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Hermann Trophy, Part 2: Revenge of the Hermann

If we only had eight fingers, would all our lists be in multiples of four? Just asking. Anyway, since five isn’t nearly enough to cover all the worthy candidates (although neither is 10, for that matter), a few more contenders for the throne as college soccer’s top player.

Vicki DiMartino, Sophomore, Boston College
Last season: 14 goals, 6 assists in 24 games
If you believe Boston College is for real as a serious player in the national championship picture — and like the ACC coaches, I do — it stands to reason that the Eagles will likely get someone near the top of the Hermann list. If we’re talking pure potential, I’ll take Kristie Mewis as the most talented player on the roster and one of the 10 or 15 most talented players in college soccer at the moment. But Vicki DiMartino isn’t hurting for talent of her own, and she may occupy a higher-profile role for a team many outside New England are still getting to know. Like her older sisters before her, she’s creative and good on the ball. But perhaps even more than either Christina at UCLA or Gina at B.C., she has a nose for goal and is very comfortable playing at the top of the attack.

Danielle Foxhoven, Junior, Portland
Last season: 25 goals, 12 assists in 22 games
Then again, when they cast the movie, they made Tom Cruise the fighter pilot, not the guy steering the carrier. Foxhoven is a fantastic player who deserves credit for her ability to do more than finish — not that anyone is complaining about how often she does that, too. For all the reasons stated in mulling over Sophie Schmidt’s chances, and for all the reasons Portland itself named Foxhoven its female student-athlete of the year for 2009-10, the junior is clearly a strong contender in her own right. Ruth and Gehrig, Magic and Kareem, Gibbard and Walla … take your pick.

Ali Hawkins, Senior North Carolina
Last season: 5 goals, 5 assists in 20 games
It’s a rule that North Carolina has to have someone at least in the conversation for the Hermann Trophy, right? Hawkins has already been a valuable piece of three national championships during her stay in Chapel Hill, so she seems a reasonable place to start thinking about the future beyond last year’s senior class (that she would have been part of, if not for the injury that wiped out most of her 2007 season). In terms of sheer force of will or soccer personality, Hawkins strikes me as being cut from the same cloth as Heather O’Reilly was on an otherwise young Tar Heels team in 2006. Hawkins isn’t the offensive star that O’Reilly was at the college level, of course, but from Anson Dorrance’s preseason podcast, it sounds like she’ll be playing more of an attacking role than the holding role she has at times filled admirably. To that end, I’m not sure you can win a Hermann on leadership alone, but if the Tar Heels stay at the top of the rankings, she may not need eye-popping stats to garner attention.

Morgan Marlborough, Sophomore, Nebraska
Last season: 21 goals, 7 assists in 19 games
Don’t judge Marlborough by her numbers — no matter which direction they lead you. The 21 goals she scored as a freshman last season are a bit misleading given Nebraska’s schedule — she scored 10 of them in a four-game stretch against Lamar, North Dakota, Akron and South Dakota. But it’s equally misleading to look at the numbers and write her off as simply the product of schedule-induced stat inflation. At 6 feet, she’s obviously capable of playing in a target role, but watching her in person last season — even coming as it did during one of Nebraska’s low moments in a 3-1 loss against Lehigh, it was readily apparent there is something special there. She’s agile, quick and perfectly comfortable with the ball at her feet. And as Texas A&M learned when she scored twice against the Aggies, she can score against any competition.

Christine Nairn, Sophomore, Penn State
Last season: 7 goals, 10 assists in 21 games
Like Sydney Leroux, with whom she won a U-20 title in 2008 and shared captain’s duties on the team this time around, she enters the fall on what must be a disappointing note after the early exit in Germany. Also like Leroux, it would be surprising to see any hangover from that experience reach even Labor Day. The only college player who has earned caps with the full national team [CORRECTION: Apologies to Cal’s Alex Morgan, who I somehow forgot already has two caps with the national team in 2010] she’s a playmaking midfielder who looks to have all sorts of new toys to play with in State College. Maya Hayes showed an ability to play wide and play on the ball in the attacking third that the Nittany Lions have lacked in recent seasons, and she’s just one part of a highly-touted freshman class that joins returnee and 13-goal scorer Danielle Toney.

Starting the season with a list seems so passe …

Believe it or not, the college regular season gets underway in a little less than two weeks. And with Kelley O’Hara playing alongside Marta and Christine Sinclair for FC Gold Pride, someone in the college ranks has to step up and claim the Hermann Trophy. Here are my top five preseason picks, in alphabetical order.

