Interview with USWNT's Leslie Osborne, a big new signing for the Boston Breakers

October 23, 2:04 PMBoston Pro Soccer ExaminerL.E. Eisenmenger

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Leslie Osborne
Photo: Tony Biscaia/Breakersnet

Wednesday, the Boston Breakers signed central midfielder Leslie Osborne, a US Women’s National Team player and 2009 co-captain of FC Gold Pride. Thursday evening Osborne called from Germany to speak with Boston Pro Soccer Examiner about the big jump to Boston.

Osborne has 61 international caps and played in five of the six games in the 2007 World Cup in China. A three-time All-American at Santa Clara University, in her senior year Osborne won the NCAA’s Honda Award for being the nation’s top athlete in her sport.
After recovering from ACL and ankle injuries in 2008, Osborne recovered to start 18 games with FC Gold Pride and was expected to be their captain in 2010.

Last season, the Breakers hit a mid-summer scoring draught and never got back the early season offensive momentum. Although Boston had the best defensive line-up in the league with Amy LePeilbet, Heather Mitts, and Alex Scott, when the Breakers got burned, it usually was straight down the middle. So, at the top of coach Tony DiCicco's off-season shopping list was a striker and a powerful central midfielder, and he came home from the store with Gold Pride’s Tiffany Weimer and Osborne.

Osborne is a Puma-sponsored athlete currently living in Germany and training with a second division team in Stuttgart to be near her boyfriend who plays basketball in the German Bundesliga. Yesterday, Osborne called from Germany to talk with Boston Pro Soccer Examiner about her choice as a free agent to start a career with the Breakers.

LE: Tell me about your decision to come to the Boston Breakers.

Osborne: I can’t tell you how excited I am about this opportunity. I love Boston and I’ve never had the opportunity to be coached by Tony and I get to play with some of the best players in the world. It just feels like a good situation and when something feels right I just try to go with what my gut and heart tells me.

Alex Scott and Leslie Osborne on same team?
Photo: Tony BIscaia/Breakersnet

I’m only 26 years old and in the middle of my career and I want to further my career so I made a decision that will bring me to that next level. I did have other offers and that’s a great thing to have, but Tony has such a great reputation. A lot of the players I’ve played with have been coached by him and I never had that opportunity, so that was definitely a big plus for me to want to come to Boston.

In Boston they were looking for a good central holding midfielder. Tony wants me to play that position where I’m kind of the quarterback of the team, where I distribute the ball, play behind Kelly Smith and stop counter attacks and win headers and tackles. My job is to try to not let the defenders have to make one-on-one situations.

LE: What are your thoughts about playing with English nationals Kelly Smith and Alex Scott?

Osborne: They’re great players and I’m happy that now the only time I’m going to have to play against them is in training. Alex is hard to defend, nobody wants to defend her going up and down the field so much.

LE: Your Gold Pride teammate forward Tiffany Weimer also just made the switch to the Breakers. Did you two come as a kind of package deal? What is she going to bring?

Osborne: We’re just two pieces to the puzzle and I don’t think we’re going to bring all the answers, but Tiffany Weimer is a very creative player. She can score goals, she does things that you don’t expect and from the Boston season last year it looked as if they - we - need to try to find more goals in the back of the net and she’ll help do that.

She’s a good friend of mine but that wasn’t a huge factor for me. I tried to make the best decision I could because I realized in professional sports that at any given time somebody can be gone. It was an incentive to know she’s coming because we’re very close and I think we’ll help each other, but I went with what I thought would be best for me, but still I’m very excited we’ll be able to play together.

Leslie Osborne, midfielder
Photo: Tony BIscaia/Breakersnet

LE: You had other offers, including from DC.

Osborne: DC was awesome throughout this process. Their coach [Jim Gabarra] and their GM Mark [Washo] were great and offered me a great deal and were very, very proactive in getting me to DC. Really it came down to my gut and my heart and being excited to play in Boston and play with Tony.

The feeling you get when you go into [Harvard] stadium is just a feeling that you don’t get other places. There’s so much history and so much tradition behind it, and then to know how many great fans the Boston Breakers have in that stadium. I can’t wait to play in it and call that stadium my home.

LE: What else attracted you to Boston?

Osborne: One of the things that attracted me to Boston is because it’s a huge sports fan city and I’m a huge basketball fan. I want to be part of a city that supports each other and has die-hard fans. I missed that, I grew up in Milwaukie, Wisconsin. I’m very excited to attend a lot of other sporting events. I’ve met some of the Red Sox players before, had that opportunity to go to a Red Sox game and it sold me to want to come back. I want to be part of it. I’ll probably be at as many Revolution games as I possibly can and watch a lot of their trainings.

LE: In style, how do you compare yourself with Shalrie Joseph, the Revolution’s central midfielder?

Osborne: He’s not more offensive and I don’t want to say more well-rounded than me, but he definitely goes up and back. I love watching him play and his presence out there is what I try to have. His presence is like, ‘You don’t want to play against me, you don’t want to mess with me. I’m not only going to win that tackle, but now I’m going to beat you going forward.’ That’s what I want to try to bring. He’s great defensively and then he turns around and makes a great play offensively, and as a central holding midfielder that’s so important. He does the work at both ends.

LE: Will there be any joint marketing going on with the Revolution this year?

Osborne: At the Bay Area, we didn’t do anything with the San Jose Earthquakes and I don’t work for the Breakers, but I think it would be so great to market off each other and have double headers and us supporting them and having their support. I think that’s only going to help both the Breakers and the Revolution. I’m a friend of Taylor Twellman because we’ve done some clinics together. I think Kraft’s marketing and us being able to support each other off the field is super important. I’m not sure how it’s been in the past, but I hope we can be supportive of them and help them out and vice-versa.

Read more about Leslie Osborne from Jeff Kassouf at the Equalizer and from Ryan Wood at World Soccer Reader.

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