After this coming WC, they should revamped the goalkeepers by bringing in Phallon especially. I give Bixby a chance as well. Besides keeping Naeher or Kingsbury.
NWSL goals is all you have to support her as a midfielder or forward for USWNT? Do you see how the US national team plays? Do you see what is expected of our midfielders? Dunn just runs straight lines into the box. She doesn't do anything to connect the lines. She doesn't help in possession. The job of a USWNT midfielder is to connect the backline to the forward line. That is so far from Dunn's game. She is all about herself, and is a fast runner. That is what her game relies on. She is a flank player. She is not sophisticated in her attack. She would not start over Pugh, Smith, Rodman, Morgan, Cat or Williams. There are a lot of successful NWSL players that don't translate to the national team. Dunn does as an outside back.
"Thompson had eight U-20 caps in 2022 with four goals and was one of the standout players for the USA at the 2022 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup" https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...tle-us-soccer-young-female-player-of-the-year
I have no idea what Parsons meant, but at that age, she was not up to being a 90 minute box to box player at the NWSL level much less at the WNT level. In the game these days, I do not think anyone at that age would be there. She is just getting to the point where she can be a box to box player. In sports these days, she still is young and is not a mature athlete in either strength or stamina, that is just a fact ot life for players her age. The days of the teen wonder who can play consistently at the world class level are very close to over. Maybe there will be an occasional anomaly, but it will be a very rare occasion if at all. It simply takes too long to develop the needed strength and stamina the way the game is played today.
Macario has 17 total caps. She played in primarily friendlies. She has never been to a World Cup and she did not make the original 18-player Olympic roster in 2020. Here are her 8 USWNT goals: Columbia (1) 6-0 result Paraguay (2) 9-0 result Iceland (2) 5-0 result Uzbekistan (3) 9-1 and 9-0 results https://www.ussoccer.com/players/m/catarina-macario I think we would have been just fine in those blowouts whether she scored or not.
Evaluating players for WNT inclusion is so subjective. How much weight you give to 1. Pro league games 2. College games 3. YNT games 4. NT friendlies 5. WC games will have a big impact. For me, Macario has stood out at every level she has played at so far. The WC would have been a chance for her to validate that at International level. Shame she wont get the chance.
I agree with you! She is a unique player with multiple talents. She can adapt quickly to teams and in game situations. She is definitely the most creative playmaker the US has ever seen, and you combine that with her explosive ability to score a lot of goals, only creates major problems for defenses. She is not an easy player for any defender to cover. Playing the false 9, where she can drop deep into the midfield to receive the ball or physically take on the defender to carry an attack up the middle, puts a lot of pressure on the back line. By reading the field with the confusion she causes, she is able to open up scoring opportunities for the rest of the team. The problem they have is they have no back-up that comes close to what she can do, so they must turn to players like Morgan and Hatch and play a traditional game suited for them and the rest of the team. A young player Lyon thinks highly of, and who they depended heavily on this season, was asked during the 2021-2022 season who was the most difficult player to defend against in their scrimmages. She said Marcario was because she was so good at protecting the ball. Pretty amazing for so young a player just out of college, and just after 4 caps, was permanently moved into the starting line-up, filled with seasoned veterans, on a permanent bases for Lyon.
I agree on most of what you say. She is most effective playing with players who are unselfish, see the game as pass/move. She is not as effective in a more vertical transitional game. The USA have more players comfortable in the latter then the former. The part about age i really disagree with. The US system is geared towards older players. Macario is not young in soccer terms.She may be in USWNT terms, but occasionally College soccer threw up games with 20+ International on the field. Games that had as much talent on show as most NWSL games. If you watch those closely, you can see who stands out. Who controls the game. Who seems to have a little more time than everyone else. Macario was always that. Whether they go on to play professionally or not is a different issue. To me, its more amazing that at times, we act like these players sudenly appeared. Or that some who were good, but, not great, suddenly became so. As I said, the shame for me is that without a WC data point, there are people who will not acknowledge just how good she is.
I know she is good. But she doesn't deserve to be handed a spot on the World Cup until she earns it. The way she was considered an automatic if she got back in time was absurd. And, TrueCrew suggesting that I need to check on Macario's USWNT goals was laughable once I pulled the facts. I also recall her struggling in 2022 friendlies until she scored the almighty goal against Iceland. Jaelyn Howell was a brilliant college player. Two time National Player of the Year. Yet she has not had success yet with the national team. How about we wait until Macario earns it?
We've seen her play full game especially 90 minutes plus penalties against Houston during WICC when she was 15 so she can play at that pace along with her stamina. Whether she can play at WNT level, well we won't know until she gets there. Right now she subs and starts while rotating with Christine Sinclair usually. Whether because she was tired I don't know (but I don't think so IMO), but I'm thinking by coach's decision to allow Sinclair to play while she can before she retires while Moultrie is not even 18. Not to mention this season is Moultrie's last and Portland should be able to extend her contract.
