U.S. women’s national team star Mallory Swanson was forced out of the team’s friendly against Ireland with a worrisome injury.
Shortly before halftime, Swanson was caught by a late challenge from Ireland defender Aoife Mannion. Swanson immediately signaled for attention, holding her knee and seeming to be in serious pain.
After several minutes of treatment on the pitch, and speaking with Vlatko Andonovski — who was allowed by referees to come have a word with the Chicago Red Stars attacker — Swanson was stretchered off the field, with a cart taking her down a tunnel at Q2 Stadium.
Broadcaster TNT said at halftime that Swanson was being taken to the hospital with a left knee injury.
Following the match, USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski told reporters that the team wasn’t sure of her status.
“Mal had to leave the stadium. We don’t know the extent of her injury yet, she is getting checked out as we speak,” said Andonovski. “I’m hoping for good news in the near future.
Andonovski also addressed an earlier collision Swanson had with Ireland goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan that saw her receive what appeared to be an examination for a neck injury.
“We wanted to make sure, and our medical staff wanted to make sure, that she was okay,” said Andonovski. “Obviously with this game being so close to the World Cup, we didn’t want to take any chances. If there was any slight chance she should have not been back on the field, we were going to keep her off, but she felt good. Everything was fine.”
Andonovski said that incident was not an injury to her brain, adding that she said “‘Coach, I’m good!'” when being carted off.
“Any time an injury happens, emotions run high… everybody was a little bit affected by it,” added Andonovski. “Mal is a very lovable person, she’s a happy person and brings joy to the environment.”
What does it take for a teenager to shine in NWSL? We tried to find out
NWSL’s history with truly young players is, thanks to under-supported clubs and a lack of guardrails, a messy one.
As with many situations pertaining to the NWSL during its early years, teams — and the league itself — were unprepared to take on the challenge involved, but also simply lacked a clear plan on how to incorporate players outside of the draft system.
While teams seemed to grasp what it could mean for them on the competitive side — both the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit moved mountains specifically to be in position to acquire Mallory Swanson, for example — the league was far less prepared for how much the non-soccer side matters.
Swanson’s experience is instructive. Then 19, Swanson, née Pugh, would lead the 2017 Spirit with six goals, but was largely left to her own devices two time zones away from home. Between injuries and little club-level support at a team running on a minor-league financial plan, Swanson’s development path seemed to plateau at a moment when she was largely expected to be U.S. Soccer’s Next Big Thing.
In retrospect, Swanson’s growth being hampered was hardly a surprise given the Spirit’s multipleoff-fieldissues during her time with the club.
Considering the state of the entire league, the series of public missteps, and the multiple investigations involved, it’s safe to say this wasn’t one bad environment. Frankly, it’s not clear that any NWSL club in this time frame was an appropriate environment for a player like Swanson to walk into. The entire league simply was not ready to provide what was required of it.
As Swanson approaches 25 years old, she has reached the level of being one of the best attackers on the planet. Things eventually worked out. However, her path here wasn’t easy, and a major factor was an NWSL club whose on-field ambitions surpassed what their off-field capabilities would actually allow for.
To be sure, there are success stories: Ellie Carpenter’s time with the Thorns — who for all their failings in player safety still had a much more substantial infrastructure than any other NWSL club in that era — became a near-instant starter and is now a fixture for Lyon and Australia.
Back with the Spirit, Trinity Rodman declared for the draft and was immediately one of the NWSL’s best players. The Spirit took some lessons from how they had failed Swanson, having a more robust plan in place to give her a better situation away from the training field. Rodman ended up winning a title and making the NWSL Best XI in 2021, and has broken through with the USWNT over the last year-plus.
Still, with no NWSL rules on how these situations worked, the process is different every time. Swanson’s path to the NWSL was convoluted: the Spirit made multiple trades to obtain the top spot in the Distribution Ranking Order, a mechanism which no longer exists, and she missed the first five games of the season because the league simply didn’t have the wherewithal to come up with a more timely method to get her on a team.
The complications for players just trying to get into the league continued: Olivia Moultrie getting a contract from Portland involved a public pressure campaign and a court case that saw NWSL on one side and one of its clubs (as well as a player who wanted to be in the league) on the other. Even after a judge ruled in Moultrie’s favor, NWSL rules still ended up putting her into an ad hoc discovery process that saw OL Reign acquire her rights before trading them to Portland (for far below market value).
