The USWNT pair are both working their way back from injury
U.S. women’s national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski has said Rose Lavelle and Megan Rapinoe will both begin the World Cup on minutes restrictions as they ease back following injuries.
The news was better on Julie Ertz, though, with the coach saying the midfielder is at 100 percent and has no restrictions.
None of the trio played in the team’s send-off match against Wales earlier this month.
Lavelle has been battling a knee injury that has sidelined her since April, while Rapinoe hasn’t played since she left OL Reign’s game against Kansas City on June 10 with a calf issue.
Ertz, meanwhile, has been battling a thigh issue at various points in the past two months.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of his team’s World Cup opener against Vietnam, Andonovski said that both Rapinoe and Lavelle would be eased into action as the tournament progresses.
“Rose actually has been really good, she’s trained with the team now for a good three weeks, and off and on she trained with us before that,” Andonovski said. “She’s ready to play and we’re not going to force a lot of minutes from the beginning. We’ll ease everything up as we move on.”
Andonovski added: “From minutes management, Julie is 100% where Megan is in the same boat like Rose. Her minutes are probably going to grow as the tournament goes by.”
With Lavelle sidelined, Ashley Sanchez appears a likely candidate to start against Vietnam. Newcomer Savannah DeMelo is also an option for the USWNT at the No. 10 position.
Rapinoe, meanwhile, is expected to be used as a bench option for the USWNT even if fully fit, with Trinity Rodman, Alyssa Thompson and Lynn Williams potential starters at wide forward with Sophia Smith a lock starter on the other side.
For any U.S. women’s national team head coach, the calculus at any major tournament is clear: win or bust.
This summer that will be especially true of Vlatko Andonovski, who will lead the USWNT into the World Cup nearly four years after taking over from two-time champion Jill Ellis, and two years after a disappointing major tournament debut at the Olympics.
To put it simply: Andonovski is on the hot seat, and only a third straight World Cup win for the USWNT will do.
It all started well enough for Andonovski, who took over in the afterglow of the team’s 2019 World Cup triumph in France. The USWNT breezed to 16 straight wins to start Andonovski’s tenure, and won 22 of his first 23 games overall.
That start led up to the Olympics in 2021, where the USWNT was heavily favored to banish the demons of 2016 and recapture the gold. But things went south quickly in Japan.
It started with a 3-0 defeat to Sweden in which the USWNT was dominated in shockingly comprehensive fashion. The U.S. would recover to reach the semifinal, but fell to Canada for the first time in 20 years, ultimately bouncing back to win bronze.
“He took us to the Olympics and we fell short,” Lindsey Horan told USA Today’s Sports Seriously. “It’s not how we wanted to perform. The bronze medal was incredible, but we always shoot for gold.”
Despite taking home a medal, the team’s display in Japan was a low point in Andonovski’s tenure. The U.S. had not been shut out since 2017 heading into the Olympics, and was blanked three times in Japan. It was reactive, unsteady, and looked shockingly vulnerable.
Andonovski was criticized for relying too heavily on the USWNT’s old guard while young stars were omitted from the roster or, in the case of Catarina Macario, given seven minutes of total playing time.
(Photo by Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images)
There was a sense that a generational overhaul was needed and in the period following the Olympics, it appeared that was happening.
After omitting the likes of Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan from his 2022 SheBelieves Cup squad, Andonovski sounded like a man ready to fully turn the page.
“There’s a reason why Mia Hamm is not in camp still,” he said when asked about the veteran omissions. “We’re not calling Mia Hamm or Julie Foudy in camp right? So the same goes here.”
The message was hardly subtle, but what has emerged since then has been entirely more nuanced than the simple cull that appeared to be going on at the time.
Fourteen of the 23 players on Andonovski’s World Cup roster are first-timers, but a number of veterans — including, of course, Rapinoe and Morgan — were also in the squad. The average age of the roster is 28.5, putting it right in line with the World Cup-winning teams of 2015 and 2019.
Horan said that the period following the Olympics was a learning process for both coach and players. Even with some big-name veterans still around, a combination of injuries and retirements have led to plenty of roster turnover.
“It’s big learning lessons for us and for him, and how to manage his team,” Horan said. “I think the biggest thing that he’s done is brought in these new players, and had to make some tough decisions. Bringing in this roster and how we’re moving forward, and how we’re going to play and especially with the injuries that he’s had to deal with, it’s changed a lot leading to the World Cup.”
Part of those lessons came during a three-game losing streak last fall — the team’s first since 1993. It’s the kind of run that may only be properly contextualized after the World Cup. Was it part of a necessary phase of growth, or will it be just another black mark on Andonovski’s USWNT resume?
For the coach himself, the opportunity ahead is clear. Being at the wheel of a juggernaut like the USWNT — even one at slightly less that 100 percent — is something that only those in the most rarefied air of the game will ever experience.
