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The Boston Breakers have signed French midfielder Ghoutia Karchouni, most recently of Paris Saint-Germain in France's Division 1 Feminine, and before that Olympique Lyon's U19s. She has also been called up for the French national U19 and U17 teams.
The Breakers traded a 2017 second round draft pick to the Chicago Red Stars to acquire an international roster spot for the rest of the season.
21-year-old Karchouni has been with PSG since 2013 and had 14 appearances for them in the past year, including two for Champions League.
"I'm delighted Ghoutia has joined the club. She is a technically gifted central midfielder with a good range of passing," said head coach Matt Beard via press release.
The Breakers have been using Louise Schillgard as a central midfielder on and off, but now with Karchouni in the mix, Schillgard will likely go wide right and act as a winger. Hopefully this will also free up Kyah Simon to act as a pure striker, perhaps in a 4-2-3-1 with a line like Mewis, Beckmann, and Schillgard behind her.
The Breakers have desperately needed a change, especially after a 7-1 loss against the Western New York Flash that came as a capper on a miserable first half of the season. The Breakres are currently at four points out of a possible 30 and are 1-8-1, with a -19 goal differential.
Trading a fairly high draft pick for a player to come in for just half the season (perhaps less, depending on her paperwork and travel) may seem risky, possibly even foolish. Then again, the Breakers aren't necessarily known for making the greatest draft picks, and may be willing to either rely less on that process for building a roster or counting on further shenanigans closer to the draft to gain back some picks, such as the new allocation rules that allowed them to wangle the #3 draft pick in 2016 despite initially being scheduled to pick 17th. (That #3 draft pick became Christen Westphal, and the issue of how she's turned out for the Breakers is a whole other article.)
At least the team is making moves to course correct, as opposed to previous seasons when head coach Tom Durkin would shuffle around his pieces and hope for the best.