Freedom, Beat meet in first game since
pre-season<br>Atlanta, 8 June 2001 -- Three months into the season it’s
difficult to believe that teams would still be getting to
know one another. In the case of the Atlanta Beat and
Washington Freedom, who meet for the first time Saturday
night at Bobby Dodd Stadium, getting to know their
opponent is secondary to getting to know themselves.
<br>While both teams seek to improve position in the tight
four-way fight for first place – New York leads the WUSA
with 15 points, followed by Philadelphia and
Washington at 14 and Atlanta with 13 – they also have more
important goals. <br><br>The Freedom (4-2-2) is looking to
find some consistency and a tighter defensive game,
while the Beat (3-1-4) hope to finally break out of a
home scoring drought which has seen them score once in
four games, while going 0-1-3. <br><br>Drought or no
drought – ironically, the forecast calls for rain –
Washington Head Coach Jim Gabarra knows Atlanta will be
tough. <br><br>“They’re obviously a very talented team
and a very stingy team defensively,” said Gabarra,
whose team is 3-1-1 on the road and has won its last
two road games at New York and Philadelphia by 2-1
scores. “So we’re concerned that if we give up an early
goal, it may cost us the game. We have to be very tight
defensively and at the same time try to exploit their
defenders and get some chances for ourselves.”
<br><br>Early goals have been a common occurrence in Freedom
games, as in four of their eight games, a goal has been
scored inside the 10-minute mark, twice inside of four
minutes. <br><br>Of course, any team with Mia Hamm should
be able to score. To no one’s surprise, Hamm is
among the league’s scoring leaders. What might be
surprising is that she has only one goal – a game-winner in
the 90th minute against Carolina, after coming back
from suffering an ankle injury earlier in the game.
Hamm, who led the U.S. National Team in assists last
year (16) is tied for the league lead in helpers, with
four. Two of those are to Brazilian star Pretinha,
whose five goals put her atop the WUSA leader board.