Reign Sign Kobe's Beverly Goebel

The Reign make two moves in one day. . sending Liz Bogus to Kansas City for draft picks and signing an American attacker on loan from a Japanese powerhouse.

In the second move of the last few hours, the Reign have signed American attacking midfielder-slash-forward Beverly Goebel — who currentlyy plays for Japanese powerhouse INAC Kobe Leonessa — on loan. In WPS, Goebel played for Western New York during their 2011 championship year. After the league collapsed she joined Kobe, who are a dominant force in the Japanese league and international club play. They won the domestic Nadeshiko league in 2013 (for the third year in a row) by 10 points, with Goebel winning the league Golden Boot.

In international play, last season they were the runners-up in the IWCC (which is more or less an invitational Club World Cup for the women) and yesterday they beat Colo-Colo 3-0 in the semifinals of the 2013 edition with Goebel scoring their first goal. They face Chelsea in the final on Sunday.

Goebel will join the league at the same time as Kobe teammate and fellow American Rebecca Moros, after the Reign dealt Moros' rights to Portland (along with Jess McDonald) for Danielle Foxhoven last week (yeah, they've been that busy). So among other things it's good to see the diaspora of American players who left after the WPS collapse coming back to join NWSL after it's proven itself for a year.

On the field for Seattle, Goebel should be expected to play in the attacking midfield behind Sydney Leroux in a line with Kim Little and (eventually) Megan Rapinoe, which is. . yeah, it's good. It is an incredible transformation from the limited, cobbled together attack the team had in the 2013 season and coach and GM Laura Harvey should be commended for the relentless series of moves it took to get the team to this point.

That's an attack that doesn't have a lot of room for Liz Bogus, who played forward and winger for the team last season. So it's understandable that in the earlier move of the day she was dealt to Kansas City to move up two places in the draft (from 17th to 15th) and get KC's third round pick in the 2015 draft. That's not a huge amount of value for a player that played 20 games for Seattle last year (mostly as a sub), but it clears room on the roster and on the salary books for an attack that should be dramatically more dangerous than last year's.


(philly.com)