Williams admitted that there could be some issues in the USWNT locker room
Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams have addressed the controversy surrounding U.S. women’s national team midfielder Korbin Albert, with the pair both voicing their support for the LGBTQ+ community that Albert maligned on social media.
Albert was forced to apologize last week after fans discovered that Albert’s TikTok account had either shared or reposted a host of anti-LGBTQ+ content. The 20-year-old also appeared to like an Instagram post celebrating Megan Rapinoe’s injury in last year’s NWSL championship game.
Rapinoe quickly went on the offensive against Albert in an Instagram story, with the former USWNT star’s words of condemnation reposted by both Mewis and Williams.
The pair offered more perspective on the controversy in the latest episode of the Good Vibes FC podcast
“You and I are both supportive of the LGBTQ community. We want our teammates, we want everybody who identifies in any way to be able to express themselves freely and live a happy, safe existence,” said Mewis, who retired earlier this year.
Williams is still an active member of the USWNT, and was on the roster with Albert for the W Gold Cup in February and March. The Gotham FC forward missed the SheBelieves Cup squad this month due to injury, while Albert is a part of the group that will play a pair of upcoming matches.
Both Williams and Mewis played alongside Jaelene Daniels for club and country, and compared the current situation with Albert to that of the former North Carolina Courage and USWNT defender.
Daniels declined a USWNT call-up in 2017 over her refusal to wear Pride-themed rainbow numbers, citing her Christian faith. The defender would then refuse to play for the NC Courage on the team’s Pride Night in 2022.
“Back then we didn’t know how to approach the situation and we put soccer first,” Williams said. “I feel like if I’ve learned anything, it’s that there are some things that are just bigger than soccer. And one of them is human rights, and making sure that people feel safe in their body and just safe in this world. So I think it is a moment for us to say you know what, this topic is bigger than soccer.
“At the same time, women’s soccer has been a safe space for the LGBT community. And I think that it does affect the locker room a little bit. But again, I think this is bigger than the locker room.”
Mewis added that Albert’s apology was a good start, but said that the PSG midfielder still has plenty of work to do.
“Zooming out, making an apology is a solid first step,” Mewis said. “And I think you and I in many cases want to leave room for there to be growth and a change in behavior. But first and foremost, I don’t accept intolerance or the exclusion of people on a human level.”
Some things are just bigger than soccer ❤️@sammymewy and @lynnraenie reflect on USWNT player Korbin Albert's social media this past week and what it will mean in the US locker room and for the future.
One of the team’s greats got her farewell in an uncomplicated USWNT win
A new era is beginning for the U.S. women’s national team, and that means saying goodbye to some veteran stars.
The USWNT gave two-time World Cup champion Julie Ertz the kind of farewell match she would have likely wanted, with a confident, uncomplicated 3-0 win over South Africa on Wednesday in Cincinnati.
Lynn Williams claimed two goals, sandwiching Trinity Rodman’s finish from open play as the U.S. reeled off all of its goals in a nine-minute span late in the first half.
Unsurprisingly, the USWNT looked for Ertz — possibly the best set-piece target in program history — on most of its early set piece opportunities, but couldn’t quite carve out a serious threat.
However, it was only a matter of time, and while Ertz didn’t score the opener herself, her customary near-post run was a big factor as Williams gave the U.S. a 32nd-minute lead.
If that goal required a bit of good fortune — Williams and the USWNT had to appeal for the goal to be given, as the ball only barely crossed the line — it took just 65 seconds to score a far more authoritative second.
A counter-press at midfield won the ball back for the USWNT, and a rapid-fire passing sequence ended with Alex Morgan running in behind the South African defense. From there, the San Diego Wave striker teed Trinity Rodman up perfectly for a close-range finish.
Before the celebrations even truly petered out after that goal, Ertz was given her moment, with TQL Stadium giving the USWNT legend a standing ovation in the 35th minute, as she stepped off the pitch one last time.
Another corner made it 3-0 before halftime, with Andi Sullivan (who replaced Ertz) serving in a near-post ball. Lindsey Horan’s cheeky flick caught South Africa off-guard, with Williams once again on hand to make sure the ball got over the line.