(Photo by Amanda Loman/Getty Images)
The outcome was what the player, her family, and the club wanted. Moultrie has proven her mettle, and even for the defending champions, the 17-year-old gets regular playing time as the team’s attacking midfielder. She’s a serious contributor (three goals and four assists in 17 games last year) for a powerhouse. It’s just that, as with Swanson, she faced plainly unnecessary obstacles that seemed rooted in a lack of preparedness and infrastructure.
Jaedyn Shaw’s path into the league was only slightly less rocky. The Texan, then 17, joined the Spirit in the 2022 preseason and trained with them for months while Washington tried to pursue some backchannel diplomacy aimed at a new method for young players to enter the league.
The campaign didn’t change enough minds, and once again NWSL held a mid-season discovery process to sort the situation out. Sources at the time told Pro Soccer Wire that at least six NWSL clubs submitted bids — Washington and San Diego being the only two ever publicly revealed — and that a weighted lottery placed the Wave atop the discovery list. Another potential star player’s career course was charted by a confusing, opaque method.
In a call with Pro Soccer Wire from San Diego, Shaw took a moment to choose her words before discussing how much of a problem it would have been if she had been denied entry into the league last year.
“It would have been definitely really hard for me,” said Shaw. “I would have been basically with the Spirit for a whole year, and being in that environment, knowing that I can handle it, knowing that I can do it every single day and play at that level, and then just being told no…that definitely would have been hard for me to deal with.”
It’s hard to dispute Shaw’s read on her ability to compete. She scored in her professional debut, and has been a regular starter for a San Diego side that competed for the NWSL Shield last season. In the Wave’s 2023 opener, Shaw scored a splendid goal, while coach Casey Stoney experimented with a formation change designed to make the 18-year-old more of an attacking centerpiece.
With multiple clubs now well-staffed enough to both scout the youth ranks more thoroughly and able to create an infrastructure to truly support teenage players, the situation was only going to repeat itself with more frequency. Shortly after the 2022 season ended, NWSL announced that it had created a new way for young players to join teams. The Under-18 Entry List specified both how young players could end up with a specific team, and installed some common-sense safeguards to prevent teams from choosing short-term competitive needs over a player’s well-being.
For example, the new rules prevent teams from trading or waiving a player before they turn 18 without the consent of both the player and their legal guardian. Under-18 Entry List players can’t be selected in expansion drafts, and their initial contract must run through the season in which they turn 18. If a team wants to make the commitment, the rules oblige them to truly take a longer view, in exchange for removing the bizarre paths to entry players in this age group have had to endure.
So far, the new rules have been applied twice, both for 15-year-old prospects: Washington signed Chloe Ricketts, while the Wave followed shortly thereafter in signing Melanie Barcenas. Both clubs had these players on their radar well before the establishment of the league’s rules, meaning that clubs have essentially been waiting for NWSL rules to catch up.
The time appears to be now, and the league — as it emerges from numerous debacles — has entered a new era.
Resources have changed the game
That era contains a need to balance multiple thoughts: player safety, development, the attention that comes when a younger player signs with a pro team, and the day-to-day process of trying to win games in an endlessly competitive league.
Speaking to Pro Soccer Wire just a couple of weeks before Barcenas signed with the club, Stoney said that when the opportunity to sign Shaw arrived, “as a club, we were like, ‘we need to make it happen,’ because she was such a talented young player.”
What followed was both pursuing the nuts-and-bolts of signing a player, but also showing that they could meet the requirements NWSL said had to be in place: housing for Shaw and her family, “a separate locker room, making sure that every player and every member of staff was qualified for SafeSport to make sure we could bring minors into the environment,” said Stoney. “Making sure we had all the policies and procedures in place, making sure that we were looking after the California law side of things as well.”
(Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
Shaw said that the team brought her in for meetings with Stoney, club president Jill Ellis, and general manager Molly Downtain to talk through the normal things a player wants to know about when signing with a new club (team philosophy, training ground, etc.) and also go over how things would be for her in specific circumstances.
“It was just what to expect, basically. They didn’t want me to just come here not knowing exactly what’s going on, and just being completely new to this to the area and everything,” said Shaw, who added that the major offseason change for her was limited to moving to a “more permanent” home in San Diego after the team had set up something more short-term last year.
A major difference between San Diego and NWSL teams circa six or seven years ago? Ownership groups that can afford to create a larger club infrastructure. Shaw said that upon arrival, the Wave had everything in place, rather than trying to build the plane while mid-air.
