I agree with Davidson, but Ellis keeps using her as an FB. As you know. I do follow international woso & repeatedly have mentioned Katoto(scored the 3rd goal) as France's secret weapon. As well with Diani & Cascarino, guessing they will remain secret weapons(as fans on this site prefer talking about how great Christen Press is instead). These 3 seem to be a new super athletes that will most likely beat the US again unless we figure out how to stop them
Ideally Dunn and Davidson could have helped firm up the backline against france and that is what we will see. Also Ertz to help break up plays. I thought Cascarino and Diani were impressive but they weren't dealing with our best defensive players. i would have expected a closer scoreline in that case. Still thought this would have been a golden opportunity to see Dunn against our toughest opponent. It's not like she's completely proven as an international caliber outside back, but people speak of her as if she's the second coming of Lucy Bronze for the US. This should be France's tournament to lose, but they tend to collapse under pressure, every single tournament. I'm also surprised they haven't replaced Thiney, who a lot of french fans think should not be on the team anymore and seems to disappear a lot. Bouhaddi is also a liability, but perhaps not moreso than Naeher.
Basically Diacre did not call up Thiney when she took over the team, but with all the candidates failing to make any impact, she was forced to take her back in. Dali or Corboz have not made such a great impact with Lavogez seems blacklisted...
because she wants players who can play more than one position - and davidson did show some promise there, indicating possibly that they've been working on that in camp. ...mostly because of the title of this forum, no? as mentioned above, some of our best defenders were missing in that game. + if you can defend against press, morgan, heath, pugh et al in practice, you should be able to deal with katoto, diani, and cascarino. i agree tho, it’s france’s tournament to lose.[/QUOTE]
The French were able to tie the US last year at SBC, last year without these 3 newbies, and all they had was the right side attack of ELS & Majri. So they can hit you on both sides now, plus an super sub in Katoto. Dunn is more of an attacking FB, and only seems only in Ellis mind to be used on the left side. I personally would bring in Hinkle, who's proven to be one of the best defensive players in the business, but you know Ellis; she'll stick with the same old, same old(Sauerbruun, Brian, Pugh) unless she's got a personal project like Fox
still think they're favorites... ...but, they were going up against the disappointing taylor smith at right back, o'hara in her second best position at left back, and no julie ertz in dmid watch.