9781422275955

WOMEN'S SOCCER TODAY Superstars of Women's Soccer Top Teams in Women's Soccer U.S. Women's Team Women's Soccer on the Rise

BRYCE KANE

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ISBN (hardback) 978-1-4222-4213-1 ISBN (series) 978-1-4222-4212-4 ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4222-7595-5

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Developed and Produced by National Highlights Inc. Editor: Andrew Luke Interior and cover design: Annalisa Gumbrecht, Studio Gumbrecht Production: Michelle Luke

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Who’s Number One?.................................................................................................. 7 Chapter 2 Super Strikers........................................................................................................... 23 Chapter 3 Midfield Mavens........................................................................................................ 37 Chapter 4 Dynamite Defenders................................................................................................ 51 Chapter 5 The Keepers.............................................................................................................. 65 Glossary of Soccer Terms.................................................................................. 76 Further Reading, Internet Resources............................................................... 77 Index............................................................................................................................... 78 Author's Biography and Credits........................................................................ 80

KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR:

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills.

SIDEBARS: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more!

TEXT-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there.

RESEARCH PROJECTS: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. SERIES OF GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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WORDS TO UNDERSTAND: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills. dynamic pertaining to or characteriz d by energy or effective action; vigorously active or forceful; energetic intuitive based on what one feels to b tru eve without conscious reasoning; instinctive superlative the highest quality or degree tactical of, relating to, or used for a specific plan that is created to achieve a particular goal WORDS TO UNDERSTAND SIDEBARS: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, pro them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more! TEXT-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS: These questions send the reader back to the tex for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. RESEARCH PROJECTS: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry conn to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper res and analysis. SERIES OF GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s a to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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CHAPTER 1

Who's Number One? Women's soccer is a dynamic sport that has changed rapidly over the years. While many of the top players remain the same for years, new and younger stars are always on the rise. Currently, four women stand apart as the top female soccer players in the world. These four footballers are Lieke Martens, Pernille Harder, Wendie Renard, and Lucy Bronze. Each of these athletes has many accomplishments that place her at or near the top of this list. 2017 FEMALE PLAYER OF THE YEAR Among her many accomplishments as a soccer player, Dutch midfielder/ forward Lieke Martens was named the Best FIFA Women’s Player of 2017 at the FIFA Gala. FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) is the sport’s international governing body, and the gala is an annual event at which it announces each year’s award winners across the sport. Martens won this award after winning the Women’s Euro, or the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Women’s Championship for the Netherlands over the summer of 2017. Martens is likely to make a big splash in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France and help the Netherlands compete at a superlative level.

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Martens was born on December 16, 1992, in Bergen, which is a city located in the Limburg province of the Netherlands. Martens enjoyed soccer from a young age. She joined Dutch club teams SC Heerenveen from 2009 to 2010 and VVV-Venlo from 2010 to 2011. The following season Martens played at Standard Liège in the Belgian First Division, which is the top women’s soccer league in Belgium.

After eight seasons playing in Holland, Belgium, Germany and Sweden, Martens now plays for the famous FC Barcelona in Spain.

Martens’s international career reached an early peak in the 2010 UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship. It was during this competition that she scored four goals to tie Turid Knaak as the top scorer for the event. It was also this championship that really turned people on to Martens, who became an international women’s soccer celebrity overnight. Her fun, friendly, and humble interviews have become very popular on YouTube and other video sites. In 2011, she played in a friendly against China for her first match on the Netherlands's senior national team.

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Her skills as a player inspired Dutch coach Roger Reijners to select her for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup squad. Martens did not let Reijners down, as she became the first player to score a Women's World Cup goal in Dutch team history during that tournament. Later on, she scored three goals in the Netherlands’s 2017 UEFA Women's Euro campaign. Other titles she has helped her teams win over the years include the 2011 BeNe Super Cup, the Svenska Cupen in 2015–2016, the Svenska Supercupen in 2016, and the Copa de la Reina de Fútbol in 2018. The most prominent example of Martens’ playing excellence

After Martens joined the team, Barcelona won its league championship by a whopping 14-point margin.

came during her debut season with FC Barcelona in 2017. The club had been increasing its success over the previous few years before adding Martens's, but she helped to take them over the top. Just how much did they improve over that time? With Martens’s help, her squad won their first four games by a shocking goal differential of 23–0. That is just under a 6–0 scoring average and was, by far, the best differential in the league during that period. Barcelona ended the season as the top team in La Liga with ninety-three points, scoring ninety-nine goals versus twenty-nine scored against them. They won twenty-eight games, drew nine, and lost just one. Their closest competitor, Atlético Madrid, had only seventy-nine points and fifty-eight goals scored on twenty-two scored against with a record of 38–5–10.