“I think that the Wave have a lot of resources,” said Shaw, listing off the team’s coaching staff, trainers, and a mental well-being coach the club has made available for the entire squad. “I’m comfortable having that relationship with them and being able to express what I need as an athlete, and what I need as a person from them.”
Spirit president of soccer operations Mark Krikorian told Pro Soccer Wire that a club’s commitment when signing such young players has to start with safety, and that teams should be aiming to surpass league rules when they can.
“I think that we’re all committed to protecting [Ricketts], first and foremost, and any other young player that’s here,” said Krikorian. “The league has done a good job in putting together protocols to protect the players, the states all have different rules, laws, and so on to protect [minors], but hopefully we’re going above and beyond those.”
Speaking to reporters before the season kicked off, Spirit midfielder Andi Sullivan said that in her view, Washington is a good place for a player like Ricketts because of both the infrastructure Krikorian, owner Michele Kang, and others have assembled, and because the players themselves are well-tuned towards helping a youngster out as a teammate.
“I do think we have a lot more ability to support her and hopefully that continues to grow, that we would be able to support her and people her age more,” said Sullivan. “I also think — not to toot our own horn — but I think she stepped into the perfect team to do that, because we’re taking good care of her in terms of the team aspect.”
In Washington, that means so many things: light-hearted ribbing during a rondo, a new coaching staff that has prioritized internal standards and culture, player-to-player communication in training and elsewhere, but also continuing education. Krikorian says that Ricketts will continue the same remote education program she was on in Michigan, and that the Spirit have longer-term plans to link up with regional universities to allow young players an avenue to get their degree while playing for Washington.
“I think that they all realize that they can make a positive impact in this young woman’s life, and help her and help to guide her and mentor her,” explained Krikorian. “It’s not their job. Their job is to go out into play and so on, but I do think that they are sensitive women and I do think that they do want what’s best for Chloe and what’s best for the club and they recognize they can be a positive piece of this.”
The soccer side is the easy part
On one front, the game tells the truth: if a young player brings it on the soccer side, getting acclimated tends to go very quickly.
Stoney said that Shaw got “the respect of the group immediately” with what she showed in training. “She shows what she’s capable of, and the players want her on there because they know that she can make a difference.”
With Ricketts, Sullivan and Ashley Sanchez — no strangers to the cauldron that is the USWNT environment — took note of how she’s got confidence and skill, but is also not timid when it comes to challenges.
“I think Chloe stepped in and was like, decking people,” Sullivan said. “I think [it] shows that she’s not afraid of anything. And I think that fearless mindset will carry her a long way.”
“She came in with the energy, she was hitting people immediately,” added Sanchez. “I was respecting it.”
Sullivan noted that Ricketts is “young, but she doesn’t want to be treated like she’s young,” adding that the Michigan native “is very thoughtful. You [can] tell that in conversations with her: she is very considerate of, and aware of, how things work, and she knows herself really well,” all of which help a player who has to handle a new phenomenon: being hugely talented, but also not being her team’s star attraction from day one.
Young players, eager to show their best stuff, can often make a big impact on arrival. Consistency is harder to come by, and those outsized expectations can pose a problem over time. In San Diego, Stoney is quick to caution that no one is expecting Shaw to carry on without any issues or tough patches. “Are there ups and downs for a young player? Yeah. They’re gonna go for a bit of a bumpy road because they’re not always going to be on a trajectory like this,” she said, tracing a diagonal line heading towards the heavens. “That’s not real life. No one does. They go up, and then they might have a little dip, and then they’ll go up again.”
Stoney said that it’s a coach’s job to sort out when a player needs to push through those down moments to build resolve, and when they’re no longer progressing. However, she adds, “[being] honest about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it” is just as vital.
According to Stoney, the vagaries of the U.S. development system — players remaining stars in their club teams and then doing the same collegiately — can deprive those youngsters of the chance to develop resilience. They get to the NWSL level, and it might be the first time in their lives where they’ve not just walked right into a given lineup.
“They’ve played every game, they’ve been a starter, then all of a sudden they step into a professional environment and they might not even be on the [gameday] roster,” said Stoney. “It’s a massive adjustment for them in terms of their mentality and emotional responses to that, and they haven’t built the resilience to be able to cope with it because they’ve never faced it before. So we try and get ahead of it. We know that it’s going to happen. We put on workshops for those players that have come into professional environment for the first time. We look at the challenges they might be facing and we tackle them head on.”
