An unspectacular and unconvincing win. Now everybody, back to NWSL! (And we all know that Boston is not happy at the moment)
Well, as poor as the US looked, with my optimistic hat on, I'll say that 2 wins on the road against strong opponents (who are in tournament form) is nothing to sniff at. But still I'd check the "room for improvement" box on the report card.
Well, I predicted Lavelle would be a participant in a goal -- and I can blame my mistaken prediction on her hamstring. She was on her way to the goal -- or so I can say.. Bad news for Boston. I guess Rapinoe is out of favor. I think that with Rapinoe on the left flank the US could have created more chances. Dahlkemper is looking good at center back. Press was player of the match. I saw some intensity from her.
I'd say that Horan added something in the middle that helped; and when JJ came in there was a marked improvement on the right side of the field. Of course, Norway was getting tired. Wagner's commentary seemed on point -- this team can play a lot better, there just wasn't much flow when it came to the attack. And I agree, Press was WOTM.
fairly pathetic outing. I know that its a friendly BUT we still are not looking good that often under Ellis. As somebody else posted, why drag Leroux along then give her nothing? Stupid Also, specifically, Casey Short is terrible
Just realized after the West Coast swing in early August, the USWNT will have played 8 of the 10 next top ranked FIFA squads in 2017......Korea DPR and the Fightin Tancredi's being the exceptions.
Actually I think Short did quite well across the two games. Good defending for the most part even if her distribution was lacking. She definitely did enough to stay in the mix, imo.
In the 2nd half, Short had to defend against Caro Hansen, who's arguably the best dribbler in woso. So it was a tall order,and at least the US kept a clean sheet against two teams that have been a thorn against them in the past
Seems likely, on both counts. Alternative take from a friend, though: Not playing her for a while is allowing folks to miss her enough to forget they were mad at her about the kneeling, because frankly, they haven't actually looked any better without her, so that's not a reason to not play her. He described it as a non-suspension suspension. As in, the people mad at her for the kneeling get the satisfaction of feeling she's out of favour (so experienced a consequence for her decision to kneel), but she's not outright suspended, so the folks who supported her don't get up in arms. And the team isn't actually playing better without her. You can ever argue they're playing worse without her - that her creativity is needed. So Jill bides her time a bit & then can get away with letting her back into favour. Her days as a starter are likely over, except for rare occasions where they want to rest a starter prior to a big game. But the players given a chance to generate more offense in her stead haven't measured up. Couple that with the fact that any of the younger players could be injured at any time, and that Heath's got back issues now (I've found that once players get back injuries, they're never the same), there should be a spot for her in a more limited role, as long as she stays healthy to 2019.
So I thought they were two good solid away wins against a really good opponent we've had a lot of trouble with and an up and coming traditional rival, both by a team somewhat limited by injuries. If we're going to complain about beating lesser teams 10-0 at home it seems graceless to also complain about 1-0 wins against good teams on the road, but I guess that's just me. I thought Short played rather well, shutting down Schelin to the point that they moved her away, and reasonably well against one of the truly dangerous players on Norway. I thought Long played very well, except for her traditional awful giveaway. I thought Pugh played unobtrusively well; she seemed committed to making other folks look good. I thought Carly played okay-- Pia's book on her seems to be to mug her at every opportunity; I expected Sweden's number 3 to point at her and yell "Neener Neener!" at any moment. What goes around comes around. I thought Horan should have been red-carded for drawing copious amounts of blood-- that's how my prep-school games were called, and the foul looked intentional to me. I think she's auditioning for Carly's role in due time. I'm gonna assume that Naeher had a good read on the cross off the bar and was more concerned with where it would wind up that it might go in-- but I'm by no means sure of that. I thought O'Hara played well. I think Dunn and Brunn were the heart and soul of the weekend, but have we ever seen Dunn gassed before? She sure was about the last ten minutes against Norway.