{"id":35474,"date":"2015-06-05T13:44:29","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T17:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=35474"},"modified":"2015-06-05T13:47:10","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T17:47:10","slug":"breakers-rafinha-world-cup-bound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=35474","title":{"rendered":"Breakers’ Rafinha World Cup Bound"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz<\/p><\/div>\n

It turns out that Alyssa Naeher won’t be the only Breakers player taking the global stage this summer.<\/p>\n

Midfielder Rafinha received a late call from Brazilian National Team coach Vad\u00e3o to represent the country at the upcoming Women’s World Cup after defender Erika suffered an injury.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, we\u2019ll miss her, but I\u2019m tickled to death for her,” Breakers coach Tom Durkin said in a team release on Friday. “We were about to move her up into a striker role, and I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s where she will play for Brazil.”<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old midfielder has played six games for the Breakers this year, and serves as the club’s set piece specialist.<\/p>\n

At the National Team level, she scored both goals in a 2-1 win over South Africa in the bronze medal match of the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia. She was also a member of Brazil\u2019s 2008 U-20 FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup squad in Chile.<\/p>\n

But according to Durkin, it was Rafinha’s time spent with the Breakers this season that made her a strong candidate for making Brazil’s World Cup roster.<\/p>\n

“The national team\u2019s coach (Vad\u00e3o) was over the moon with the form she showed, her fitness and the improvements she made from a physical standpoint while she was with the Breakers,” Durkin said. “So, she has really benefited from playing in the states and in this league, we couldn\u2019t be more proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brazil will kick off its World Cup campaign on Tuesday when they face Costa Rica.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Breakers midfielder is headed to the Women’s World Cup after she received a late call from Brazil. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35475,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1075],"tags":[1282,458,230,1152,892,1147],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Rafinha1.png?fit=599%2C415&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35474"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35478,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35474\/revisions\/35478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}