top authorities on the women’s game and came to the Combines with prior knowledge of a large majority of the nearly 150 players who competed in the events.

“At least in my case, I’m pretty familiar with most of those players,” he said.  “So it’s not a situation where they really have to show that they deserve to get drafted.  It’s more of a chance to gauge them against themselves.”

Abner Rogers, head coach of the Los Angeles Sol, has spent most of his time on the West Coast and as such took advantage of the East Coast Combine as an opportunity to bring himself up to speed on that side of the country.

“For me coming from the West, going to the East it was good to be able to put a face to players that you’ve heard about or maybe you’ve seen in a college environment,” he said.

The Combines began with introductions by the coaches and team training sessions.  Goalkeepers were put in their own training session before joining up with the field players for a series of matches.

“They had a goalkeeper training session the first morning which was an advantage to all of us because you got to see a little more than you would see in the game,” Rogers said.  “In some games you might not get to see anything (from goalkeepers).”

There were no official scores kept for the matches, which the coaches agreed were played at a high level with no more or less goals than would be expected in a full competitive match.  Another area of agreement was that attacking players could be at a premium come draft day.

“If anything was lacking, it was possibly the forwards,” Rogers said.  “There are some very good forwards, but I’m not sure how deep it was.”

Gabarra concurred, but cautioned that the ability to score goals is only part of the package for strikers.

“You have to watch them off the ball and see how they do with their runs off the ball and also see how they hold the ball up,” he said.

That dearth of strikers could bode well for a player like Tiffany Weimer.  The former Penn State scoring machine was a popular name brought up by coaches in an informal and anonymous polling after the East Coast Combine.  (More defensive-minded players receiving frequent mentions included West Virginia’s Greer Barnes, Notre Dame’s Carrie Dew, Virginia’s Nikki Krzysik, UNC’s Allie Long, Texas’s Kasey Moore and UCLA’s McCall Zerboni.)

However, with more than three weeks until the draft, neither coach interviewed for this story was ready to divulge even a single name.

“I don’t want to do that because I’m at the back of the line,” said Gabarra, whose Freedom will draft last in the opening round.

Gabarra did say that, “There’s probably a couple of players that managed to move up in our eyes,” indicating that at least a few players may have played their way into a pro career over the last two weeks.

Coaches now have three and a half weeks to analyze and agonize over which players they will select.  During that time they will be hoping to figure out which of their international players are willing and able to play in WPS.  Those decisions will give teams a much clearer picture of their needs heading into the 10-round draft.

“I’m still digesting everything from the two Combines and what the needs are of Los Angeles and how we’re going to go into the draft,” Rogers said.  “We’re still putting it all together, but I’m not stressing out about it.  I think all the teams are going to be very competitive.”

Gabarra attended the WUSA Combine in 2000 and believes the overall level of women’s soccer is up since that time.  Even still, the level of play at the two WPS Combines exceeded expectations.

“I think it was a little better than I expected,” he said.  “Across the board it was a good level.  There were no players who stood out that shouldn’t be there.  I think the league and the coaches have done a good job of getting the best players out there for us to look at.”

“Obviously it was nerve-wracking,” Rogers added.  “This is what their dream is to play professionally.  A few players did stand out.  A few of them were pleasant surprises where we really didn’t know who they were.  It just makes our job a lot more difficult.”

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 .