Still, the task Stoney describes is a next-level problem, one that is normal for a functioning and healthy soccer environment. For the NWSL, “functioning” and “healthy” have been qualities to aspire to, rather than the day-to-day truth. The new system of rules and guidelines, combined with major advances at clubs and player-driven demands for raised standards, has finally put the league in a position to answer that kind of challenge.
The NWSL is set to be part of the hugely popular video game for the first time
EA Sports has revealed the 10 highest rated NWSL players in FIFA 23, as the league’s teams are available in the game for the first time ever.
San Diego Wave star Alex Morgan leads the list with a rating of 90, while Debinha — who signed with the Kansas City Current in a huge free agent deal this offseason — is next up, rated 88 overall.
U.S. women’s national team starters Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns), Mallory Swanson (Chicago Red Stars), and Rose Lavelle (OL Reign) are next on the list, all given an 87 rating.
EA Sports has announced all of the player ratings across the NWSL, which can be found along with their ratings for women’s players in the Women’s Super League, Division 1 Féminine, and prominent national teams like Spain and Germany. The full list of women’s player ratings can be found here.
Following a landmark partnership between the league, the NWSL Players’ Association, and EA Sports, FIFA 23 will include NWSL players starting on March 15 in the following modes:
Kick Off
Tournament Mode
Head to Head season
Co-op Seasons
Online Friendlies
FIFA 23 will also include four NWSL stadiums, authentic kit renderings, and celebrations.
Here are the top 10 — or really 11, due to a three-way tie for ninth place — NWSL players in FIFA 23.
NWSL’s new Under-18 Entry Mechanism is already being used
The times are definitely changing in the NWSL, and few things make that more clear than the burgeoning youth movement around the league.
The latest move on that front has seen the Washington Spirit signing 15-year-old forward Chloe Ricketts to a three-year contract (the deal includes an option year in 2026). Per the Spirit, Ricketts signed her contract on Thursday aged 15 years and 283 days, making her three days younger than Portland Thorns midfielder Olivia Moultrie was when she signed her first professional contract in 2021.
“We remain very focused on building a roster that can help us succeed now while also investing in the future,” said head coach Mark Parsons in a team release announcing the move. “Chloe has shown great quality with and without the ball and has an incredible intensity in everything she does. The vision and infrastructure of our club make this signing possible, and we are look forward to Chloe developing and becoming an important player and teammate for our team.”
Spirit signs youngest-ever player to NWSL contract!
“The opportunity to join the Washington Spirit on a professional contract is a dream come true,” added Ricketts. “I’m looking forward to continuing my development as a player and individual with the great resources here in the District.”
Ricketts, who hails from Michigan, played for AFC Ann Arbor in the USL W-League in 2022, scoring two goals and adding two assists as one of the two 14-year-olds in the entire pre-professional league. In 2021, she played on an Ann Arbor Tigers boys team that won the Michigan State Cup and on a girls team that went to the ECNL national final.
The Spirit’s initial preseason roster included Ricketts and another teenager, U.S. Under-17 midfielder Melina Rebimbas, as the club has made youth development a clear priority. In 2022, Washington brought USYNT attacker Jaedyn Shaw in during their preseason, keeping the then-17-year-old around to train with the team while hoping for a path to sign her.
NWSL, with no mechanism in place to allow for a youth player to sign without waiting for the next college draft, ruled that Shaw had to go through the league’s discovery process. The San Diego Wave were atop the priority list for that mechanism, and despite overtures from the Spirit — sources told Pro Soccer Wire that Washington offered $250,000 in allocation money, or $150,000 and a first-round draft pick — they opted to offer Shaw a deal.
That proved to be a smart choice, as Shaw scored on her professional debut and has already emerged as a consistent starter for a playoff-caliber team.
NWSL Under-18 Entry Mechanism in action
Ricketts’ signing is far less of an ordeal than previous teenagers have experienced when trying to join a team in the league. Portland tried to move mountains to sign Mallory Swanson in 2016, only for NWSL to leave no avenue to do so. Swanson ended up signing with the league in 2017, ending up with the Spirit via a convoluted distribution ranking order process.
Moultrie, meanwhile, ended up taking the league to court after her attempts to sign with Portland were initially rebuffed by NWSL rules. Even after the league relented, it still required a discovery process akin to the one Shaw went through in 2022, with OL Reign claiming her league rights. The Reign then traded those rights to the Thorns for a third-round pick so Moultrie could play where she’d wanted to all along.
Commissioner Jessica Berman was asked about these stumbling blocks at a press conference before the league’s 2022 championship game, and said that sorting out its policy for players in Ricketts’ situation was a priority.
