{"id":4668,"date":"2011-05-09T22:34:47","date_gmt":"2011-05-10T02:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=4668"},"modified":"2011-05-09T22:56:37","modified_gmt":"2011-05-10T02:56:37","slug":"four-breakers-world-cup-bound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=4668","title":{"rendered":"Four Breakers World Cup bound"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Four members of the\u00a0Boston Breakers\u00a0were among 21 players selected on Monday for this summer’s Women’s World Cup in Germany.<\/p>\n

Defenders Rachel Buehler, Stephanie Cox, Amy LePeilbet, as well as forward\u00a0Lauren Cheney, were named to U.S. Women’s National Team head coach Pia\u00a0Sundhage’s\u00a0 World Cup roster for the\u00a0tournament.\u00a0 The United States, ranked first in the world, will compete in Group C along with Sweden (5th), Colombia (30th), and Korea DPR (8th).<\/p>\n

Cox is a veteran of the USA\u2019s 2007 FIFA World Cup run in China, appearing in all seven matches.\u00a0 But Buehler, LePeilbet, and Cheney will all be making their World Cup debuts.<\/p>\n

Although this will be her first World Cup, Cheney has scored 13 international goals, including seven in 2010. This year, Cheney (39 total caps), started five of the seven games she appeared in and notched two goals\u00a0and an\u00a0assist.<\/p>\n

\u201cLauren Cheney is a force on the field.\u00a0 She can hold the ball up top with the best in the world, and I\u2019m sure is going to score key goals for the USA in Germany,\u201d said DiCicco, who coached the 1999 U.S. Women\u2019s National Team to a World Cup title.<\/p>\n

Buehler (56 caps) played 666 minutes in 2011, the most of any field player this year on the National Team. She started seven of the eight games she appeared in.\u00a0 Though this is Buehler\u2019s first World Cup, she logged two matches for the gold-medal winning US team at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.<\/p>\n

“Rachel Buehler is an amazing competitor who can win head balls, serve long balls, and duel with any attacker,\u201d DiCicco said.<\/p>\n

Cox, the wily wingback,\u00a0leads domestic Breakers players\u00a0 in international experience with 71 caps.<\/p>\n

\u201cStephanie Cox is an exceptional server of the ball from the left side who will likely link up with Abby Wambach on some of those serves,\u201d DiCicco said. \u201cShe is also a smart defender and a real student of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

LePeilbet (47 caps) started all three matches she played in for the U.S. in 2011. She started all 17 matches she appeared in during 2010, playing 1,439 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmy LePeilbet is an exceptional defender who takes such pride in her craft,\u201d DiCicco said. \u201cShe has the ability to defend speed or strength and is one of the best 1v1 defenders in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The USA opens the World Cup to Korea DPR on June 28 in Dresden.\u00a0 The USA\u2019s group has an average rank of 11, is on paper the second toughest group in the tournament.\u00a0 Group A (Germany, Nigeria, Canada, France) is ranked the toughest while Group B (Japan, New Zealand, Mexico, England) and Group D (Brazil, Norway, Equatorial Guinea, Australia) follow the USA\u2019s group.<\/p>\n

The four World Cup-bound Breakers have a combined 213 caps and 14 goals for the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Women’s National Team coach Pia Sundhage has called four Breakers players for World Cup duty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[23,26],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/cox-lepeilbet5.jpg?fit=948%2C418","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4668"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4680,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4668\/revisions\/4680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}