With much of the talk around the game surrounding a changing of the guard for the USWNT, interim coach Twila Kilgore’s second half substitutions included three players who suffered various sorts of World Cup snubs. Ashley Hatch and Casey Krueger were left off the roster entirely, while Ashley Sanchez saw zero minutes of playing time for a goal-starved USWNT in Australia and New Zealand.
That trio,18-year-old forward Alyssa Thompson (who appeared in just one World Cup match), and USWNT debutant M.A. Vignola all entered the match, with more experienced names like Horan, Morgan, Crystal Dunn, and Emily Fox among those coming off.
In the end, Ertz watched on as the USWNT defense — something she took ferocious pride in throughout her 123-cap national team career — gave Alyssa Naeher precious little to do against a side that advanced to the World Cup’s round of 16.
The USWNT will wrap up the September window with another big goodbye, as Megan Rapinoe’s final match with the team looms on Sunday in Chicago.
The USWNT finally played like themselves, but soccer can be cruel
Soccer has always been a cruel sport, and today it came calling for the U.S. women’s national team.
After three underwhelming performances in the group stage, the USWNT finally looked like themselves against Sweden, bossing one of the best teams in this World Cup.
Unfortunately, they found goalkeeper Zećira Mušović having one of the games of her life, and when she wasn’t making a big save, the errant finishing that has plagued this team appeared again, and the result was a penalty kick elimination after a scoreless 120 minutes.
It was a heartbreaker for the U.S., who missed a shot in the shootout that would have seen them advance, and then had to watch Sweden’s winning kick require a VAR check to reveal that the ball had crossed the line by a nearly imperceptible margin.
Still, when it comes to ratings, this was by some margin the best performance from the USWNT at this World Cup as a team, and for many players as individuals.
As a reminder, here’s the Pro Soccer Wire player rating scale:
Our scale:
1: Abysmal. Literally any member of our staff would have been been able to play at this level.
6: Adequate. This is our base score.
10: Transcendent, era-defining performance. This is Carli Lloyd vs. Japan in the 2015 final.
The U.S. women’s national team, by a margin of about three inches, survived a feisty Portugal side to get through to the knockout round of the World Cup.
That’s about all the good news there is to discuss. The USWNT were totally unable to solve the Portuguese midfield diamond throughout a troubling 0-0 draw, struggling for possession and also lacking chances to break out in transition.
The stats may show the USWNT holding a 17-6 shot advantage, and this is another game in which a U.S. opponent were held without a shot on goal. However, anyone that watched the match would be able to tell you that the Portuguese troubled the U.S. from start to finish, seeing the game’s best chance end with Ana Capeta hitting the post deep in stoppage time.
It was a dispiriting and disappointing showing in which no player really looked like they’d been given a platform to be their best. If the USWNT is to go on and make history as the first team to win three consecutive World Cups, this has to be by far their worst performance of the tournament.
Here’s a breakdown from a game in which no one looked particularly good.
As a reminder, here’s the Pro Soccer Wire player rating scale:
Our scale:
1: Abysmal. Literally any member of our staff would have been been able to play at this level.
6: Adequate. This is our base score.
10: Transcendent, era-defining performance. This is Carli Lloyd vs. Japan in the 2015 final.
Not many changes, but both likely popular ones for the USWNT
The U.S. women’s national team has made two changes for a decisive World Cup group stage match against Portugal.
Rose Lavelle and Lynn Williams represent all of the changes Vlatko Andonovski has made to the USWNT starting 11 that drew 1-1 with the Netherlands last week (a selection that was unchanged from the team’s opening 3-0 win over Vietnam). Lavelle will replace Savannah DeMelo in the U.S. midfield, while Williams replaces Trinity Rodman on the front line.
Lavelle has performed well in two substitute appearances, but has not started a game for club or country since doing so for OL Reign on April 1 in NWSL regular season play. It is unclear how long she can play after getting 27 minutes off the bench against Vietnam, and then entering at halftime against the Dutch.