Lauren Fowlkes, Senior, Notre Dame
Last season: 10 goals, 4 assists in 26 games
Notre Dame’s media guides are comprehensive beasts — drop one on your foot for confirmation. But last season’s capsule for Fowlkes looks a little understated in hindsight, adding as almost an afterthought to hr bio: “also has some offensive capabilities.” You think? Thrown up top midway through last season for a team that needed continuity next to Melissa Henderson, Fowlkes finished with 10 goals, including five goals in 11 Big East regular-season games and three more in the Big East tournament. And based on her prior work as part of the back line and in the midfield, it’s still not even remotely clear that forward is her best position. Henderson will get the goals and build her own Hermann resume, but you’ve got to be the best at something (or at least in the running) to win the hardware. And no player is a more complete package anywhere on the field than Fowlkes.

Sydney Leroux, Junior, UCLA
Last season: 23 goals, 2 assists in 24 games
It’s her show now in Westwood. With Lauren Cheney, Kara Lang, McCall Zerboni, Kristina Larsen, Christina DiMartino and just about everyone else responsible for the bulk of UCLA’s non-Leroux points over the last two seasons moved on, Leroux is the elder stateswoman of the Bruins attack, even if she’s only a junior. Assuming she doesn’t dwell on the disappointment of her missed penalty in a quarterfinal shootout loss against Nigeria in the Under-20 Women’s World Cup, she should be up to the challenge. It doesn’t hurt that the U-20 process gave her plenty of extra time to work with Zakiya Bywaters and highly-touted incoming freshman Jenna Richmond, all under the careful watch of United States and UCLA coach Jill Ellis. Leroux is probably the most recognizable name in the college game, and that and another 20-plus goals should eventually have her on the short list for the Hermann.

Tiffany McCarty, Junior, Florida State
Last season: 17 goals, 7 assists in 25 games
McCarty might end up being the best player in the nation, or she might end up being the third-best player on her own team. Frankly, with talent like Jessica Price, Amanda DaCosta, Casey Short and Toni Pressley around in Tallahassee, it could be a fine line that separates those two possibilities. So why McCarty? All she’s done since arriving is live up to the hype, earning ACC Freshman of the Year honors in 2008 and then scoring a team-high 17 goals as a sophomore. And this may be a season when the cream rises for the Seminoles. Rather than opening against Jacksonville and South Alabama, as they did last season, or loading up on stat-stuffing games against the likes of Francis Marion, Troy and North Florida, the Seminoles start off the season against Washington State and Gonzaga — in the Palouse, no less — and face three SEC teams and Central Florida before even getting to the ACC.

Christen Press, Senior, Stanford
Last season: 21 goals, 16 assists in 26 games
How many times has a school other than North Carolina had back-to-back Hermann winners who weren’t the same person? The same number of times Stanford won a national championship in women’s soccer. Christen Press may be the key to giving the Cardinal another shot at doing the latter, if she can put together a season worthy of changing the former. Overshadowed by Kelley O’Hara, to the extent a player who totals 21 goals and 16 assists and shared player-of-the-year honors from Top Drawer Soccer can be overshadowed, Press gets her shot at the spotlight. She won’t be alone, with Lindsay Taylor, Teresa Noyola, Courtney Verloo and Mariah Nogueira among the attacking players still around in Palo Alto, meaning another 50-point season is within reach for one of college soccer’s fastest strikers.

 Sophie Schmidt, Senior, Portland
Last season: 12 goals, 12 assists in 22 games
Who gets the nod as Portland’s strongest Hermann candidate? Let’s see, all Danielle Foxhoven did last season was score 25 goals for the Pilots, production that ranked her second nationally in goals per game and first nationally in points per game, courtesy of 12 assists. Yet Foxhoven took a backseat as a sophomore to teammate Michelle Enyeart in the Hermann race, and as good as Foxhoven was, that is still hard to argue — Enyeart was that kind of good in imposing her will on all comers. Will history repeat itself? Foxhoven has to rank as one of the best pure finishers in the college game right now (she also led the Pilots with 16 goal as a freshman), but tactically speaking, she’s the ace fighter pilot. Occupying central midfield for a team with so many attacking options all over the pitch, Schmidt is the aircraft carrier.

Three United States standouts

It wasn’t the outcome the United States wanted in the Under-20 Women’s World Cup, but there were still some standout American performances over the four games in Germany.

Crystal Dunn: The back line was never a problem for the United States, allowing only two goals on shots for which the opponents deserve more praise than the defenders deserve blame. And though not exactly imposing in stature, Dunn was the biggest reason why the back line held its own. She was composed in organization, quick to the ball in support and one-on-one situations and strong in her tackles. Replacing Whitney Engen in the middle of Anson Dorrance’s three-back is asking a lot of anyone, let alone a freshman, but Dunn appears up for that kind of challenge.

