(Sept. 29, 2008) -- There will be a decidedly Brazilian flair to the St. Louis team of Women's Professional Soccer if their international picks get signed.
With former Brazilian National Team coach Jorge Barcellos at the helm, St. Louis selected two Brazilian National Team players, midfielder Daniela Alves and defender Renata Costa, in last week’s WPS Initial International Draft. The players have not signed contracts for the 2009 season, but if they do, St. Louis might be a step ahead of the other teams in the inaugural year of the league.
(John Todd/isiphotos.com)
St. Louis moved up in the WPS Initial International Draft to nab Daniela with its first pick.
Team CEO & Governor Jeff Cooper said selecting Daniela and Costa with its first two picks was done in part because they already have a working relationship with Barcellos.
"That is one reason, but the other reason is they were the two best players on the board at the time,” Cooper said.
St. Louis made a trade with the Washington Freedom to move up in the draft to select the 24-year-old Daniela, going from sixth to fourth in the first round. Daniela (who goes by her first name as do many Brazilian soccer players) is a two-time Olympian, winning silver medals in both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, losing both times to the United States. She also played for both the 2003 and 2007 Brazilian FIFA Women's World Cup teams and scored in each competition.
Cooper selected the 22-year-old Costa in the second round. She, too, is a two-time Olympian and World Cupper, and she scored a goal in the 2007 World Cup in China.
Again, St. Louis moved up in the third round via trade, this time with Los Angeles, to select striker Lotta Schelin of Sweden, who happens to be a former teammate of St. Louis goalkeeper Hope Solo, allocated to St. Louis in the dispersal of American National Team players. Schelin, a two-time Olympian and one-time World Cupper with three Olympic goals and two World Cup goals to her credit, provided Solo with a home and friendship back in 2003 when Solo went to Sweden to play professionally.
"I was shocked she was still on the board in the third round,” Cooper said. "I think she is one of the top 10 players in the world right now."
With its own third-round pick, St. Louis selected Canadian Melissa Tancredi, a 26-year-old forward who played for the 2004 Notre Dame national championship team and has played for the Canadian 2008 Olympic and 2007 World Cup teams and the W-League Atlanta Silverbacks.
The trade route St. Louis took is complicated. It swapped the 27th selection of the International draft and the 12th pick in the upcoming WPS General Draft to Los Angeles for the 17th pick of the International Draft and the 24th pick in the General Draft. Basically, it moved up for the International Draft and down for the General Draft, which will occur Oct. 6.
St. Louis then did the same sort of thing with Washington, trading the sixth overall pick in the International Draft, the third pick in the General Draft and the 17th pick in the General Draft to the Freedom for the fourth pick in the International Draft, the 14th in the General Draft and the 15th in the General Draft.
St. Louis was by far the most active team in the draft process in terms of trading picks in order to obtain its desired draft board positioning.
"We felt there was a very strong pool of players, obviously, and we wanted to move up and have a better pick for that,” Cooper said of the international draft. As a result "we will be like a world all-star team,'' he said. "Our prospects of winning the league go through the roof.”
That's assuming, as Cooper pointed out, that the international stars get signed, which is not a done deal by any stretch of the imagination. The WPS Initial International Draft marked the start of the process by which teams may begin a formal negotiation process with the players they selected.
"I think it is going to be difficult,” Cooper said. "These are the best players on the planet. This is a global market. Sweden, Denmark, France and Germany are very serious about building global powerhouses at their clubs. These players form the bedrock of that plan.
"A lot of people understand the growth area of soccer right now is going to be in women's soccer and they are adding that as a major element to the clubs.”
So what will it take for St. Louis to sign its international players? Cooper points to the field.
"Once these players see the level of talent in WPS is going to be higher than any of those other leagues, it is going to be easy to sign them,” he said. “But it may take a year or two to show that. Some of them may take a wait and see attitude to see if the league is real this time."
The rest of the league will be taking a "wait-and-see'' attitude toward St. Louis, with real concern about just how good it will be.
Kent McDill is a freelance writer and can be reached at kmcdill@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.