“If you’re a soccer player you dream to play in the World Cup, if you’re a coach you dream to coach in it, so it’s a dream come true for me personally,” Andonovski said after the World Cup roster was released. “Obviously myself, together with the staff will do anything possible to help this team make history.”
Now, Andonovski and the USWNT need to deliver.
“Would I be happy with anything short of a third straight win? No, absolutely not,” he said last month. “There’s only one thing in mind. Our goal is to win the World Cup. There’s no question about it.”
Per a U.S. Soccer press release, Horan will wear the armband when both players are on the field (which figures to be most of the tournament).
“We have a lot of leaders on this team among the young players and the veteran players, and among those, Lindsey and Alex have vast experience in big games, and they understand what it takes to win at the highest levels,” said USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski. “They are ultimate professionals and understand all the factors that go into having a united and motivated team. I know they will represent us well on and off the field at the World Cup.”
Both players have plenty of experience with the armband. Per U.S. Soccer, Horan has started a match as captain nine times dating back to 2021, while Morgan has been captain 22 times, having first been named captain in 2016. Morgan captained the USWNT in three 2019 World Cup games, including their quarterfinal win against France and a semifinal triumph over England.
Of the 23 players Andonovski selected for this tournament, only Morgan (San Diego Wave), Aubrey Kingsbury (Washington Spirit), and Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars) currently serve as captains at the club level. Midfielders Julie Ertz and Andi Sullivan have also spent full NWSL seasons as captain in the past, while Megan Rapinoe’s off-field presence has been lauded by USWNT players over recent years.
Still, with Horan and Morgan both projected starters, the USWNT will probably end up with at least one more player donning the armband during the World Cup. While the scheduling in the 2023 edition is not too condensed — the USWNT’s three group stage games will be played over 10 days — it stands to reason that Andonovski will look to rotate early so that he can play his strongest 11 in the knockout rounds.
USWNT players agree that they’re “heartbroken” over Sauerbrunn’s absence
The U.S. women’s national team may be locked in on next month’s World Cup, but Becky Sauerbrunn’s absence from the roster is still weighing heavily on the group.
Sauerbrunn has battled a nagging foot injury that has persisted since late April. Facing a recovery timeline with too many variables, the USWNT captain announced last week that she would not be on a fourth straight World Cup roster.
The mood around that news understandably tempered the normal positivity surrounding the official start of a USWNT World Cup hype cycle. Sauerbrunn’s absence is clearly on the minds of everyone involved with the team.
U.S. Soccer made four players available to media on Wednesday shortly after the roster was released, and every single one of them used the word “heartbroken” when Sauerbrunn came up. The only person to not do so was head coach Vlatko Andonovski, but only because he used a different synonym.
“First, I want to say we’re all gutted for Becky,” said Andonovski in his very first words to media after the 23-player roster came out. “It’s no question that we’re gonna miss Becky. We’re gonna miss her on the field, we’re gonna miss her off the field. If there is someone that has a relationship, a connection, and someone that wanted Becky on this roster, that’s me.”
Andonovski coached Sauerbrunn for four years with FC Kansas City, winning two NWSL championships in 2014 and 2015, and like his predecessor Jill Ellis, made the defender a foundational element within the team’s structure.
“Becky will always be our captain. That’s how we feel, the staff, that’s how the team feels, that’s how everybody feels. I mean, Becky is U.S. women’s national team captain,” added Andonovski, who said he would reveal the team’s replacement captain publicly once he has a chance to gather the squad together and announce the choice internally.
USWNT ‘heartbroken’ for Sauerbrunn
Andonovski’s opinion was clearly shared by USWNT players, whether they be veterans like Crystal Dunn and Alex Morgan, or World Cup first-timers like Naomi Girma and Sophia Smith.
“Becky is not only just a huge presence on the field, and leader on the field, but she’s a person who holds people accountable. She raises the level of standards on every team she’s on,” explained Morgan, presumably one of the top candidates to captain the team in New Zealand and Australia. “Having played with her now for over 12, 13 years, I just have immense respect for her.”
“I don’t think that there’s a bad thing that has come out of a teammate’s mouth [on] Becky, ever in her career,” added Morgan. “That’s a testament to her as a leader, a person, a player, and it’s just terrible news to have right before a World Cup.”
Crystal Dunn, who plays alongside Sauerbrunn with the Portland Thorns and has spent the last few years positioned next to her on the USWNT back line, made no bones about the news being a blow to the group’s hopes this summer.
“Losing her is bigger than just her play on the field,” said Dunn. “Her ability to gather the group and really lead us in the right direction at all times, I think, is something that we are going to greatly miss.”
“I checked in with her, we’ve had a lot of communication back and forth,” added Dunn, who called Sauerbrunn “one of my really great friends.”
