US Women getting ready for Algarve Cup

Fresh off their win at the Four Nations Tournament, the US women are getting ready to head back into camp to prepare for the Algarve Cup next month.

US head coach Greg Ryan has named a 28-player roster for the Feb 14-21 camp in Carson, Calf. The roster is full of familiar names as only two players have yet to earn a national team cap (Rachel Buehler of Stanford and Keeley Dowling of U of Tennessee).

The Algarve Cup is the biggest yearly women's tournament and is only surpassed in prestige by the World Cup and the Olympics.

This year, 12 teams will meet in the Algarve region of Portugal between March 7 and 14th. The teams are divided into three groups. Groups A&B are the higher ranked teams while Group C is more of a second tier.

Teams play a round robin in their group, with their final group positioning deciding what playoff spot they play for. First place in A&B play form the Championship, second in A&B play for third and third in A&B play for fifth. The first place team in C plays the better fourth place team from A&B for seventh and the second place team place the worse team from A&B for ninth. The last two teams in C play for eleventh place.

Here are the groups:
Group A
Germany, Norway, France, Denmark
Group B
USA, China, Finland, Sweden
Group C
Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Iceland

The US will open against China on March 7. This will be a difficult test, even though the two sides will have played each other just a month earlier. The US then gets Finland (March 9), which should be the easiest of the three matches. Then comes the big show down with Sweden (March 12). There is a very good chance that the outcome of this game will decide the group.

The US has dominated the tournament since 2003, however, last year they fell to Germany in penalty kicks. In all, the US has played in 7 of the 13 Championship matches, winning four of them (2000, 03, 04, 05). They are currently tied with Norway for the most titles.

Here is the US roster for camp:
GOALKEEPERS (3): Jenni Branam (Placentia, Calif.), Briana Scurry (Dayton, Minn.), Hope Solo (Richland, Wash.)

DEFENDERS (8): Rachel Buehler (Del Mar, Calif.), Lori Chalupny (St. Louis, Mo.), Keeley Dowling (Carmel, Ind.), Tina Frimpong (Vancouver, Wash.), Heather Mitts (Cincinnati, Ohio), Christie Rampone (Point Pleasant, N.J.), India Trotter (Plantation, Fla.), Cat Whitehill (Birmingham, Ala.)

MIDFIELDERS (8): Yael Averbuch (Upper Montclair, N.J.), Shannon Boxx (Redondo Beach, Calif.), Angela Hucles (Virginia Beach, Va.), Carli Lloyd (Delran, N.J.), Joanna Lohman (Silver Spring, Md.), Marci Miller (St. Charles, Ill.), Leslie Osborne (Brookfield, Wis.), Aly Wagner (San Jose, Calif.)

FORWARDS (9): Lauren Cheney (Indianapolis, Ind.), Danielle Fotopoulos (Altamonte Springs, Fla.), Natasha Kai (Kahuku, Hawaii), Kristine Lilly (Wilton, Conn.), Casey Nogueira (Cedarburg, Wis.), Heather O’Reilly (East Brunswick, N.J.), Lindsay Tarpley (Kalamazoo, Mich.), Abby Wambach (Rochester, N.Y.), Kacey White (Arlington, Texas)