Sophia Smith has, after spending most of the last two years on the right wing, been playing on the left with Rodman more comfortable on the opposite side. It wasn’t clear until kickoff, but Andonovski has simply replaced Rodman with Williams, keeping Smith on the left for a third straight game.
For the USWNT, this match against Portugal has huge importance. A win may or may not be enough to secure the top spot in Group E: the Netherlands could overtake them if they can beat Vietnam by three more goals than the U.S. margin of victory at Eden Park.
A shock loss would — barring an even more monumental upset win for Vietnam in the other game — end the USWNT’s World Cup far earlier than expected.
All 23 players in the U.S. squad are, per U.S. Soccer’s game notes, listed as available and in uniform.
A gunman in downtown killed two and wounded several others before he was also found dead
For the U.S. women’s national team, Thursday’s deadly shooting in Auckland was sadly reminiscent of so many similar events back home.
A gunman in downtown Auckland killed two and wounded several others before he was also found dead in an incident on the morning of the first two Women’s World Cup games.
The shooting took place close to the USWNT team hotel in Auckland, where they will kick off the World Cup against Vietnam on Saturday afternoon local time.
At a press conference, USWNT forward Lynn Williams said that it was difficult to reckon with the shooting while also trying to focus on preparing for the team’s opener.
“Unfortunately, I feel like in the U.S. we’ve dealt with this far too many times,” Williams said.
“But there was definitely a sense of, ‘Let’s come together, we still have a job to do,’ but also recognizing that there were lives lost and that is very real and very devastating.
“We were just thankful that we were safe, that the first responders came in and everything was very quick. Our security was very swift to say, ‘Look, we can’t go anywhere right now. We need to make sure you guys are safe first.’ There was a sense around the team that we recognize that this is devastating. And then once we were able to go to training we were like, ‘We have to focus on the job at hand.'”
U.S. Soccer released a statement shortly after the incident, saying: “All of our players and staff are accounted for and safe. Our security team is in communication with local authorities and we are proceeding with our daily schedule.”
USWNT defender Crystal Dunn added that the team is looking to support one another in any way they can.
“This is very real and our condolences are with the families of the victims and the lives that were lost,” Dunn said.
“Everyone handles these situations differently. So it’s important to give people the space that they need to work through the trauma that has occurred today, but understanding that we’re a unified team.
“We give people the space that they need and hopefully we’re able to get on the pitch and just have a kick around and just try to be connected again in a tough day.”
Just like everyone expected, NJ/NY Gotham FC is in first place in the NWSL, while the Kansas City Current and Chicago Red Stars are struggling.
It’s fun to start with a joke. Obviously no one really thought the standings would include Gotham FC — for the first time since 2013! — in first place in late May. While Chicago’s off-field problems always looked like they’d undermine their 2023 season, KC sitting in 11th after following a run to the 2022 final with a blockbuster offseason? It’s arguably more of a shock than Gotham’s ascent.
This wasn’t the most artful or edifying NWSL weekend, but with the season now over 36% complete, we have enough to start really sketching out a final product for teams rather than discussing various works in progress. Let that be your North Star as the Take-Off rumbles on.
The NWSL returned to regular season play after its first dalliance with the new Challenge Cup format, and gave fans plenty to think about.
Julie Ertz made her first appearance in the league in over two years, and the early signs are that her presence will change a lot about how Angel City FC executes. That follows some positive changes that came in part from Lynn Williams arriving with NJ/NY Gotham FC this winter, while Cece Kizer’s return to fitness has opened up missing elements for the Kansas City Current.
Unless you’re the Portland Thorns, change is good at this part of the season. For some teams, that means staying the course in anticipation of changes for the better coming to fruition. In other cases, we may have a couple of teams who need to consider more marked changes to avoid being left in the dust.
Here’s your look back at another eventful weekend in the NWSL:
Vlatko Andonovski has plenty of options to solve a problem he never wanted to have
Mallory Swanson has been world-class for nearly two full years now. U.S. women’s national team fans have seen her go from a teenager blessed with rare field vision and speed, to a player whose ability to influence games with those gifts would come and go. Over the last two years though, she’s grown in consistency and control, becoming a player that could start for any team on the planet. The potential has been fulfilled.
