Boston Breakers waive Stephanie Verdoia

The Boston Breakers have waived midfielder Stephanie Verdoia, they announced via team press release. In 2016 she started five of 10 games played for 453 minutes. This is better than 2015 when old head coach Tom Durkin used her sparingly with one start in eight games over 186 minutes.

The writing was on the wall with the way head coach Matt Beard used the 2017 NWSL college draft. He brought in midfielders Rose Lavelle, Morgan Andrews, and Margaret Purce, as well as attackers Haley Dowd and Ifeoma Onumonu. This in addition to signing midfielder Rosie White. There wasn’t going to be much room for Verdoia in there, and her playing time and stats after two seasons weren’t encouraging. Still, this comes after the Breakers offered Verdoia a new contract back in October and Beard complimented her on her “good soccer brain.” Perhaps the Verdoia signing was a just-in-case scenario depending on who they were able to acquire through the draft.

Verdoia joins several other players who have been waived or traded this season as Beard completely overhauls the roster in preparation for a 2017 that hopefully sees the team climbing out of dead-not-even-close-to-ninth last. The roster rebuild isn’t complete yet; at the draft Beard and ops and development president Lee Billiard mentioned two signings yet to be announced.

With preseason beginning in April, that’s a long two-plus months for things to continue changing.