Christina DiMartino is a former soccer player with the Massapequa Soccer Club & Massapequa HS. She played her college soccer at UCLA and is currently a member of the US National Team and the Philadelphia Independence of Women’s Professional Soccer.

Over the coming months, Christina will be reporting in to LIJSoccer.com as she goes through her WPS season.  Be sure to check back regularly for updates.

Hi Again Everyone,

I’ve been pretty busy with the team the past few weeks. We’ve been playing well together and having success, so that’s a good thing. We’ve won our last three games and have just one loss in our last eight games. But we have to stay focused. We have a game tonight and Saturday night. Luckily they are at home.

We play our home games at Widener University, which is on the outskirts of Philadelphia. We’ve been playing well there in recent weeks and seem to be getting in a pretty good rhythm. The fans have been great too. They keep coming out, and they have a lot of energy during the games.

We’re at a pretty important time of the season, but it’s also a time when a team can lose focus. We’re in first place in the standings and we’re about half way through the season. The excitement of the start of the season has worn off, the playoffs are still pretty far off, but the way we handle these games in the middle will almost definitely have an impact on our playoff positioning. We have to keep the momentum going and continue to create scoring opportunities. We want to focus on being consistent over a full 90 minutes and keep getting those three points (for a win)

You may remember early in the season I told you that we were more focused on what we do, rather than what our opponents do. But as the season goes on, we do spend more time watching film of other teams. Our coach loves to watch film, and he has us spend a lot of time looking at the opponent’s set pieces, looking at their goals and how they scored them, and how they are trying to create chances for themselves. That’s helpful information going into the game, and I know our team has been feeling well prepared heading into these games.

We did get a few days off last week. I spent two days in Ocean City, MD with some teammates and then headed home for a day in Massapequa. It was good to get some down time and get away from soccer, and I always love coming back to Massapequa, even if it’s only for part of a day.

I hope you’ve all been watching the American women in the World Cup! I’ve been watching, and the games have been great overall. I was sorry to see that the US lost today, but they have some good young girls to watch, and it’s good they’ve made it to the quarterfinals. They are playing well, and I’m rooting for them. I hope they win the whole thing.

Dream Big!

Christina