Cruelly for her and the USWNT, she’s also being robbed of the chance to show that to the biggest audience possible. Swanson hasn’t been ruled out of the World Cup by U.S. Soccer, but a torn patellar tendon is generally a six-month recovery at best, and the World Cup is in July. The USWNT’s quest to become the first team to win three straight World Cups will almost certainly require doing it without the player who is currently their most potent goal threat.
Any dominant team — and that’s what the USWNT aspires to be, but only sometimes is these days — creates high expected goal (xG) opportunities at a higher rate than average or bad teams, but in truth those chances are rare for everyone. Winning sides create more chances, period, whether we’re talking 0.03 xG no-hopers or 0.83 tap-ins from five yards. Volume is the way forward.
What Swanson has been doing for club and country is taking those far more common low-quality chances, and putting them into the furthest reaches of whatever corner of the goal she’s aiming for. Over the last 18 months or so, Swanson has been reliably improving the odds of her team getting a goal by turning the raw material that is their chances into higher-quality shots, as this piece from Kim McCauley for The Athletic breaks down in depth.
This matters a lot to the USWNT, who have seen their chance volume dip overall, and as a result seem to have to work harder or be more fortunate to get wins against top teams.
The SheBelieves Cup might be instructive. Facing three competitors that should all make the World Cup knockout round, a USWNT team missing Sophia Smith won all three games. That said, only one (their opener against an understandably distracted Canada) was remotely easy. The U.S. xG haul sat at 4.66, and they scored five goals. An average of over 1.55 on a per-game basis is pretty decent, but it’s not the kind of number that says this team is swaggering their way to a coronation Down Under. “Pretty decent” isn’t going to win this particular World Cup.
Swanson scored four of those goals, and at the time Pro Soccer Wire referred to her as “arguably the decisive player in women’s soccer right now.” This team has been working through some troubling faults: being too predictable in building from the back, struggling to recognize the shape and location of an opposing press until the game is already underway, a midfield shape that should have been readjusted to suit the starting group months before it actually was, and an attack that can at times go curiously stagnant. There are varying degrees of progress on all of these fronts, but Swanson conjuring up a goal has been the team’s “get out of jail free” card.
The USWNT was able to win the SheBelieves Cup without one dynamite attacker in Smith, so they know they can get the job done while not at full strength. This is the world’s deepest team, and by a wide margin.
However, we’re still talking about three games on home soil, and in truth there won’t be many bets on Canada, Japan, or Brazil to win the World Cup this summer. They’re not England, Germany, or Spain, and it stands to reason that the USWNT’s narrow wins get so narrow that we’re talking about a coin flip, or even a repeat of the 3-0 meltdown against Sweden back in 2021’s Olympic opener.
In other words, the USWNT had problems to solve with a cheat code in the form of Swanson, and now they have to solve those problems without her.
Change is a must, but how much change?
Speaking minutes after the USWNT’s win over Ireland on Tuesday, Vlatko Andonovski was understandably not ready to commit to whether the team would simply plug another player into Swanson’s spot, make a couple of tweaks and get on with it, or if the team would need to make more significant alterations.
“Losing Mal, obviously conceptually, we may look slightly different, right?” the coach said. “Because you’re looking at this team, the team was going to build around Mal and Soph [Smith] and their attacking power. Now with Mal not being there, we’re gonna have to make a decision. What are we going to go for? Like for like, and try the same way? Or, [Swanson’s production] is going to be replaced by a group of players? … It’s hard.”
It’s very tempting for the USWNT to avoid trying to rebuild their game model this close to the World Cup. That opens them up to even more risk: What if the new approach isn’t quite right? What if it takes too long to work out? There aren’t enough games to try it out in, and the grass is not always greener on the other side.
If continuity is the plan, it appears Andonovski is leaning towards deploying Trinity Rodman. She was the choice off the bench after Swanson’s injury, she got the start on Tuesday, and on raw talent she’s the best option available. She also just so happens to have scored the most Mallory Swanson-looking goal anyone has produced in this NWSL season:
Trinity Rodman really said, "Fine… I'll do it myself."
