Some significant lineup rotation and an opponent buoyed by a big win didn’t slow the U.S. women’s national team down a bit Thursday night, as they stormed to a 5-0 win over Jamaica at the CONCACAF W Championship.
The scoreline frankly reflected the gap between the sides on the day, as Jamaica never really found their footing after two Sophia Smith goals (one a true work of art) in the game’s first eight minutes. The USWNT had the luxury of spreading the minutes around rather than risking heavier fatigue in the knockout rounds.
Speaking of, the USWNT is definitely going to the knockout rounds thanks to their win being followed by Haiti’s monumental 3-0 upset win over Mexico. The U.S. is going to next year’s World Cup as a result, meaning that their work at the W Championship is halfway done after just two games.
Before we move on to their game against Mexico on Monday, let’s first take some lessons away from Thursday’s big win:
A masterpiece
No article about this game would be complete without talking about Smith’s sensational opening goal. Honestly, it gives us two important angles to dissect, so why not do both?
Smith makes the exact right choice with her first touch, driving play forward at speed so that the entire Jamaican defense never has a moment to sort out the danger they’re in, and from there we’re talking about two moments of genius.
The second touch defies physics. It’s like watching the rest of the world continue to rotate while Smith and the ball stop just long enough to buy some space. The shot that followed is something that will drive your “gotta get the fundamentals right!” coach pals crazy, but it’s precisely because Smith goes with the completely unexpected choice here— the outside of her right foot, and aiming back post, rather than a low cross, or a left-footed curler, or going with power to the near post—that Jamaica is caught out.
Smith’s goal has pragmatic utility rooted entirely in its sheer audacity. Put yourself in Jamaica’s shoes: under new leadership, you win 1-0 over Mexico. Meanwhile, you watch the USWNT have a shaky start against Haiti, and you have reason to tell yourself that maybe there’s an opening here. And then, in the first three minutes, you create the game’s first shot, and you create a turnover in the USWNT’s half. That’s reason to believe.
Smith’s goal is the kind of jaw-dropper that can squelch growing belief in an opponent, and that’s exactly what happened here. Jamaica didn’t just fall behind 1-0 in the 5th minute because of this goal; they were discouraged by it.
This is part of the USWNT mystique, and maintaining that aura is a valuable tool. The U.S. didn’t have that at the Olympics, when they got blitzed by Sweden and never really got to top speed. Goals like this make the task at hand seem even more difficult for opposing teams than it already is, and Smith’s goal effectively won the game from a psychological perspective in a way that a more routine finish wouldn’t have.
We’re still talking about that first goal
As promised, there’s another factor at play with this goal, and it’s Naomi Girma’s game-changing pass. Thankfully, the clip above includes it, because from a tactical perspective, it is the key moment for the USWNT.
A major factor in the USWNT’s less impressive win over Haiti was that they couldn’t open the field up, even as the Haitians eventually settled on a 4-4-2 mid-block defensive scheme. Haiti wanted to prevent Alana Cook and Becky Sauerbrunn from connecting with Andi Sullivan, and the USWNT needed to back them off with some diagonals or balls over the top, and those just weren’t there on the day.
Against Jamaica, the defensive set-up was different (a 4-4-1-1 featuring a lower line of confrontation), but more importantly, the USWNT showed early and often that with Girma on the field, the longer-range passes that can force an organized, compact opponent to end up chasing were present. This meant that even if Jamaica did well to cut off avenues into the midfield, they were always one second away from having to scramble.
Watch the very beginning of the highlight again, and you can see Girma taking advantage of the lower block, scanning the entire width of the USWNT attack, then adroitly shifting her weight to play a right-footed diagonal out to Smith. It doesn’t take her long at all, which is key: the scan, the touch, the shift of the hips, and the ball is on its way in under a second.
The USWNT pool isn’t full of players who can play this variety of pass this quickly on a regular basis, and right now, the players that can play it missed the tournament due to injury (Abby Dahlkemper and Tierna Davidson) or haven’t gotten their call-up just yet (Sam Staab, who was on the 49-player preliminary roster).
The only other center back in the pool that can do this is Girma, and with her not on the field, Haiti spent so much energy on making sure Sullivan (who does have this kind of distribution in her arsenal) didn’t get time to turn and scan. By keeping her from having those moments, they eliminated that threat from the game.
With Girma out there, the USWNT was able to open the game up, which means Smith and Mallory Pugh get the space they thrive in. Without her, they have a more conventional center back pairing of Cook and Becky Sauerbrunn, who are dependable passers who don’t look for or deliver these longer passes with the kind of regularity the USWNT seems to need.
Andonovski raved about Girma after the game, without even talking about this pass.
“I thought she did incredible,” he said to reporters following the match. “I thought that she accepted the challenge, and in the conversation that I had with her, she was spot-on in terms of her mentality and how to how to approach the game. I was very happy with her performance.”
Girma made a potential physical mismatch against Bunny Shaw a non-issue by reading the game well enough that one of the best strikers in the world wasn’t a factor, and then also adds in this utterly critical element that unlocks the best of the USWNT’s attack.
It may seem early to call for an NWSL rookie to become a starter, but if the USWNT is going to face lower blocks going forward in this tournament (and folks…they will!), the argument against starting Girma is weaker than the one in favor of putting her name in ink on the team sheet. This pass is so important to what this team wants to do, and the worries about whether Girma can do the defending appear to not be an issue at all.
It’s time to make the move.
Making it easy
The USWNT going out and getting a quick 2-0 lead at this point in the tournament was critical, as it meant substitutions could be made based on preserving players and even learning more about the roster.
And so, that’s what we got. Lindsey Horan didn’t have to play a full 90 on what appears to be a persistent knee issue, with Kristie Mewis getting more time as a No. 6. Trinity Rodman got into the mix as a center forward, which meant a night off for Alex Morgan while also giving a potential game-breaking player a look at a position where her skill set could cause some unorthodox problems. The only natural left back in the squad, Emily Fox, only had to play 45 minutes, with Emily Sonnett coming on and helping create some different looks by going inside rather than outside. Smith was also able to exit at halftime and rest up, while Rose Lavelle got an early break as well.
This isn’t rocket science. The NWSL schedule has been overly packed with games, it’s hot in Mexico in the summer, and we’re looking ahead at a true away game against a desperate Mexican side followed by two must-win knockout games.
All of that means that the first-choice group is going to play a lot of soccer in the next 10 days. Every bit of time Andonovski can spread around the full squad is to be cherished, and the USWNT made sure they got a bunch of it by putting this game to bed ASAP.
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