Canales Daily: Ruthless Is One Thing, Reckless Another

By Andrea Canales

It's been there for years- that moment, and sometimes, viewers are able to catch a fleeting glimpse of it - other times, it's on full display. There's a time when female athletes step up and what falls away is the veneer of the "nice girl"; the one who steps aside, who is happy just to be there, whose primary job is to "be good and smile pretty".

Whether it's Serena Williams staring down an opponent in a Wimbledon final, Annika Sorenstam hitting from the guy's tees at the Colonial, or Dara Torres refusing to succumb to the ravages of time, there's a point where the competitive fire ignites and the woman warrior emerges.

It happens to 6'5 basketball star Lisa Leslie and 4'10 gymnast Shawn Johnson - and the pain of defeat versus the pleasure of victory is not mitigated in any way because they're female.

The metaphor of sport for battle is used so often because it is emotionally true. When it's a team game being played the parallels switch from single combat to a that of a fighting squadron. For better and worse, that's the stage that Women's Professional Soccer is moving into now.

It didn't start out that way. The league was too new and fresh, unsmudged by any grudges or hard feelings or personal rivalries. Everyone was just getting to know their teammates and coaches. There wasn't really time to despise the opposition yet.

For the American women, it was especially a bit difficult. The residency program that filled in while there was no top-flight professional soccer for their gender essentially turned the team into a sorority. They were all sisters in Alpha Kappa U.S.A., united in the cause of winning World Cups and Olympic gold.

That made it a bit hard to think of the league as anything other than a USWNT scrimmage with a few new foreign players. Sure, everyone wanted to win, but there wasn't that deep-down drive of wanting the other side suffer a loss more than anything.

Plus, most of the players were too happy about a league existing. There was, for a while, the happy contentment of just being glad to be there.

Then the tackles started flying, along with some smack talk. Goals were scored down the gut of the defense, in the face of some frustrated keepers. As the wins piled up for some, and the losses for others, competitive juices started to flow and the beast in more than a few began to emerge.

The great part about games in which the sparks fly and the clashes are heated is that fans can thrill with the awareness that they are watching players pushed to their very best. It's Evert/Navratilova, but the soccer team version.

So fans were treated to a thriller on the 26th of April, when the Washington Freedom, led by an inspired Abby Wambach, edged out FC Gold Pride for a 4-3 victory.

Yet now comes the news that in the midst of another epic duel, one that ended in a 3-3 draw, Wambach has caused a serious leg injury to St. Louis Athletica's Brazilian star, Daniela.

I'm sure Wambach merely saw opportunity dancing before her when Daniela took a bit of a bad first touch from a pass, leaving the ball a bit further out in front of her than she would have liked. Wambach came barreling in at full speed, eager to capitalize.

However, there was little chance that she could contact the ball with any sort of control, while, given Daniela's extended leg to pull the ball back under her control, the risk of collision and injury was very high.

It's not as if the Freedom goal was in any danger, either, or that Wambach was creating a scoring chance of any kind with the tackle. The teams were too far in the center of the field for either.

As a result of Wambach's action, Daniela has a broken tibia and damaged knee ligaments.

Women should not be exempted from the fierce desire to win and the willingness to push themselves to the limit to make that happen. However, neither should they get a pass on reckless "red mist" moments of play where they lose sight of the potential to injure.

Fans deserve to see talented players compete fairly, and the loss of Daniela, perhaps for the entire season of Women's Professional Soccer, robs them of one of the game's best performers.

Andrea Canales is Chief Editor of Goal.com USA

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