Month Review: The World of Women's Football-Soccer- in May.

Familiar Sight: Amy Rodriguez had the Peak of the Goals in May

 Yesterday, we finally said goodbye to the month of May as we fully entered into June, May is a month where we really start to transition from spring season to summer and it’s usually the month where our favourite TV shows are at their climaxes and tending towards the season finales at the same time. To round things off, May is usually the month of football-soccer- excitement as various leagues around the world come to a high intensified finale on a yearly basis.

In Men’s Football, the month of May conveyed the end of various leagues and competitions around the world in preparation for World Cup coming up in the summer, Brazil 2014.  The most popular viewing of the men’s game was the UEFA Champions League Final, where over 90,000 spectators watched Real Madrid overturn Atletico Madrid, 4-1 to win their Tenth European title.

So that marked the end of major league competitions in the men’s game, however the Women’s Football world wasn’t short of excitement too, as I’ll be going into more details about the activities in the women’s game during May.

League Updates

In England, the FA WSL 1 table had Arsenal Ladies rock bottom, without a win so far in the league, not the start that many had predicted. Defending Champions, Liverpool drew their two games surprisingly; dropping to 4^th position, Chelsea also failed to record a win during the month dropping to 6^th, while Man.City Ladies started to finally find their footing, collecting all 6 points against Everton Ladies and Arsenal. Birmingham City Ladies went top of the league while Bristol Academy followed closely in 2^nd with 1 point behind.

Arsenal Ladies may have been abysmal in the league but their cup form was good enough to be in the final of the Women’s FA Cup against Everton ladies after defeating Chelsea 5-3 away in extra time.

In the Japanese L League, Urawa Reds continued to top the league despite losing 3-1 to Yunogo Belle, where Aya Miyama scored the pick of the goals to ensure the Red diamond ladies finally tasted defeat after going on a 5 game winning streak. Current league champions, INAC Kobe Leonessa, recorded their highest victory in the league so far, defeating dead last FC Kibi, 5-0. The victory however took INAC Kobe from 7^th to 6^th position as they still have a lot of ground to cover if they want to retain the title this season.

Also in the USA, the NWSL regular season continued to be as thrilling as it’s usually known to be. The shock of the month came when Boston Breakers defeated Portland Thorns FC, 4-1 at the Havard stadium without most of their regular starters, Heather O’Reily and Lianne Sanderson included. Jazmine Reeves did the honors in Boston, putting 3 goals past Angerer for Portland’s most infamous defeat and to claim for herself the match ball. However big that win was for Boston, they still found themselves bottom of the league as the Houston Dash who were about to go the whole month without a point defeated the Western New York Flash (WNYF) 2-1, on the 31^st of May, moving above the Boston Breakers with a point.

Seattle Reign continued to top the table but not in the manner they started. They finally let go of their 100% win record as they drew-tied- their last 2 games in the month thanks to Kim Little who scored both equalizers in the two games. Chicago Red Stars also picked up the pace winning 5 games in a row and are now seated in 2^nd place with 4 points behind, FC Kansas are 4^th.

Kim Little continued to be impressive, scoring 4 goals in 4 games, bringing her total to 8 for the season and joint top scorer with FC Kansas’ Amy Rodriguez who has also been in inspired form, scoring 8 as well and unlike Little, she is without a goal from the penalty spot.

Elsewhere, there was relief for some of the game’s huge stars, Sydney Leroux finally scored for the Reign this month as well as Christine Sinclair who scored Portland’s only goal in the 4-1 defeat to Boston and her first for the season.

And finally, still on the topic of goals, Christine Narin and Mcall Zerboni scored goals that could be considered in the top 10 goals for the season so far. Tekkers!

(Continued in next article)

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