“You know, it hurts,” said Dunn. “She’s doing okay. The leader that she is, and she’s always thinking about the team first, and I kind of had to tell her, ‘it’s okay to think about your situation and not only care about the team at this moment.'”
Looking ahead, the USWNT’s solution to winning a third straight World Cup without such a pivotal leader is to call on one of its greatest historic strengths: a belief that the group will fill the void through collective strength and individuals stepping up.
“Not having Becky there, it’s going to be different. It’s going to be a challenge,” said Smith. “It’s going to require a lot of players to step up. I think that’s a [task] that we can accomplish if we stick together.”
“We’re ready to take on that role while she’s not there,” added a confident Naomi Girma, who will likely shift over into Sauerbrunn’s left-center back position with the veteran missing out.
For Dunn, Sauerbrunn has left the team a blueprint on how every player in the squad can take on some of the leadership burden.
“I think everything that I’ve learned from Becky is really all about just being the best player showing up possible,” said Dunn. “That means not just on the field, but that means encouraging your teammates. That means giving words of advice when you see fit, and overall, just being the best version of yourself in that environment. So that is something that I’ve always learned from Becky, and I’ll hope to try to do my best obviously in leading the group in this World Cup.”
Andonovski — who has seen so many key players miss crucial time with the USWNT for a variety of reasons — conceded that the situation is “a part of sports,” but added that the group as assembled still has his backing to go accomplish the mission at hand.
“We’re very, very confident in the team that we have,” declared Andonovski. “We’re very confident in the abilities of the players that we have on our team that will be able to overcome the deficiencies that may occur with Becky’s absence.”
The USWNT roster remains the toughest one to crack
They say having too many worthy players is a “good problem” for a coach, and that is one of the top challenges for any U.S. women’s national team boss.
The USWNT’s World Cup roster dropped on Wednesday, and Vlatko Andonovski had a task that managers both envy and loathe. The national team has so many good players that some big names were bound to miss out on one of the 23 spots on the team.
Even with the USWNT missing stars like Catarina Macario, Sam Mewis, Christen Press, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Mallory Swanson to injury, there’s such a glut of top players that the list of snubs is a long one. Former USWNT standout Ali Krieger once said that if the U.S. could send a second team, that group would be their biggest threat at the World Cup. Those days may be gone as the rest of the world has improved, but a USWNT B side would be a reasonable pick to go to at least the quarterfinals.
For a wide range of reasons, Andonovski ended up having to deliver some bad news to players who did everything in their power, and who all had a really strong case to be on the plane to New Zealand.
In alphabetical order, these are the five biggest USWNT World Cup snubs.
Both OL Reign players appear close to returning from injury
Heading into Wednesday’s World Cup roster announcement, Megan Rapinoe and Rose Lavelle were two of the biggest question marks for the U.S. women’s national team.
Lavelle has been battling a knee injury that has sidelined her since April, while Rapinoe had to leave OL Reign’s game against Kansas City on June 10 with a calf issue.
Thankfully for the USWNT, both players were included on the World Cup roster as they look to help the team secure an unprecedented third straight title.
Speaking to reporters after naming his roster, USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski offered positive updates on the OL Reign duo, saying he expects both of them to take part in the send-off match against Wales on July 9.
“The situation with Rose Lavelle right now is not something that we’re worried about,” Andonovski said. “We expect Rose to have minutes in our send-off game and then we’ll move on from there and manage the minutes accordingly.”
The coach added that if Lavelle isn’t able to play, he feels comfortable with the other two options on the roster at her position.
“We’re happy with the players that we have in that position, which is Ashley Sanchez and [Savannah] DeMelo. If needed at certain points of a game or in certain games, we feel comfortable with them stepping in.”
The coach said Rapinoe will play a different role this year than during her Golden Ball-winning 2019 World Cup, but he expects her to be healthy for the tournament in Australia and New Zealand.
“Megan Rapinoe is probably going to have a different role than the previous two World Cups,” Andonovski said. “She certainly is going to have different types of minutes, but her role first from a leadership standpoint is so important, but also her performance on the field. When she is on the field she is very valuable for us.
“She’s progressing well from her injury and she’s another one that is expected to have minutes in the send-off game.”
Vlatko Andonovski has named a 23-player squad looking to win a third consecutive World Cup
U.S. women’s national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski has revealed his 23-player roster for the 2023 World Cup, which kicks off next month in Australia and New Zealand.
Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Kelley O’Hara each earned a spot on their fourth World Cup roster, with Rapinoe overcoming a late injury concern to return after winning the Golden Ball and Golden Boot at the 2019 World Cup.
Rapinoe, who turns 38 in early July, is the oldest player on the roster. The youngest is 18-year-old forward Alyssa Thompson, who is one of 14 players who were named to their first World Cup squad.
