Ashley Sanchez said that it took her months to process Vlatko Andonovski’s controversial decision to bench her for the entirety of the 2023 World Cup.
Speaking on the “Friendlies with Sam Mewis” podcast, Sanchez gave her account of what she called a “really difficult” experience.
“I definitely thought I was going to play,” said Sanchez when describing pre-tournament discussions with the U.S. women’s national team coaching staff.
“Rose [Lavelle] had been injured, so I was told actually that I was going to have a big impact, and play a lot of minutes. So yeah, that was exactly what I was expecting.”
It would be hard to blame Sanchez for taking that as the truth, in part because she was playing on a regular basis. From November 2021 until the USWNT’s send-off friendly against Wales, Andonovski had given the California native minutes in 25 of a possible 28 matches. The signs seemed to point towards this World Cup being her time to shine.
However, what followed was an abrupt about-face. Savannah DeMelo got the nod in the team’s first two World Cup games, making way for Lavelle as the USWNT built the latter’s minutes up.
Lavelle returned to play a full 90 minutes in a grinding scoreless draw with Portugal that very nearly saw the USWNT crash out of the group stage. Even with the U.S. having a mathematical incentive to push for a goal, Sanchez wasn’t called upon.
A door seemed to open when Lavelle was suspended for the round of 16 clash with Sweden due to yellow card accumulation, but again Andonovski looked elsewhere. A formation change saw Lindsey Horan push up to play as a No. 10, with Emily Sonnett coming in alongside Andi Sullivan.
Per Sanchez, sometime after the team left for New Zealand and before the first match against Vietnam, she was given the bad news: The coaching staff had decided it wasn’t going to give her a chance.
“What made it a little bit more difficult was that I knew before the first game that I wasn’t going to play,” recounted Sanchez. “So, when we were struggling, I kind of wanted to [say] I could maybe help or…give a different look, but I knew that I wasn’t gonna go in.”
Sanchez: World Cup ‘hardest moment of my career’
Despite the U.S. struggling to create chances and managing just one goal in its final three games, Sanchez would be one of two field players (along with Alana Cook) to end up with zero minutes.
Asked how she knew her opportunity wasn’t coming, Sanchez said that she was told in no uncertain terms.
“I was told that I wasn’t going to play,” said the North Carolina Courage playmaker. “I was trying to make the best of a situation, but it was definitely hard.
“When I was in it, I was [thinking], you don’t want to look back and have such a negative idea of something that you dreamed of your whole life, you know? But when you’re in the moment, you’re trying so hard to think of the positives, but you’re also like, ‘yeah, but I’m here, I worked my ass off to be here, and I know I’m not going to play.'”
Sanchez called the experience “probably the hardest moment of my career,” adding that to some extent her responsibility to the team was reduced down to simply not being a burden.
“I almost didn’t feel like I was part of it. Which was really hard, because…I didn’t really contribute,” explained Sanchez, who noted that the rest of the team “had such a different experience than I did.”
“I think it was a little bit easier to talk to Kelley [O’Hara] sometimes, because a lot of my friends were playing, and I didn’t want to be pouring things onto them. They didn’t need that…
“I think that was the hard part too, is having to almost deal with it myself. Because I was like, ‘I don’t want to put this on anyone else.’ It’s hard. It’s hard for everyone, no matter if you’re playing or not playing, it’s just really hard. So I felt like I didn’t process until I got home. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that was way worse than I thought.'”
The attacking midfielder returned to the NWSL, scoring within seconds of entering her first match back with the Washington Spirit.
However, Sanchez said that her anticipated catharsis didn’t come from that goal, and that she wouldn’t work out her feelings about the entire episode until this past winter.
“I felt like I’m going to come back, I’m just gonna play really great and prove everyone wrong, and then I was just kind of like, ‘Oh, I think I actually need to deal with this,'” recalled the 24-year-old.
“It’s not just going to go away because you’re playing well, you know? And that was probably…I hadn’t gone through anything that hard, I would say.”
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