Hey those of you who follow the USWNT more closely than me ... and understand all these contracts with the USSF ... and the economics of the women's game ... What is next for Vlatko? For all the over-30s on the team?
I just do not think anyone knows until V holds his next "camp" and we see the invitee list. We all have our opinions. Some here are all in on younger players brought up to the squad (notice that Harris and Ali were left off the squad and in an interview before the Olympics Ali was not happy about that). Some here are racist towards older players <heh>. Some want V fired because they see flaws (obvious) in the system and therefore want a new coach. Time will tell. It is a wait and see as V will not announce anything until after the Olympics are completed at the earliest, and unless he is shown the door, really until the first camp opens up post Olympics is my guess.
Hence the chuckle as I am old. I honestly do not think either, but most feel that pro level performance diminishes with age which is really what they are alluding too.
OK, got it. I do think that the older players lose speed and stamina with age, and that that shows up mostly among attackers and box to box players. In my opinion, Rapinoe is already too slow to remain on the team. And the rest of the over 30s up front will decline not in skill so much as in speed and stamina. And those attributes have always mattered a lot for the USWNT style of play. I hope Vlatko works harder to integrate younger, faster, more creative players and considers developing the team's ability to build up through the middle. Williams, Pugh, and other <30 speedsters deserve more looks. And Macario deserves a look at CF given how she produces at that spot with her club.
I do expect to see him have a similar camp like he had last fall where he can take a look at a lot of new players for assessment.
I've been saying that about Macario as well. Having her in the middle is a mis placement as I see her play, going forward. Hope that can change as older players age out.
Well, if they bomb this 3rd place match, I’m sure there will be pressure to clean house from executives down. Because the economic piece could be severely impacted.
Critical, but accurate, assessment of the team and its failures in Olympics this year, focusing on the "too old" critique: https://the18.com/soccer-news/why-uswnt-lost-2020-olympics Funny thing is that many of our younger players with great promise have not yet really been given much chance to show they are ready to step up. The older veterans continued to be preferred, and played in virtually every game - even friendlies against the likes of Mexico and Costa Rica. And now it has now been clearly demonstrated that they are not nearly as good as they were two years ago, but we really have no idea if the next generation could have done better . . . Germany mens National team forced some great players into early retirement a bit to soon after 2018 World Cup, only to change course this year. But most good teams allow the younger players an opportunity to prove themselves without waiting for older players to definitively prove through failure at a major tournament that they are past their prime.
It's a two-edges argument, though. Nadeshiko Japan (Japan's women NT) basically cleaned the team from most veterans (except Kumagai and Iwabuchi) to the point that they were the second youngest team at these Olympics (and one of the youngest one at WWC 2019 also), and they'd rather relied on the players that had done so good at some of the last youth tournaments (gold at U-17 WWC 2014, gold at U-20 WWC 2018, just to name the major achievements). Well, Japan crashed out of both tournaments just after group stage (where they didn't do enough to avoid clashing with power-houses as Netherlands or Sweden at the subsequent round). So there is obvously more to that than the veterans vs youngster dynamics.
It isn't as easy as to just keep all veterans or replace all veterans one need a healthy mix. So the teams that dump all the veterans and make a whole-sale refreshment rarely do well.
This next generation is good, but I don't see any WC's in the next cycle, tbh. I think there's too many holes in the backline, no great goalkeepers in the pipe and we really don't have the technical ability you want in the front, except for Macario. The midfield will be great tho.... I'm curious to see how all the pieces fit together though!
Well, now that the game is over, we're going to start seeing hints and even possible announcements. I guess it's good to have this thread: Carli Lloyd, answering the expected question regarding her future, says the bus ride to this game was a little different. Talks about her mindset through the years. Concedes that obviously she is near the end of her career, but no decisions yet (as she has said before). #USWNT pic.twitter.com/nAWTeF1nbj— Jeff Kassouf (@JeffKassouf) August 5, 2021
Carli Lloyd and her husband will start a steakhouse business. Multiple locations. Alex Morgan will write a new series of books and do some intense yoga. Those two things will inspire her decision to push forward for 3 more years. Megan Rapinoe will get in to politics more as time goes by. Don't be surprised if she gets her own show one day on CNN or MSNBC. Tobin Heath will get in to coaching. Maybe as an assistant at the collegiate level (ala Heather O'Reilly at UNC) Kelley O'Hara in Law School? Don't bet against it. Becky Sauerbrunn will become a yoga instructor for PsycheTruth on YouTube. Alyssa Naeher will join American Gladiators.
Yep. I could se Lloyd and Rapinoe doing a big farewell game, and they probably deserve that, but the rest of the team will probably still try to compete, and I like that. I don't want to give a starting position to a younger player, I want that player to be given the opportunity to go out and TAKE the starting position. I don't want a younger person to be worried about holding off another young competitor, I want them to be focused on being better than a player they likely look up to. If you make wholesale changes that limit competition, you risk losing the mentality and competitiveness that so many say sets us apart.
We did the opposite. With the exception of LeRoux (who is older) all those young women the author mentioned who are excelling with their clubs should’ve been in the mix. I imagine that the contractual relationships veterans have with the USSF, plus the history of trying to use the national team to grow the women’s game (star system), got in the way of doing the right thing for the long term.