As the USWNT aims to win a third straight World Cup and fifth overall, nine players will return from the 2019 roster that lifted the trophy in France.
Rose Lavelle scored the clincher in the 2019 final against the Netherlands and she returns after overcoming a knee injury that has sidelined her since April.
Lavelle and Rapinoe were the positive stories on the injury front for the USWNT, but the likes of captain Becky Sauerbrunn, 2023 leading scorer Mallory Swanson and rising star Catarina Macario are all missing due to injury.
Julie Ertz completes her return to the USWNT by being named to her third World Cup squad. The midfielder played her first game in April after nearly two years away from the game following the birth of her son.
Racing Louisville star Savannah DeMelo is on the roster, becoming just the third uncapped player in history to make a USWNT World Cup squad.
After a send-off match against Wales on July 9 in San Jose, Calif., the USWNT will head to New Zealand where it kicks off the World Cup against Vietnam on July 21. Andonovski’s team will complete Group E play with matches against the Netherlands on July 26 and Portugal on August 1.
USWNT World Cup roster (club; caps/goals)
Goalkeepers (3): Aubrey Kingsbury (Washington Spirit; 1), Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage; 14), Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars; 90)
Defenders (7): Alana Cook (OL Reign; 24/1), Crystal Dunn (Portland Thorns FC; 131/24), Emily Fox (North Carolina Courage; 28/1), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave FC; 15/0), Sofia Huerta (OL Reign; 29/0), Kelley O’Hara (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 157/3), Emily Sonnett (OL Reign; 74/1)
It may be time for USWNT fans to get a little nervous
If you are a U.S. women’s national team fan, it may be time to start worrying about Rose Lavelle’s injury.
Lavelle was injured in the USWNT friendly against Ireland on April 8, and hasn’t played since.
At the time, USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski called the injury “a little knock” and said of his decision to hold Lavelle out of the team’s second match against Ireland: “This is not a game for us to take any chances.”
But more than six weeks later, Lavelle has yet to return to the pitch. The full extent of the issue is not known, though OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey has confirmed it is a knee injury.
Harvey said in late April that she expected Lavelle back in “a couple more weeks” but this week, she confirmed the midfield playmaker had suffered a setback.
Head coach Laura Harvey says "it changes all the time" and right now she really has no idea if we'll see Lavelle play #NWSL before the World Cup.
The CBA releases all national team players, including #USWNT, to their federations on June 26th for the World Cup FIFA window.
— Bella Valeriano Munson (@munson_bella) May 24, 2023
Lavelle has made just two appearances for OL Reign this year, in addition to four appearances with the USWNT.
Her setback comes amid two months of difficult injury news for the USWNT, as Mallory Swanson and Catarina Macario will both miss the 2023 World Cup with knee injuries. Lavelle’s own knee injury, then, will be a further headache for Andonovski as he aims to guide the U.S. to a third consecutive World Cup title.
The USWNT forward is a few games away from missing the entire season with Lyon
Nobody has come out and explicitly said it yet, but things aren’t going to plan in Catarina Macario’s recovery from a torn ACL.
It’s been 11 months now since Macario suffered the injury during Lyon’s final match of the season. As Lyon nears the end of its following campaign, Macario is still nowhere to be found.
It’s an increasingly worrying development for club and country, as the clock continues to tick toward the World Cup this summer. Every day that goes by without Macario back on the pitch takes her closer to missing the chance to compete on the game’s biggest stage.
The recovery was supposed to be farther along for Macario, who debuted with the U.S. women’s national team in 2021 and really hit her stride in early 2022, scoring five goals in five appearances before her injury.
Macario played in a variety of roles but was especially devastating as a false nine, where she could create for teammates and get into prime goalscoring positions herself.
The injury halted Macario’s momentum but with more than a year to go before the World Cup, it seemed like she’d have plenty of time recover before Australia-New Zealand.
“She’s going back to Lyon to start team training [in the] middle of February,” said the USWNT coach. “Hopefully we can see her starting playing for her club team sometime in the second half of March.”
Andonovski added that he expected Macario back for April camp.
When April camp arrived and Macario still wasn’t back, Andonovski offered a more cautious update.
“We have to see her on the field,” the coach said when asked about Macario’s chances of making the World Cup roster. “Cat has to get back in a professional environment, play professional games, competitive games, games that matter.”
One month after those comments, Macario has yet to make a matchday squad for Lyon, which now only has three games left of the season.
Even if Macario returns for Lyon before the season ends, taking her to the World Cup would be something of a risk. At the most she’d only have a couple “games that matter” under her belt in more than a year, none of which would have come with the USWNT since April 2022.
Macario is the kind of talent that’s worth taking a risk for, but at this point it’s unclear if she’ll be healthy enough for Andonovski to even consider. That would be a devastating blow for a player who looked certain to be a cornerstone for the USWNT’s title defense.
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.