Bianca Henninger: Was she moving early on the penalty saves? It’s hard to argue otherwise, especially on the first shot. Whether she was breaking the speed limit by enough to get the state trooper moving, to borrow a metaphor, is debatable. But the ending aside, Henninger was outstanding throughout the tournament. From the distance of a television screen, she never appeared rattled but was frequently audible — a good combination in a keeper. Santa Clara lost a lot, most notably Jordan Angeli and Kiki Bosio, but it still has Henninger.

Kristie Mewis: She was the team’s most consistently creative midfield presence. Sometimes the chances might not have come with the greatest odds of success, but American soccer at every level isn’t overflowing with midfielders willing to take risks in pursuit of brilliance — and with the skill to do it in the air or on the ground. It will be interesting to see where she plays for Boston College this season. Her long-term future might be as an outside back with attacking flair in the Sergio Ramos mold.

Captain Christine Nairn still seems the most likely member of the U-20 team to make the return trip to Germany for the senior World Cup next year, if any make that trip, but Dunn, Henninger and Mewis are three I’ll be looking for in 2015.

Nigeria eliminates United States

The United States played well enough to win during much of its stay in the Under-20 Women’s World Cup. Unfortunately, it didn’t play quite so well to ensure it did win.

And so it was that with Sunday’s quarterfinal deadlocked at 1-1 after 90 minute of regulation and 30 minutes of extra time, Nigeria eliminated the United States 4-2 on penalty kicks.

Call it a harsh ending for a tournament of harsh realities.

The game officially goes in the books as a draw, but for the first time ever in a major women’s competition, an African side walked off the field against an American team with a victory (a week and a half after an American side dropped points against an African side for the first time in a 1-1 draw against Ghana).

And for the first time ever in a women’s competition (World Cup, Under-20 World Cup, Under-17 World Cup or Olympics), the United States was eliminated before the semifinals.

If not for a few inches on Kristie Mewis’ shot off the crossbar in the second extra period, the United States might have escaped with a win. If not for half a step or half a beat of premature anticipation, at least as judged by the referee, one of keeper Bianca Henninger’s back-to-back saves against Nigeria’s Esther Sunday in the shootout might have counted and prolonged matters.

For that matter, a few inches either way in trajectory and Sunday’s blistering equalizer might have hit the wall or the crossbar instead of tying the score with barely 12 minutes to play in regulation.

Sunday’s shot was one of only two goals the United States allowed during the run of play in four games in Germany, both struck from 30 yards away and both leaving Henninger no opportunity to react and little room for anyone to blame the defenders in front of her.

It all makes for a rather severely miniscule margin of error — like NASA missing a goal-sized target on Mars by mere feet. It’s still a successful venture in the abstract — in this case, winning the CONCACAF qualifying tournament in Guatemala and winning Group D by taking seven points out of nine — but it’s ultimately unsatisfying.

There is a bigger picture in all of this. In each of the previous four Under-20 events, at least three out of the quartet of Brazil, Germany, North Korea and the United States reached the semifinals. China also earned a pair of semifinal trips in that span. In truth, only France rated as an outsider in earning a fourth-place finish two years ago. But in Colombia, Nigeria and South Korea, this year’s final quartet features not only three new faces but three new faces representing distinct parts of the globe.

Brazil didn’t get out of its group. China and Canada, the latter another habitual qualifier, didn’t even make the field of 16 teams. Mexico made it out of its group for the first time in any women’s tournament, only to lose to a South Korean team that has played the most entertaining, skillful soccer this side of Germany thus far in the event.

During the broadcast of Sunday’s game, the announcer noted that German legend Franz Beckenbauer, in attendance, had remarked on the increased parity in the women’s game. It’s the kind of thing people like Beckenbauer say when hosting a FIFA event in advance of next year’s senior World Cup in Germany and when they have aspirations to bring the men’s Cup back to Germany in the not-so-distant future.

But on occasion, even perfunctory diplomacy coincides with the truth.

The United States still has a depth of talent that’s difficult for any country to match. Through the mutually beneficial interaction of colleges, WPS and U.S. Soccer, it also has the infrastructure to take the talent at youth levels and ensure it continues improving, something countries like Nigeria, Mexico and Colombia still need to prove they can manufacture and maintain. It also doesn’t have much margin for error anymore.

To call a quarterfinal exit against Nigeria anything other than disappointing would be to diminish the talent and commitment of the players on this American team. They expected to contend for a championship because that’s what comes with putting on that national team jersey. They had the talent to contend, certainly the talent to stick around longer than four games. And they made the mistakes that will haunt them: missed finishing opportunities, difficulty maintaining possession and creating scoring chances out of sustained buildup and squandered set pieces, among them.

At the same time, it feels unfair to throw around words like “failure” without regard to to context of the bigger picture. This team didn’t fail; it just didn’t win.

Instead of only itself to blame, the U.S. also had the rest of the world to thank.