However, she’s not Swanson, and fitting her game into the USWNT system will require adjustment. Rodman has been less of the focal point of the Washington Spirit’s attacks than Swanson is with the Chicago Red Stars, and as such doesn’t pile up the same sort of sky-high xG on volume. Where Swanson wants to get into the left half-space to ping shots from the top of the box into various corners of the goal, Rodman may opt to go wide to find a cross to another player, or look to combine.
On the other hand, you gain some noteworthy positives with Rodman: a better aerial presence, and a player who was much more able to contribute progressive carries (per FBref, 87 to Swanson’s 58 in the 2022 NWSL season) and progressive receptions (160 to 127).
This might actually help the USWNT avoid that aforementioned sluggishness moving the ball forward. Swanson beats defenders in the attacking third to score, which is great. Rodman has been beating defenders closer to midfield, which is less flashy but may boost the USWNT’s ability to generate chance volume. If they’re better at progressing the ball, it stands to reason they’ll be closer to goal with the ball for more of the game, which generally speaking means more looks.
They can’t replace Swanson’s finishing, but the USWNT can be better at creating chances and hoping the math works out from there. Rodman seems to be the option that requires the least disruption to a team that frankly doesn’t need any more uncertainty.
Pressing machine?
Andonovski’s best periods as a coach, whether with the USWNT or in NWSL, have involved a withering high press. The USWNT hasn’t been as overwhelming on that front as they were in the past, but that’s by design: Swanson deserves all the flowers you can give her, but she’s not a pressing monster.
Swanson’s numbers with the ball are outrageous, but as a pressing force, she’s more in the category of denying passing lanes and funneling play towards someone else to force the turnover. If you build an attack around her, as Andonovski did, you accept that being a buzzsaw-style high press isn’t your forte.
Losing its ace finisher means the USWNT needs to bump its chance volume up and hope that the goals arrive, and in the last decade, it’s been reliably proven that you can create more chances by pressing than other methods. A beautiful, intricate build-up is the platonic ideal for soccer, but getting vertical after a turnover, with your opponent in disarray, is a lot easier than connecting 25 passes in a row.
That brings us to pressing champion Lynn Williams. The NJ/NY Gotham FC forward lost virtually all of 2022 to injury, but in 2021 her NWSL per-90 xG was a virtual dead heat with Swanson’s in 2022 (Williams was at 0.56, Swanson at 0.59). She’d also be completing a front line featuring two other forwards who are very used to a high press: Smith and the Portland Thorns are experts at disrupting opposition build patterns, while Alex Morgan and the San Diego Wave are extraordinarily well-drilled as a pressing unit.
Going this route — which may also leave Rodman in the frame, given both her excellent pressing numbers as well as the Spirit’s move towards centering a high press in 2023 — requires changes elsewhere. Pressing isn’t just about effort; it takes so much work to get 11 players to do it perfectly as a group, and one error in a press can undo the whole thing.
Andonovski would need to consider the make-up of his entire team, rather than just his front line. Given the need to push up high as a unit, can you afford a slower player on the back line? One-on-one defending becomes far more important, as does winning headers and (in the midfield) quickness to get to second balls. Stamina, physical durability, and an unyielding focus all matter more for pressing teams than they do for mid-block sides.
On top of that, Williams is a) just barely back to playing after a torn hamstring tendon kept her out for months, and b) dealing with an elbow injury of unclear severity. She played through it with Gotham FC and was present and in uniform for the USWNT in this camp, but didn’t play. Maybe it’s nothing, or maybe not.
At her best, though, Williams changes the center of gravity in games through her pressing instincts. She makes the right choice about when to take the risk of pursuing the ball, and due to her speed and tough tackling, teams have to plan around avoiding her or risk a series of turnovers. Williams breaks other team’s schemes in a way that makes the rest of the team more dangerous, and a high-pressing USWNT could take advantage of a non-summer World Cup (average highs around 58-59 degrees in the cities the USWNT would play in) to grind opponents into pulp.
