Women’s Professional Soccer 2009. First Drafts.

Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) is shaping up for an exciting premiere season in 2009 and has this month held its domestic allocation draft for players of the Olympic Gold winning U.S. Women’s National Team and also the Initial International Draft.

The opening season of WPS will feature Seven teams: Bay Area, St. Louis, Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, Los Angeles, Sky Blue FC and Washington Freedom. It is possible that the number of teams will increase in later seasons.

Each team was allocated three players each from the U.S. Women's National Team pool. The players and teams had to submit their player preferences to the league and then a committee examined the lists to make its recommendations. The Committee allocated the following players to the teams stated.

St. Louis: Lori Chalupny, Tina Ellertson, Hope Solo

Bay Area: Nicole Barnhart, Rachel Buehler, Leslie Osborne

Boston Breakers: Angela Hucles, Kristine Lilly, Heather Mitts

Chicago Red Stars: Carli Lloyd, Kate Markgraf, Lindsay Tarpley

Los Angeles: Shannon Boxx, Stephanie Cox, Aly Wagner

Sky Blue FC: Natasha Kai, Heather O'Reilly, Christie Rampone

Washington Freedom: Ali Krieger, Abby Wambach, Cat Whitehill

Each team got four picks in the Initial International Draft. The General Draft, which takes place on October 6th, will also allow more international players to be picked. The initial international draft does not mean that the players are signed, It is the start of a process where the players will enter into negotiations with the player and International rules regarding those transfers of contract apply.

When all the drafting is done, a total of up to five international players will be available for transfer to each team for the 2009 season.

Initial International Draft allocation – (Order of pick in brackets)

Bay Area: (1) Formiga (Brazil) (2) Christine Sinclair (Canada) (3) Eriko Arakawa (Japan) (4) Erika (Brazil)

Boston Breakers (1) Kelly Smith (England) (2) Fabiana (Brazil) (3) Maycon (Brazil) (4) Shinobu Ohno (Japan)

Los Angeles (1) Marta (Brazil) (2) Miyama (Japan) (3) Han Duan (China) (4) Margret Lara Vidarsdottir (Iceland)

St. Louis (1) Daniela (Brazil) (2) Renata Costa (Brazil) (3) Lotta Schelin (Sweden) (4) Melissa Tancredi (Canada)

Chicago Red Stars (1) Cristiane (Brazil) (2) Heather Garriock (Australia) (3) Karen Carney (England) (4) Caroline Jonsson (Sweden)

Washington Freedom (1) Homare Sawa (Japan) (2) Sonia Bompastor (France) (3) Lisa De Vanna (Australia) (4) Louisa Nécib (France)

Sky Blue FC (NJ/NY) (1) Sarah Walsh (Australia) (2) Rosana (Brazil) (3) Ester (Brazil) (4) Kelly Parker (Canada)

Additional Notes.

The following information will affect the October draft.

Source: WomensProSoccer.com

St. Louis traded the 6th pick to Washington along with picks in the October draft, then selected Daniela

St. Louis traded its 4th round pick to Los Angeles along with picks in the October draft, then selected Schelin

Los Angeles traded its 3rd round pick to St. Louis along with picks in the October draft, then selected Vidarsdottir

Washington traded the 4th pick to St. Louis along with picks in the October draft, then selected Sawa.

Womens Professional Soccer has stated on the official website that it aims to be the best league in the world. The initial signs are looking very promising.

"The goal of WPS is to be the world’s premier women’s soccer league and the global standard by which women’s professional sports are measured."

To your success, WPS!