“Virtually every policy and rule, at the league office, is being reviewed,” said Berman. “We are taking a closer look at everything and figuring out what are the most important things we need to address, and [youth player entry] is definitely one of the areas that we’re focused on, to try to make sure we balance all different interests — and there’s a lot of competing interests — and get the most right for the future of the league.”
Ricketts is the first player to put those changes into practice. NWSL announced a new Under-18 Entry Mechanism in November 2022, detailing what standards had to be met for a team and player to qualify.
Among the requirements are provisions that require teams to offer a guaranteed contract once they place a player on their Under-18 Entry List, and must have the consent of both the player and their parent or legal guardian to do so. Players entering the league this way can’t be waived or traded until after turning 18 unless the player and their guardian have given consent, and are ineligible to be selected in any expansion draft while under 18 years old.
Teams are limited to two players per season between both their Under-18 Entry List and players signed via that mechanism. So for the Spirit, signing Ricketts and having Rebimbas on their list means they are currently maxed out within the parameters of the new process for the 2023 season. Under-18 Entry Mechanism spots cannot be traded, so a team can’t hoard them as with other tradable assets.
Washington’s press release noted that Ricketts “will continue her education virtually throughout the season,” though there are no publicly-stated requirements on that front from the league.
Mallory Swanson on Angel City FC? It could’ve happened if the Dodgers signed her husband
Dansby Swanson signed with the Chicago Cubs in December, landing in the same city where his wife Mallory Swanson plays for the Chicago Red Stars.
But the shortstop said that even if he’d signed with a different team, the NWSL was open to moving the U.S. national team star to ensure the couple played in the same city.
The Cubs handed Swanson a seven-year, $177 million contract to land him as a free agent from the Atlanta Braves. After years in a long-distance relationship, the couple, who were married in December, were finally together in the same city.
In an interview with USA TODAY Sports, Swanson said that the NWSL was open to moving his wife away from the Red Stars had he signed with a team other than the Cubs.
“This is technically her last season in Chicago,’’ Swanson said, “but the [NWSL] pretty much made a promise that they would do right by her. Say I had signed with the Dodgers, they would have traded her to a team that’s in Los Angeles. They were very open to that. And since I’m in Chicago now, I think they’re going to be OK keeping her around.’’
That is unfortunate news for Angel City FC, who could’ve landed one of the most in-form players in the world had the Dodgers pushed harder to sign her husband.
Dansby Swanson admitted that both he and his wife were unsure if they wanted to continue their careers in Chicago, but ultimately came around to the idea.
“It’s funny like before Chicago, we were both kind of like I don’t know,’’ he said. “She said, ‘I don’t know if I want to there.’ I said, ‘I don’t know if I want to be there.’ But the more we prayed about it was like, ‘Chicago is where we’re supposed to be.’ Looking back, things just started falling to place than makes a lot of sense now.’’
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.
The USWNT may need to improve against a press, but their counter-press is looking sharp
Much has been made of the U.S. women’s national team’s issues against high-pressing foes of late, but they showed they can dish it out better than anyone at the SheBelieves Cup.
The USWNT defeated Brazil 2-1 Wednesday night, with counter-pressure leading to goals from Alex Morgan and Mallory Swanson and helping generate much of the U.S. attack during an even contest. Brazil pulled a very late goal back thanks to Ludmila, but ultimately came up just short as the USWNT lifted the trophy in this tournament for the fourth straight time.
Still, it has to be said that Brazil gave them a real test. As was the case in their win over Japan, the USWNT struggled with a foe implementing a high press in the early minutes. It would be unfair to say they were in as much trouble on Wednesday as they were against the Japanese — Crystal Dunn hit the post in the fourth minute, and many USWNT turnovers were totally self-inflicted — but the team still has a clear issue to work on with the World Cup looming this summer.
Even when the USWNT had started to find better angles and more precision to break that press, the Brazilian counter-attack remained a major threat. Kerolin rolled a shot just wide after an incisive break forward after Brazil broke out just as the U.S. had pushed seven players into the attack.
The USWNT finally gave Brazil a taste of their own medicine in the final seconds of the half, with a counter-press ending with Lindsey Horan jarring the ball loose. Andi Sullivan immediately seized the chance, playing a 35-yard pass to send Alex Morgan in alone.
Morgan finished with clinical ease, but an offside flag interrupted her celebrations.
Alex Morgan put the ball in the back of the net but she was called offside.