Get weird with it
Andonovski has other options here as well. Alyssa Thompson is legitimately in the mix rather than getting call-ups to help her down the road. A healthy Megan Rapinoe was unstoppable for OL Reign late last season, and over the last year has been Swanson’s only peer as a set piece taker in the U.S. player pool. Given the fine margins and the USWNT’s laundry list of potential targets, a dead ball expert on her level will get serious consideration.
However, there’s one option that feels like a longshot even though it shouldn’t be. The USWNT has a series of fullbacks vying to be second-choice, while one of their starters is known to prefer playing further up the field.
Crystal Dunn’s return to an attacking role might read as fan service, but she’s also been so good as an attacker that it deserves to be thought about extensively. The USWNT would lose something at the back — Andonovski starts Dunn at left back not out of cruelty, but because she is the best left back on the team — but it could also gain something with her restored to a more free, attack-first role that she clearly desires. The talent as a Swanson-style goals/assists double threat, the invention, the balance on the dribble, is all there.
(Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
Realistically, for Andonovski to take that step, he’d need a fullback to also step up in a big way. Casey Krueger was the most impressive of the group given minutes on Tuesday, but that’s a very small sample size, and she has a vanishingly small number of games to make the case that she is even going to make the 23-player roster, much less become a starter. Sofia Huerta and Kelley O’Hara seem to be the other candidates here, but it feels like they’ve fallen on Andonovski’s depth chart.
But since we’re getting out there, what if a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 lifer like Andonovski concludes that he has to change his formation? If Andonovski’s solution to losing a starting forward is to simply pair Smith and Morgan and use the extra player somewhere else, the option to deploy a diamond 4-4-2 jumps out as a real possibility.
In a diamond, Andonovski has options. He could bring Julie Ertz into a midfield with Andi Sullivan and Lindsey Horan rather than having an either/or decision to make. He’s also looked at ways to get Rose Lavelle and Ashley Sanchez into games at the same time, and a diamond (with Lavelle deeper) makes that far easier. It also opens the door for Kristie Mewis to play in her best position, which in turn means another high-quality set piece taker is on the field more regularly.
“It’s hard for me to answer this question right at this moment, but once this camp is over and we review it, we hope to have a little better answer, or at least clearer understanding, of the direction that we want to take,” was how Andonovski closed his remarks on the team’s Swanson-less near-term future.
The coach has had a difficult tenure: the Covid-19 pandemic wiped away the perfect moment to institute a generational switch within the squad, the Olympics went worse than the bronze medal finish indicates, and Swanson is hardly the first locked-in starter to become unavailable or be majorly hampered this close to a big tournament since he took the job.
Sorting out how to adjust to the loss of such a crucial player while still improving a team that needs to get better will be his biggest challenge yet.
Swanson and the counter-press? Great! Facing a high press? Not so much
At the moment, the U.S. women’s national team is a cliché glass of water.
If you see a team that has now won six straight games and just beat three strong sides in Canada, Japan, and Brazil en route to yet another SheBelieves Cup title, you’re looking at a half-full glass. They have a key player in extraordinary form, injured regulars are approaching full fitness, and they gave up just one goal in what is effectively a preseason tournament while facing sides whose players are in many cases closer to 100%.
If you’re thinking that Canada was a shadow of itself due to off-field issues with its federation, or that Japan worried the USWNT throughout their match, or are picturing Brazil’s near-misses from Kerolin or Adriana, you’re Team Half-Empty. You saw the USWNT struggle with two very different pressing set-ups, and are expecting things to go awry in the first game where the U.S. doesn’t bury their first great look at goal.
Well friends, guess what? You’re both making great points. Let’s get into the positives and negatives of the USWNT’s showing at the SheBelieves Cup.
Swanson’s show
Mallory Swanson is unstoppable at the moment, scoring in all three SheBelieves Cup matches for the USWNT and in seven straight games overall. The list of attacking players anywhere sharing this sort of stratospheric form consists of maybe Sam Kerr, and that’s it.
Under Vlatko Andonovski, there was a Christen Press phase before the pandemic like this, and Catarina Macario and Sophia Smith have spent time as the seemingly inevitable source of goals and assists on this team. Swanson is indisputably having her time under the spotlight right now.