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WORDS TO UNDERSTAND: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills. PLAYING STYLE Martens is a midfielder and forward known to play an aggressive style of soccer that focuses on quick dribbles and scoring off the pass. Coach Stefan Rehn compared her style and technique with that of Manon Melis. Melis is one of the top Dutch female soccer players of all time and is the all-time leading scorer for her country. Like Melis, Martens has a clear understanding of the soccer field and the ways that soccer plays develop. One of her signature moves is a quick header for a stunning goal. There are many highlights of her taking a cross from a teammate and getting it into the back of the net using just her head. However, she is also known as a skilled tactical thinker who works hard to not only get into scoring position but also to help her teammates by separating from defenders to take a pass for a goal. A Typical Training Routine for Lieke Martens Training takes up a lot of Martens' schedule and leaves her little time to relax between significant competitions. For example, she is known to work heavily on creating strong, stable, explosive legs. Her routine centers around a basic step-up paired with weights. The weights increase the intensity of the routine and improve its effectiveness. Other training routines she uses include the side step-up and kick, as well as a suitcase deadlift and lateral step-up. Each of these exercises is performed during a multi-hour daily training session that also includes c diovasc lar training. Soccer players don't get a lot of time to relax if they want to be the best in the world. SIDEBARS: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more! TEXT-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. RESEARCH PROJECTS: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. SERIES OF GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR:

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Martens was named FIFA Best Women’s Player in 2017.

PERNILLE HARDER: ALSO THE BEST? In 2017, striker Pernille Harder of Denmark won the first-ever female version of the Goal 50 award for being the best player of the season. Goal. com is a UK-based soccer website that is the second-largest online sports publication in the world. Being named top player by Goal.com is a less- prestigious honor than winning FIFA Best Player, but it shows that some experts think Harder is better than Martens. Harder was also the runner- up in the UEFA Women's Player of the Year Award in 2016–2017, losing out to Martens. Ironically, Martens defeated Harder in the 2017 UEFA Women's Euro tournament, which is likely why she, and not Harder, won the award. Harder, who like Martens is just twenty-six, debuted on the Denmark national team in 2009 at the age of seventeen. Since then, she has

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made a major impact on the international soccer community. She has been the captain of the team since 2016 and helped lead them to the UEFA Women's Euro championship game in 2017, a game in which she scored a goal. Before this experience, she was probably best known for her time with Linköpings FC, the Swedish club where she scored seventy goals in just eighty-seven matches from 2012 to 2016. At the 2008 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, sixteen-year-old Harder scored a hat trick in a stunning 15–0 win over Georgia. Hat tricks have become something of a trademark for Harder, as she scored them against Austria and Armenia in 2011 and another against Russia in 2013.

Harder’s long hair flows behind her as she streaks down the field dribbling the ball during a UEFA Women’s Champions league match in 2018.

She was Denmark's top qualifying scorer in the 2013 Women's Euro with nine goals. And while Germany ultimately went on to win the championship in that competition, Harder's efforts helped make Denmark one of the top qualifiers and a team to watch out for in the 2019 Women’s World Cup tournament.

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PLAYING STYLE Like Martens, Harder is known for an aggressive and upbeat playing style. This method matches the typical Denmark approach, which is to keep moving, pass frequently, and score goals on quick-developing plays. This high-tempo style of soccer has become ideal for many clubs around the world. It contrasts with the slower and more tactical play that is common with more traditional clubs, such as Germany. Here are a few shocking statistics that showcase just how good Harder has become. In her first eight years of senior club play, she scored 115 goals with seventeen coming in domestic cup matches. During the same time, she scored more than fifty goals for Denmark's national team. And her international cup career, which started in 2014, has earned her eight goals. For those keeping score at home, that's upward of 160 goals in seven years. To put that into perspective, that's an average of more than twenty- twos goals every year. KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR:

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND: These words with their easy-to-understand will increase the reader’s understanding of the text while building vocabula

SIDEBARS: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to buil knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspecti weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic per EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR c them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and mu

TEXT-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS: These questions send the reader back t for more careful attention to the evidence presented there.

Watch Pernille Harder lead Denmark past Poland in the 2017 Euro. SERIES OF GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS: This back-of-the-book glossary terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the r to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field. RESEARCH PROJECTS: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inq to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage de and analysis.

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Wendie Renard, Center Back (France/Lyon)

 Only player voted to the first three FIFPro Women’s World XI Teams (2015, 2016, 2017)  2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup All-Star  MORE THAN 100 CAPS ................................................... ....................................................... .........................................

................................................................ ........................................................... ....................................................................... Lieke Martens, Midfielder (Netherlands/Barcelona)  2017 BEST FIFAWOMEN’S PLAYER  2017 UEFA Women’s Player of the Year  Golden Ball winner, 2017 Women’s Euro

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