Sports Then and Now

Alex Morgan has emerged as a star for the newest team in WPS.

It only took four minutes for the expansion team from Women’s Professional Soccer’s smallest market to score on the defensively strong former league champions Sky Blue FC from New Jersey. Swedish international Caroline Seger tallied her second goal of the season, fed by rookie sensation, Alex Morgan. Later in the half, it was Morgan who would score on a pass by Brazilian superstar, Marta. Late in the second half, the same combination would reverse roles and Morgan got the goal, taking the Western New York Flash into half time with a 2-0 lead.

In fact, the Marta-Morgan combination has become very effective in the past 2 and a half games they’ve played together. On Sunday, at the Flash home opener, Morgan scored her first WPS goal assisted by Marta.

The two make an interesting tandem in that 25 year old Marta is well established as the world’s best woman ever to play the game, while Morgan is just beginning to look like she could be the next Marta, or at least the next Mia Hamm, as the best U.S. player to come along since Hamm dominated the world and the women’s game.

The visitors made the game interesting for a few minutes by closing to within one goal after substitute Adriana scored on a spectacular high arching shot within a minute of entering the pitch. But it wasn’t long before the M & M attack returned the game to a safe lead for the home team.

So after two and a half games, Marta stands with 3 goals and four assists. Caroline Seger has scored twice, Morgan twice, Gemma Davison once and WPS Player of the Week (last week) Christine Sinclair has two. Read the rest of this entry →

The Western New York Flash won their home opener 3-0 over Atlanta.

Any questions that remained (and this writer raised several in previous articles) about the chemistry between Marta and her new team, WNY Flash, and about the reception the Flash would receive at home, were settled at the Flash’s home opener Sunday in Sahlen’s Stadium.

Before anything more is said, this writer needs to eat some Sahlen’s hot-dog crow.

After only managing a tepid tie with Atlanta in Atlanta last week, on Marta’s debut with the club, I suggested the insertion of the Brazilian superstar was a detriment to team chemistry. Without Marta, the Flash made a powerful statement the previous week soundly defeating a much better Boston Breakers squad, and it appeared that Marta would be no help to the already stacked roster, and perhaps would be an energy drain.

As the Flash took the pitch in their home side red kits, the club dominated from whistle to whistle, and while she did not score, Marta was the engine behind the dominant performance. Her speed down the left flank was superhuman. She kept the Flash on the offensive end of the pitch nearly all match, as evidenced by the fact that Atlanta made only two shots on goal in the match. It took them 80 minutes to get the second shot. Read the rest of this entry →

Women’s Professional Soccer’s newest team came away from their season opener with a decisive win over Boston’s Breakers in front of more than 4,000 fans in Harvard Stadium.

Despite the fact that Boston opened their season a week ago in Atlanta, roundly defeating the Beat by 4-1, and despite the fact that the expansion Western New York Flash was playing their first real game without their star striker, the new girls on the block dominated every aspect of the match, eventually winning 2-1.

Their play wasn’t always pretty and despite some chances, it took them 64 minutes to score their first goal, but considering their headliner, Brazilian phenom, Marta, was unable to join her team mates due to delays in processing immigration paperwork, and considering the fact that this new team had no preseason contests against professional clubs at any level, they did well by themselves.

The Boston Breakers (1-1-0) were unable to come back from a two-goal deficit Sunday night in their first home game of the season. In fact, the score doesn’t really tell the story. Boston was kept off the scoreboard until well into stoppage time. After Flash keeper Ashlyn Harris made an acrobatic stop, The Breakers’ Kelly Smith tapped the rebound into the box, seconds before the final whistle. Read the rest of this entry →

Remember the bumper sticker, “What if they threw a war and nobody came?” And then there’s the conundrum about a tree falling in the forest when no one is there.

As the third season of Women’s Professional Soccer draws near, it is possible that the world’s best women’s soccer team will be the tree in the forest unobserved, the war left un-attended.

Western New York is already the center of the women’s soccer world in the sense that meat mogul Joe Sahlen, third generation owner of Sahlen Packing Company in the Buffalo suburbs, singlehandely saved Women’s Professional Soccer. Had Sahlen not come forward offering to buy in with an expansion team, the league would have folded for lack of teams.

After 2010 league champion FC Gold Pride (Bay Area) folded and the Chicago Red Stars suspended play for a season while looking for additional investors, the five remaining clubs in the league would have been one member short of what league management had determined to be the minimum number of teams required to have a meaningful season.

Enter Joe Sahlen, whose Buffalo Flash had just one the W-League championship in only their second year of play, coached by Sahlen’s son-in-law, former New Zealand international Aaron Lines, with Sahlen’s daughter Alexandra on the roster. Sahlen admitted he bought the franchise for the benefit of his daughter, and as a man who likes keeping business in the family, acted completely in character by employing her husband as their coach. Read the rest of this entry →

The Western New York Flash made Alex Morgan the first pick in the WPS Draft.

Women’s Professional Soccer held its third annual college draft Friday at the 2011 NSCAA Convention in Baltimore, Maryland.

A surprise to few in the audience, expansion Western New York Flash selected California standout and U.S. national team rising star, forward Alex Morgan with the top pick in the draft, while also nabbing The University of Portland’s Elli Reed as the first defender in the draft with the number eight overall selection.

The Flash had no selections in round two. In round three, the Flash took Notre Dame midfielder Rose Augustin, and chose local favorite, a keeper, Ashleigh Bowers of Niagara.

The Western New York club made a splash in sponsorship as well, at the draft. WPS CEO Anne-Marie Eileraas officially opened the proceedings by announcing the league’s sixth national sponsor, Sahlen’s Hot Dogs. Sahlen’s owner, Joe Sahlen, is also the owner of the Flash. Now his product will not only be the official hot dog of the Buffalo Bills but will be the official hot dog of WPS and will be the hot dog served at all WPS venues, as the company logo will don all WPS jerseys. Read the rest of this entry →

Women’s Professional Soccer and Sahlen Packing Company, Inc. of Buffalo, NY, today announced a partnership that makes Sahlen’s the “Official Hot Dog of Women’s Professional Soccer.”

Joe Sahlen, third generation owner and CEO of the family meat packing business is also owner of WPS’s newest club, Western New York Flash. The announcement, released on the day his club made Alex Morgan the first pick in the league’s college draft, put Sahlen, his company and his Flash in dual roles on center stage in Women’s Professional Soccer.

Shalen has already created a unique and ingenious business model by which his team’s business operations will be run through the meat company’s front office, requiring only additional salaries for competitive aspects of team operations, while also using the team as part of his overall marketing strategy, has added further value to the Sahlen brand by becoming a sponsor of the league.

The deal, which includes a “Sahlen’s” logo patch on all WPS team uniforms throughout the 2011 season, was announced by WPS CEO Anne-Marie Eileraas prior to the 2011 WPS Draft at the NSCAA Convention in Baltimore, Maryland.

“We are pleased to add a premier brand like Sahlen’s to our sponsorship roster in the third year of play,” said Eileraas. “With the addition of Sahlen’s as another national sponsor, we are ahead of our plans to bring on new sponsors for the 2011 season – well in advance of pre-season.” As part of the deal, Sahlen’s will also receive placement on the WPS website. Read the rest of this entry →