One remarkable thing about this run is that it’s not happening with a particularly stable attacking group around her. The following is a list of what other attacking players were on the field when Swanson scored on this run:
Morgan, Smith, Lavelle
Morgan, Rodman, Lavelle
Hatch, Rodman, Sanchez
Morgan, Williams, Sanchez
Morgan, Rodman, Sanchez
Morgan, Williams, Lavelle
With Smith absent for both camps this year due to a foot injury, and Rose Lavelle missing two SheBelieves Cup games for precautionary reasons, Vlatko Andonovski has toggled between plenty of groups on offense, and Swanson seems to work just as well alongside any of them. We also saw Swanson look very comfortable playing off of Macario in 2021 and the early part of 2022, leaving little worry if the USWNT ends up going back to more of a false No. 9 look come the World Cup.
What’s been very impressive from Swanson is that she’s using her off-ball movement to create the kinds of chances she thrives in: running a channel, receiving the ball just as she breaks in behind the defense. Teams know the USWNT is looking for it. Right-sided defensive players know that’s where she’s going to end up, and still — whether in counter-pressing moments, long balls from the back, passes from midfield, or combination play — they can’t stop her from getting there anyway.
In the months ahead, any team that’s serious about winning the World Cup or that finds itself in Group E is going to be intently studying how to either prevent Swanson from finding these openings, or to cut off her supply from the rest of the group.
It’s vital for the USWNT that they keep opponents guessing, because at the moment, this doesn’t seem like a team that is going to imperiously march through seven games to a trophy. Much like these last two games in particular, the USWNT is on course for some very tight knockout round games in which one player being decisive is the difference.
The good news? The roster is deep with that kind of player, and Swanson in particular is arguably the decisive player in women’s soccer right now. If the team can maintain that — and especially if they add to it — their chances of a third straight World Cup victory are stronger than people seem to think right now.
Pressing problems
That said, there is a reason your social media timeline of choice seems full of doubt. It boils down to some clear issues the USWNT has had facing a high press. To be fair, any organized high press attempted by fast players is by its nature difficult to play through. To their credit, the USWNT has used friendlies to actually work on this rather than simply playing it safe in hopes of an exhibition victory.
However, it’s fair to say this is very much a work in progress, and come the World Cup, we may see them have to adopt some safety-first tactics to get through the opening stages of games. Generally speaking, that’s how high-pressing teams operate: you press for 15-20 minutes trying to get a lead or at least throw your opponent into disarray, then spend some time defending out of a more defined block so you don’t have a team full of exhausted players.
The USWNT, after simply overwhelming a Canada side that had been through so much coming into game one, found themselves on the other side of the coin against both Japan and Brazil. These games weren’t equal — Japan’s press was more organized and dangerous, whereas a tired-looking U.S. gave Brazil an assist by offering up some uncharacteristically sloppy play — but the outcome was close enough to the same that it should be a concern.
(AP Photo/Mark Zaleski)
We’ve seen some other top teams unsettle the USWNT like this over the past few years. Sweden did it at the Olympics, and both Germany and Spain showed that they were paying attention to the trend late in 2022.
As was already covered here, to some extent any press that is executed at a reasonable level is going to make the team in possession look uncomfortable. There seems to be an expectation among fans that can’t be reconciled: many teams are improving worldwide and deserve more respect, but also, the USWNT should be able to beat anyone anywhere with ease, so that discomfort must be an indicator that the team is falling off a cliff.
The sky is not falling for the USWNT, who as a reminder just beat three higher-end teams despite fielding a squad that is (Lindsey Horan aside) in preseason. But it is time for the fanbase to come to grips with a reality that, as high-pressing tactics have become more and more a regular thing in the women’s game, USWNT games might look a little rough around the edges.
It also must be said that the USWNT showed its preseason status in these two games. Some fundamental elements — first touch, body shape when receiving the ball, how often they checked their shoulders, and how early they made their move to be an option for the next pass — were lacking. By contrast, Japan and Brazil both seemed to be closer to top gear. That shouldn’t be the case at the World Cup.