Morgan may have been disappointed, but she didn’t have to wait long to get on the scoresheet. In the final seconds of the half, Brazil hesitated, expecting a foul call after Rose Lavelle was tripped up. Referee Marie-Soleil Beaudoin let the USWNT carry on with their attack, and Horan immediately played a similar ball to Sullivan’s through for Swanson.
Swanson has been in such good form that it was fair to expect her to finish against four Brazil defenders, but with her shot being blocked, Morgan was on hand to pick up the pieces. The San Diego Wave striker took a touch before bending a sublime 24-yard shot around the traffic in the box and into the far corner.
Brazil didn’t let the goal get them down, with winger Adriana lining up a shot moments into the second half that beat Alyssa Naeher but clanked off the crossbar.
Still, the USWNT had their chances as well: Morgan nearly scored one of the least orthodox goals of her career, while seconds later both Becky Sauerbrunn and Sullivan both had point-blank shots blocked in a scrum following a corner kick.
Brazil was starting to look a little unsure about how to progress the ball against the USWNT, and the counter-press factored in yet again as they padded their lead through — who else? — Swanson.
Lynn Williams, mere seconds after entering the fray, won a tackle at midfield, gifting Lavelle possession between the lines. The OL Reign star surged forward against a retreating defense, but once Rafaelle decided at last to step to the ball, Lavelle immediately fed Swanson for a pinpoint low finish.
We should pause to consider Swanson’s form, which remains unreal: seven goals in 2023, and eight in her last six USWNT appearances.
Brazil weren’t offering much in terms of a comeback, but almost out of nowhere, snagged a goal that won’t go over very well when the USWNT reviews this match. NJ/NY Gotham FC fullback Bruninha lofted a cross to the back post, and despite the presence of Naeher, Emily Fox, and Naomi Girma, Ludmila somehow managed to win the header and tuck the ball away by guiding it back across goal.
The same duo nearly combined again as Brazil suddenly showed some life, with Girma having to get her header exactly right under pressure from Ludmila, but from that moment on, the USWNT settled down and saw themselves through to yet another SheBelieves Cup victory.
The USWNT forward is in the form of her life right now
Mallory Swanson was limited to a bench role at the 2019 World Cup. She then didn’t even make the Olympic squad two years later.
This summer, though, Swanson appears poised to not only play a central role for the U.S. as they aim to win a third straight World Cup, but she may be positioning herself as the team’s most important attacking piece.
That’s the kind of form the forward has been in for the better part of a year, which she demonstrated again on Thursday against Canada.
The USWNT defeated Canada 2-0 in their SheBelieves Cup opener, with Swanson scoring both goals. The second was an opportunistic finish after a mistake from Canada but the first was the pick of the night, demonstrating quick thinking and textbook technique to keep the ball down on the volley.
It was the fourth consecutive USWNT appearance with a goal for the 24-year-old, who has six goals over that span. As head coach Vlatko Andonovski said after the game, Swanson is excelling not just on her own, but also in combining with Lindsey Horan and Crystal Dunn on the left to create overloads.
“She plays so well individually but we can see more and more Mal combining with the players around her,” he said. “One of the reasons why I felt like our left [side] subgroup was good was because of her synchronized movement with Lindsey and Crystal.”
Andonovski noted that Swanson is still only 24 and has yet to reach her ceiling but, having made her USWNT debut as a 17-year-old, she is now vastly experienced at the international level.
Swanson has 88 caps already and is older than several of players expected to join her in attack at the World Cup, like Trinity Rodman, Catarina Macario, Sophia Smith and Ashley Sanchez.
The coach is noticing Swanson becoming more of a leader, and demonstrating the USWNT’s ideal patterns of play for some of her less experienced teammates
“A growth that we see in Mal is her leadership qualities,” Andonovski said. “She’s becoming a really good leader on the field. Her understanding of the game is very good and her ability to help the players around [her] is tremendous.
“She doesn’t realize how much she’s helping with her communication, especially some of the younger players that sometimes play around her like Ashley Sanchez or Ashley Hatch or Trinity, so very happy with her and I truly believe we still haven’t seen the best of Mal.”
That is a truly scary prospect for opponents, who will be forced to reckon with Swanson and several other world-class attackers in Australia and New Zealand this summer. Those opponents will hope a couple of them cool off between now and then, but Swanson doesn’t look like she’ll be one of them.
“She’s in the moment,” Andonovski said. “Not just confident and not just playing well but it’s one of those things when you’re just feeling it, and she’s just feeling it. That’s the simplest way I can put it: She’s just feeling it.”
