On the bright side, the U.S. women’s national team won its final pre-World Cup friendly against Wales on Sunday. It escaped with no more serious injuries, and didn’t concede a goal. On the surface, to the untrained eye, all is well as the USWNT embarks on its quest for a three-peat.
But just about everything else, everything below the surface, before the 75th minute of the USWNT’s lone send-off match, was worrying.
For 75 minutes, it was dull and slow.
It was disjointed and uninspiring.
For 75 minutes, it sparked all sorts of questions about the team’s World Cup readiness. They were questions about its attacking shape, about its stagnant system, and about whether head coach Vlatko Andonovski even knew the identity of his three most dangerous attackers.
In the 76th minute and beyond, Trinity Rodman answered part of that final question. She broke the deadlock, then later found the top corner, and put her two-goal stamp on a 2-0 win.
She’d been excluded from a starting 11 that otherwise looked close to the USWNT’s first-choice 11. After entering at halftime, she made it abundantly clear that Andonovski must put her on the field.
But where?
Alongside whom?
And in front of whom, if Rose Lavelle remains sidelined by a mysterious injury?
On Sunday night, the USWNT will board a plane bound for New Zealand with those questions, and many others, unanswered.
Because for 45 minutes, and then significant chunks of the second half, Sunday’s performance was borderline dreadful. Andonovski has spent several months assuring a worried fan base that his plan is nearly complete, that only final details are being refined, that his team is ready to compete for a third-consecutive World Cup title. But most on-field evidence suggested otherwise, and Sunday provided more of the same.
The U.S. morphed from one attacking shape to the next, but none of them produced consistent penetration.
It largely controlled the game, and the ball, but that was a given against the 30th ranked team in the world. The challenge was unlocking a resolute but overmatched Welsh defense; and the Americans couldn’t.
Or, at least, they couldn’t with Alex Morgan up top.
Morgan, entering her fourth World Cup as a co-captain and face of the team, has been an undisputed starter for months. Her experience and her goal-scoring record have made her undroppable. But she isn’t the player she once was; youngsters, meanwhile, have ascended. On Sunday, the U.S. looked far more dynamic with either Rodman or Lynn Williams spearheading its attack.
Rodman scored the goals, but Williams, a versatile and dogged forward, created the first with superb hold-up play and a line-breaking through-ball to Sophia Smith:
Andonovski has rarely strayed from a stale, predictable 4-3-3 with Smith and another winger — previously Mallory Swanson, before her injury — bookending Morgan. But all three of Smith, Rodman and Williams are experienced and arguably most effective in the middle of the three. That’s where Smith plays in Portland. That’s close to where Rodman plays in Washington. So, might Morgan’s starting place be in jeopardy?
And then there is Alyssa Thompson, the 18-year-old phenom who surprisingly started Sunday. (She was active but imprecise with her final ball.)
And then there is Megan Rapinoe, who, if healthy, could very well have been the key to unlock a team like Wales.
With 11 days until the World Cup begins, it’s entirely unclear what the USWNT’s most effective attacking trident would be.
Behind them, there are other unsettled matters. Lavelle did not get minutes Sunday, as Andonovski had said she might. She’s the team’s top creator, but hasn’t played in three months. And without her, the U.S. midfield lacks incisiveness. Ashley Sanchez hasn’t looked up to par at international level. Savannah DeMelo, who entered as a second-half sub, has now played all of 26 USWNT minutes.
And behind them, the defense, without an injured Becky Sauerbrunn, remains semi-untested.
The defensive midfield position — the reliable Andi Sullivan, or the potentially impactful Julie Ertz — remains uncertain. Ertz didn’t play on Sunday, but Andonovski indicated she was “healthy,” but then seemed to indicate she wasn’t. “They’re all in the buildup phase,” he said of Lavelle, Ertz and Rapinoe.
And the broader problem is that the USWNT, as a whole, continues to rely on individual brilliance.
Individual brilliance arrived yet again Sunday to earn a ninth straight win, and it could very well propel the U.S. deep into the 2023 World Cup knockout rounds. But there are no guarantees. Among opponents, there is no longer fear. And among a fan base that would be happy with only another title, expectations are wavering.
