A few publications, Soccer America included, ranked Philadelphia as the worst team in the WUSA in the preseason. But through the first three games, the Charge leads the league with seven points from a 2-0-1 record. Kelly Smith played in the first two games but missed the recent 3-2 win over the Bay Area with a stress fracture in her right ankle. BY KELLY SMITH The season had been going very well, than I found out I have a stress fracture on the outside of my right ankle, on the bone, and I’m supposed to be out four to six weeks. I found out Friday. It had been giving me pain, so I got an X-ray. I had expected it because the pain had shifted from muscles around the ankle to the bone. I didn’t train the whole week. It’s been a reoccurring thing. I hurt in it in college my senior year in a game against Providence. I didn’t get proper treatment, the ankle was kind of week, and I played and took knocks on it. My ankle kept me out of the Big East semifinal with Notre Dame, my last college game. The hard ground out in California [at WUSA Spring Training] didn’t do it a world of good. I’ll be reevaluated after three weeks with an X-ray to see how it’s doing. Hopefully I won’t be out six weeks. I’ll just do what doctor the says. I’m hoping to be back in three to four weeks and come back at the beginning of June. I will probably drive myself to our New York game this weekend, but I very much doubt I will travel while I’m injured, because I would take up a travel spot. We won our first game in San Diego, 2-0, then in Atlanta we tied, 0-0. And then we beat the Bay Area, 3-2. We’re going out with the attitude we have something to prove because we’ve been ranked last. But there’s no pressure. It’s a good thing to be expected to lose. We just go out there and play. First-game jitters. The game against San Diego [in San Diego], it was a great atmosphere. During warmups, there were not many people here. I thought, Wow so many seats to fill and not enough time before the start of the game. But when I came out for the national anthem, it was packed. There were fireworks and the American anthem — I was kind of emotional, because it was the beginning of my professional career. Late in the first half I was brought down. I went to shoot it and I was pulled down. Some reporter told me afterward there was some question about whether I dove, but I didn’t dive. I’m glad my teammates saw the video and stuck up for me and said I didn’t dive. We were lucky that Doris Fitschen’s penalty went under Swedish goalkeeper’s body. It was not a great shot. It was funny — after the game in the locker room Doris stopped everybody and said, “I haven’t taken a penalty kick in a competitive game since 1989.” She thought she should tell us after the PK rather than before. We didn’t discuss beforehand who would take penalty kicks. I took them in preseason. Normally I hear a shout from bench when we get a penalty kick. But I didn’t hear that, and Doris stepped up. We’ve discussed that since. If there is a PK again, I will take them I got that lucky break in the 62nd minute, when their right back didn’t fully pass the ball back to the goalkeeper and I ran onto it and passed the keeper and put the ball in the net. I was happy to get the first [WUSA] player of the week award for my performance in that game. That was a great accomplishment for me. Playing in Atlanta. [Bobby Dodd Stadium] was really nice. Just walking into the stadium was amazing — how the bleachers were, the grass was so flat and so nice. It was like, Wow, with such a nice stadium to play in we should get a result here. We noticed during practice that the grass was really fast, then noticed there’s turf underneath and it was like playing on turf. You have to play more to feet more than into space on that field. I don’t think Atlanta is really used to it either. You try to play the ball into space, and it was out of bounds before you knew it. We didn’t play as well in that game as we did in San Diego. It was good to go there and get a point. Home opener. Our home opener was great. It was a high-scoring game. I think playing on [artificial] turf, the matches will be high-scoring games, because it’s so quick and will cause a lot of mistakes. I’m just glad we got one more goal than they did. Erin Martin’s goal [a half-volley from the upper-right corner of the Bay Area penalty area, with Martin facing away from goal] was amazing. We were going crazy on the sidelines. Lorrie Fair did a good job replacing me up front. She held the ball pretty well and battled well. We had a meeting today, and Mark said how good it is to have Lorrie on the team because she’s so versatile. We played her at left midfield, on the right and now up top. Leading the standings feels great. We’ve scored the most goals [5] as well. It just feels really good. We’re looking forward to this coming weekend in New York to see if we can get another win. (England veteran Kelly Smith set NCAA career records with 3.41 points per game and 1.49 goals per game while at Seton Hall, where she also served as assistant coach. Philadelphia chose Kelly and Doris Fitschen with the second pick in the WUSA’s foreign draft. Kelly’s column appears monthly on Socceramerica.com. Kelly also has her own Web site at kellysmithsoccer.com.)