USL Feature
Monday, January 16, 2012
Less than a week after being selected with the No. 1 pick of the Women’s Professional Soccer draft, former Vancouver Whitecaps Women standout and 2011 USL W-League Rookie of the Year Sydney Leroux has been called up to the U.S. Women’s National Team squad to play at the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying tournament.
For Leroux, it will be a return to the Pacific Northwest with the tournament being played at Vancouver’s B.C. Place, home of Major League Soccer’s Vancouver Whitecaps. While Leroux and her teammates toured British Columbia throughout the 2011 season, the UCLA All-American scoring 11 goals in 11 games as she also took All-League honors, it will be a chance for her fans from Vancouver to get a chance to see her in action again before she heads to join the Atlanta Beat for the Women’s Professional Soccer season.
“Vancouver, here we come!” Leroux tweeted upon the announcement. “So excited to be coming home :)”
Born in Surrey, B.C., and a prodigious talent growing up, Leroux briefly played for the Whitecaps Women when she was just 15 years old before she moved to Arizona to pursue her soccer career. Eligible to play for the United States thanks to her American father, she was the leading scorer at the 2010 U20 World Cup and made her first appearance for the full women’s national team last January against Sweden.
She returned to the Whitecaps Women this past summer to train before her senior season at UCLA, and played a key role as the side reached the W-League Championship Weekend, having a goal and assist in the Western Conference Championship victory against the Santa Clarita Blue Heat.
Leroux will have a number of fellow W-League alums accompanying her in the squad, with perennial standouts Abby Wambach (Rochester Ravens), Christie Rampone (New Jersey Lady Stallions), Heather O’Reilly (New Jersey Wildcats) leading the squad. In addition to Leroux, however, there is also a new wave of young talent that includes 2011 WPS No. 1 selection Alex Morgan, Tobin Heath and Lauren Cheney, all of whom played for the Pali Blues.
“The players made it hard for us to choose the 20 for Canada,” Coach Pia Sundhage in a U.S. Soccer press release. “We had a great camp in December and this past week in Los Angeles. I’m excited that we have a new player in the mix who wasn’t in the World Cup [Sydney Leroux] and that will change the environment a bit in a positive way. As always, we are excited to play the next game and we will be prepared.”
Leroux may also end up facing a number of her former teammates in Vancouver, should the U.S. and Canada meet. Current Whitecaps Melanie Booth, Kaylyn Kyle and Robyn Gayle have all been named to the Canadian squad, three of the 14 former Whitecaps who will compete for a place at the London Olympics. Led by ex-Vancouver standouts Christine Sinclair, Melissa Tancredi, Sophie Schmidt and Erin McLeod, Canada is considered the other favorite to advance to the Olympics along with the U.S., with the two finalists moving on to this summer’s event.
With players such as Wambach, Morgan, Cheney and Amy Rodriguez likely ahead of Leroux in the forward pecking order, the possibility remains the 21-year-old might not see too much playing time this go-around. But if her goal-scoring record is any indicator, this will likely be the first of many tournaments she will see in a U.S. Women’s National Team uniform.