Actually, the title of this post may be a bit misleading since I do recall reading a recent Offside blog post where the author claimed to know nothing about soccer in St. Louis except "the spanking hot Hope Solo." Anyhooo, our Fearless Leader™ is having a training camp next week with the usual suspects plus a few of the current NCAA Div 1 standouts.

US Soccer has been a little slow to update news-starved fans on whereabouts of the USWNT. And almost as if Abby Wambach knew a few tweeters were loudly voicing their complaints (in 140 characters or less), on Oct 20th she updated her twitter: leaving for germany tonight. i will keep you more up to date while i'm there.

Here are the facts (or as many facts as I can remember): The #1 and #2 ranked teams in the world are about to play a friendly in the future location of the 2011 Women's World Cup. Germany recently won the Euros by destroying England 6-2 and if you caught that one on the internets, I don't use the term "destroying" lightly.

Did ya hear the news? So conveniently released one day before last week's draw. I'm starting to think press folks on the women's side intentionally make announcements at the exact moment something HUGE happens in the men's game (WPS does it all the time). In 2015, FIFA will expand the Women's World Cup from 16 to 24 teams.

For the last time, it's pronounced HUE-clees!

The Boston Breakers site just announced Angela Hucles is retiring from professional soccer. She says:

I always wanted to involve myself in things I was passionate about and give 110 percent.