Women's United Soccer Association
| Women's United Soccer Association | |
| Full name | Women's United Soccer Association |
| abbreviation | WUSA |
| Association | USSF |
| First edition | 2001 |
| Last event | 2003 |
| hierarchy | 1st League |
| Teams | 8th |
| Record champions |
Bay Area CyberRays Carolina Courage Washington Freedom (one each) |
| Record player |
 Jennifer Grubb Nel Fettig (63 missions each)
|
| Record scorer |
 Dagny Mellgren(36 goals) |
| region |
United States
|
The Women's United Soccer Association (abbreviation: WUSA ) was the world's first professional league in women's football . It started in 2001 in the USA with eight teams. There were three seasons.
history
The title win of the United States women's national soccer team at the 1999 World Cup demonstrated that a profitable market for the sport was emerging. Together with John Hendricks, the founder of the Discovery Channel , the twenty national players succeeded in winning investors and players for a league of eight teams.
During the year 2000, now WUSA (Women's United Soccer Association) called League announced to want to play in eight of the country distributed cities: Atlanta , San Francisco Bay Area , Boston , New York City , Orlando , Philadelphia , San Diego and Washington, DC .
The United States Soccer Federation classified the new league on August 18, 2000 as the top division in women's football in the United States.
This professional league was structured like the other American professional leagues. There was no promotion or relegation and the teams did not belong to clubs, but to investors. There was one per team salary cap ( salary cap ), although the top stars of the league still had additional contracts.
The WUSA played a total of three seasons from 2001 to 2003. On September 15, 2003, however, it was announced that the league will be discontinued for financial reasons. Neither the audience figures nor the TV ratings met expectations, and the initial budget of 40 million US dollars originally set for five years had already been used up by the end of the first season.
Teams
- Atlanta beat
- Boston Breakers
- Carolina Courage (originally planned as Orlando Tempest in Orlando )
- New York Power
- Philadelphia Charge
- San Diego Spirit
- San Jose CyberRays (in the 2001 Bay Area CyberRays season )
- Washington Freedom
The squad consisted mainly of players from the United States, with up to four foreign players per team. Team Germany 's Birgit Prinz , Maren Meinert , Sandra Minnert , Bettina Wiegmann , Doris Fitschen , Steffi Jones , Conny Pohlers and Jennifer Meier in the WUSA active. The other international players included the Chinese Sun Wen , Pu Wei , Fan Yunjie , Zhang Ouying , Gao Hong , Zhao Lihong and Bai Jie , the Norwegians Hege Riise , Unni Lehn and Dagny Mellgren, the Brazilians Sissi , Kátia and Pretinha and the Canadians Charmaine Hooper , Sharolta Nonen and Christine Latham .
In addition, players from "smaller" women's football nations at that time were active in the WUSA, such as Maribel Domínguez from Mexico , Homare Sawa from Japan , Julie Fleeting from Scotland , Cheryl Salisbury from Australia , Marinette Pichon from France and Kelly Smith from England .
Finals (Founders Cup)
The winner of the play-offs of the best four teams of the regular season won the championship and received the so-called Founders Cup , the name of which was given in honor of the 20 founding players.
| year | master | finalist | Result | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Bay Area CyberRays | Atlanta beat | 3: 3 . N V. 4: 2 i. E. |
Foxborough |
| 2002 | Carolina Courage | Washington Freedom | 3: 2 | Atlanta |
| 2003 | Washington Freedom | Atlanta beat | 2: 1 a.d. | San Diego |
The extra time in the WUSA comprised two halves of seven and a half minutes each, was played in golden goal mode and was only used in the play-offs.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ ussoccer.com: WUSA Granted US Soccer Membership as Division I Women's Professional Soccer League ( Memento from April 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ SI.com: Cash-strapped WUSA folds five days before Women's World Cup ( Memento from February 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive )