U.S. Soccer: Heinrichs takes youngsters to Europe

Eleven players will be looking for their first cap when April Heinrichs takes a new-look squad to represent the United States in Europe. With the national team veterans in preseason training camps with their WUSA clubs, or, in the case of Santa Clara’s Danielle Slaton, awaiting knee surgery, the U.S. head coach will lead a young 20-player team to Europe for a March 7 friendly with Italy outside of Rome and then to Portugal for the eight-team Algarve Cup. The annual tournament this year features the full women’s national teams of Canada, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, China, Denmark and Finland. The U.S. team, with an average age of just over 19 years, stands to gain extremely valuable experience during the tour in much the same way a group of teenagers named Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Kristine Lilly, Joy Fawcett and Brandi Chastain did during the late 1980s when they broke into the national team lineup. Just eight of the 20 are at least 20 years old, with the oldest player being UCLA’s 21-year-old forward Stephanie Rigamat. The U.S. roster will feature 16 players currently in college and four high school-aged players in 18-year old Sara Randolph of Cincinnati, Ohio, who was the youngest member of the USA’s 2000 Olympic Residency Camp, 17-year old Lori Chalupny of Chesterfield, Mo., and two 16-year-olds, Amy Steadman of Brevard, N.C., and Kristin Weiss of Brecksville, Ohio. The veterans of the U.S. roster are midfielders Jena Kluegel (5 caps), Aleisha Cramer (9), Mary-Frances Monroe (5) and goalkeeper Hope Solo (4), all of whom played with the USA in January on the two-game tour of China. Forwards Christie Welsh (15 caps, 11 goals) and Alyssa Ramsey (3), along with Kluegel and Cramer, were also a part of the USA’s pre-Olympic training camp. Rigamat earned her first two caps on the China trip. Seven of the players were members of the USA’s 2000 Under-21 Nordic Cup championship team last summer in Germany. The U.S. roster would have featured several players with a bit more experience if not for a spate of injuries that kept seven of the USA’s brightest young stars, including Slaton, at home. Forward Susan Bush is recovering from ACL surgery, defender Nandi Pryce is still recovering from a broken leg, midfielder Aly Wagner, the 2001 U.S. Soccer Young Female Player of the Year, is still hampered by hamstring problems, as is defender Lauren Orlandos. Defender Danielle Borgman is recovering from major leg surgery for compartment syndrome and midfielder Veronica Zepeda is still recovering from severe shin splints. Fifteen of the players on the roster participated in a training camp last week at the ARCO U.S. Olympic Training Center in San Diego, Calif. Forward Laura Schott earned her place on the roster by scoring in all three exhibitions against southern California college teams. Defender Ally Marquand, who would have been part of the Nordic Cup team last summer if she hadn’t torn her ACL just prior to the tournament, earned her place on the roster in her first action back with the national team since fully recovering from the injury. The Algarve Cup will run from March 11-17 in several towns on the Southern coast of Portugal and the USA will face Canada (March 11), Portugal (March 13) and Sweden (March 15) in first round play. The Algarve Cup is consistently one of the world’s most competitive international events outside of the Women’s World Cup and the Olympics, setting up a huge challenge for the young U.S. team. At the end of round-robin play within the groups, the group winners will play for the Algarve Cup championship. The two second-place group finishers will play for third place, the third-place finishers for fifth and the last-place finishers will play for seventh. The USA has won the tournament just once in six trips to the tournament. 2001 Algarve Cup U.S. National Team Roster