Ill disagree again. Howell was overrated imo. In games vs the best she never really stood out. Dominated weaker competition. Based on what I saw from Macario, she deserves everything she has gotten. Shame about the injury.
not necessarily so, the hidden X factor always been having a very successful, pre training camp right before the World Cup. You could say this was Jill Ellis’s strongest point as she firmly believed in strong conditioning in whipping her team into shape prior to major tournaments, same could be said about Wiegman & the previous Japan coach, Tanaka. Meantime Vlatko’s squad displayed rather low energy in preparations for the Olympics. The Spanish coach, Vilda, looks great in friendlies, but flops at major tournies. But maybe both learned their lessons & this time have very intense training camps
There was no recent coach of Japan NT called Tanaka. Not sure if you mean Asako Takakura (who was indeed the previous coach before current one Futoshi Ikeda), who didn't win much outside of Asia, though, (at least at Senior level), or Norio Sasaki, who was the only one who can be considered an actual winner at Senior level on the wider international stage (1 WWC + 1 second place at the WWC + 1 Silver Medal at the Olympics).
well whoever coached WC 2011 did great job with the pre training camp cuz just prior, Japan played an friendly vs the US & looked terrible, probably the most single dominating game I’ve ever saw between the two; 2-0 score but something like 20-1 in US favor in shots taken. Wasn’t it the same coach in charge in 2015?(as still went into the finals). But then he got fired just cuz he couldn’t then qualify them for the Olympics(probably didn’t have the extra training time with the squad). But after that Japan fell off quite a bit(out of top ten/flopped at 2019-21 WC/Olympics) and that’s despite impressive youth WC performances. So dunno who’s coach now, but if going with past history, Japan’s success might well have to do with how good of an WC training camp they’ll have—this is the main point trying to make
here's highlights of yesterday's Angel City/Portland match plus an handy guide on who played Portland Thorns vs. Angel City - 1 June 2023 - Women Soccerway so major talking points; Moultri & Thompson looked good in it(though a lot of backlash from Angel City fans/forum that Thompson never passes the ball). Grandma Sinclair still in high gear as she stays in for the full 90 minutes. After missing 3 games Julie Ertz, finally shows for the last 20 min, but now both Brunn & Dunn are mssing. My pick for NT, Weaver, gets to the nfity, winning goal(YAY). Despite 4 goals to her credit, Smith hasn't scored since April 1
My statement that Moultrie just is able to play box-to-box at the NWSL level is not based on my own opinion, it is based on info from someone who has far more knowledge of where she is in her development than either you or I have. I am a big Moultrie fan and am not criticizing her. I also am a fan of how the Thorns have brought her along, which I think has been excellent, the same as they would have done if she were a young male in their organization.
I think your comments about Thompson were borne out in the Angel City v Thorns match last night. She was almost all one-on-one and slowed their attack down unfortunately a number of times. She is a handful, but she needs to learn that what worked for her well at a lower level does not work that well even in the NWSL, much less at the national team level. This is something almost all of the very young players have to learn.
I did not see the game. The Challenge Cup is an interesting idea. Playing for $1MM, but teams seem to use it as a way to get minutes into players who may not play in league games. My concern with less experienced, young players in the NWSL is there is no environment for them to fail and learn. Sharing the field with players who are trying to build resumes in the pro game means less margin for error. Im guessing there is a tendency to try and justify the hype by trying to do too much? I saw signs of this when I watched Michelle Cooper recently with KC. The currency seems to be individual stuff - goals and assists. Making the "right" play, even if there is no direct G/A is much harder to promote. Where are these young inexperienced players supposed to learn that? You used a term - lower level. The backstory is keen to tell us that she has excelled at a high level already vs 17 yr old boys. I would be surprised, no matter how athletic she is, if she was able to rely on athleticism alone to be successful vs 17yr old boys of quality. the big advantage of playing vs boys is to learn that you cant out physical them. You have to let the ball do work and move intelligently. If you did not learn that from playing them, then i wonder what you did learn? It has taken Mallory Pugh time and few injuries to figure out how best to be effective over a longer period of time. On a separate note, I saw an article on her sister. The gist of it was she is about to become a world class full back on the NT. I get it from a PR standpoint, but I think we are doing these young ladies a disservice.
I like the way she plays. She is not the prototypical player that teams covet. In a way she reminds me of Morgan Brian, a player who had success, but was under appreciated for what she did because the primary stats were not there.
She does sometimes not pass the ball but also sometimes she’s way ahead of her teammates that she might as well shoot it herself.
One of the things players like her have to learn is that sometimes, when you are way ahead of your teammates, you have to hold up the ball and wait for them to arrive. Sophia Smith has had to learn that, others too. The NWSL, much less the national team, is way too sophisticated to try to do it all yourself. Yes, sometimes you just go. But a lot of the time, you wait for teammates to arrive.
While I do not doubt her ability anywhere she chooses to play, how does one slot her into a position on a well organized Team where she has never played, not even once, in any full capacity during THE most important Tournament? We all have our opinions, I'll give you that.
As I said, I was not predicting what Vlako would do, or what would actually happen; of course Dunn is going as a fullback; her game fitness is certainly much much better than it was for her first two USWNT friendlies post-childbirth. OTOH, Vlako's biggest problem is how to play his midfield, given which healthy players he has, and I see Dunn as an option which could be part of that solution.