However, here’s where the worried USWNT fan might want to start looking when they consider issues with the team: in this tournament, both Japan and Brazil pressed the way you’d expect them to. Japan’s 3-4-2-1 is not an unknown quantity, and Pia Sundhage’s 4-4-2 with Brazil is something everyone should be very familiar with by now.
Why, then, did these pressing structures seem to come as such a surprise? It’s one thing to enter a game knowing that it’ll be a bit scruffy because both teams are pressing. It’s another to see the USWNT seemingly not prepared to find the angles needed to play around those differing shapes. Every press gives up openings to gain certain things, but the U.S. had to find those spaces rather than knowing where they would be from the jump.
Japan and Brazil both seemed to catch the USWNT off guard, and while the players and coaching staff both did solid work sorting things out on the fly, it’s a bit alarming that they were having to find their way mid-game, and that’s not a completely new issue. Last year’s three-game losing streak saw a similar dynamic play out.
The pressure right now on the coaching staff should be on making sure more games resemble the Canada match rather than a worrisome scramble to get through the first 20 minutes without conceding. Higher-end teams are no longer going to hold off on taking the big tactical risk pressing is against the USWNT, and as we saw last year, there are teams out there good enough to turn a worrying phase for the USWNT into actual goals.
Pressing solutions
The flip side to the USWNT’s issues when facing a press is that they remain an absolute nightmare of a counter-pressing team. That’s down to both the work of the coaching staff — Andonovski’s teams, going back to FC Kansas City and the former Seattle Reign, have largely been counter-pressing experts — and the individual players.
Swanson’s goal came from counter-pressure that ended with Lynn Williams forcing a turnover and getting the ball to Lavelle in space. The USWNT counter-pressed Brazil into a giveaway on Alex Morgan’s goal that wasn’t (a shame, since Andi Sullivan’s first-time through ball was the best pass either team played on Wednesday), and seized on another chaotic situation when Morgan scored a goal that actually counted a few moments later.
Williams is comfortably the best counter-pressing forward on the planet, and last month we were talking about how strong her claim is for a World Cup roster spot despite losing 2022 to injury. This is ultimately why the talk about her not being the most clinical finisher has always missed the point: the USWNT will score more goals with her in games, because they’ll get more chances, because no team and no individual is better at counter-pressing.
It’s not just Williams, though. Anyone who has watched Trinity Rodman in NWSL has seen her — even in mid-block systems, which the Washington Spirit have largely played during her first two seasons — force turnovers by combining a clear understanding of when to jump on an opposing player with her obvious athletic gifts. Rodman’s ability on that front already seems top-tier, and we’ve only really seen the tip of the iceberg. In Mark Parsons’ system this year — expect more high pressure and more counter-pressing — she’s going to improve rapidly.
Swanson and Smith may not force as many turnovers, but they’re both vital cogs in this machine due to how quickly they choose and make the correct run after the turnover comes. Going back to Swanson always managing to get stereotypical Swanson chances even though every opponent wants to prevent them, this is often where they come from. She (and Smith) see the turnover coming, and make the most dangerous run early. The USWNT player picking up the loose ball doesn’t have to cycle through options or take an extra touch to wait for the opening. The ball pops loose, and the pass in behind to a world-class attacker is already on.
Probably not a game that will be known for its attacking brilliance, but w/ USA only getting off 5 shots to Japan's 15, the chances that USA had *on average* were far better than the opponent.
The Japan game was a perfect example. Japan’s expected goals were higher, as even a casual viewer would have guessed. However, since they also out-shot the USWNT by nine, their xG per shot was quite low. The USWNT didn’t create a lot, but the chances they carved out were good ones, and with their forwards, the higher xG chances tend to become actual goals.
All of this is to say that counter-pressing, and the avenue towards higher-leverage openings, is how the USWNT has been winning games that seem more even on a surface level. They put teams into terrible positions just when they believe they’ve dealt with the threat and start to open up their shape, and they have a range of forwards and midfielders (it must be mentioned that Lavelle is more or less an ideal No. 10 to receive the ball in a counter-pressing situation) built to thrive in exactly these moments.
More than any other thing, this is the path towards a USWNT World Cup win this summer.
