Is there just the teentsy tinyest possibility that the things you think he should/could have learned are not the ones he thinks he needs to know first-- or even things he thinks he already knows? When I suggest things he might have been after, I'm suggesting the kinds of things, not necessarily the actual things. And there is no status quo-- he's still new to the job. And Sullivan BTW is not likely to be going anywhere-- its not like she had to win a job Sunday or be dropped. She's pretty well positioned to be a major part of the story of the next few years. I'm accepting that it is his job, he as the skills, and that it is he that can get fired for wrong choices, not you or I, and therefore he should make his own choices
Sullivan is in competition for the #6 spot, and when you're fighting for a spot with a player like Ertz who not only can play the position extremely well but also can play more minutes and recover faster than almost anyone out there and is regarded as a leader on the team, you're not going to get a lot of minutes. I'll also note that Sullivan played in both of the games in November, which were friendlies. It seems to me that Vlatko rates her, but that he also wanted to have his A team out on the field in a competitive tournament. And in the final, it looks like he wanted to sub in some veteran presence since he had made so many changes to the starting lineup.
Again, I feel we are speaking different languages. The coach should and ... wait for it ... does make his own choices. Repeating for clarity, the USWNT coach, Vlatko Andonovski, makes his own personnel choices.* This is a message board, and @jnielsen asked a very simple question. Why didn't Andi Sullivan play (more)? @FanOfFutbol responded with an attempt at a reasonable thought process for the coach, though he undercut himself by starting with "Perhaps, in the coaches (sic) view she was not good enough." You (and @L'orange) took a similar 'ours is not to reason why, the coach knows best' approach. You guys can say whatever you want, of course, but there's no reason to be dismissive. JN asked a perfectly reasonable question, even if only the actual coach could give a definitive answer. Edit: Thank you @lil_one for sharing your reasonable speculation. ++++++++++++ * Unless of course he's not completely free to make his own unfettered choices, the source of much speculation on this forum.
Straight to the source: A quote from Andonovski about sending in O'Hara in the final: "The only thing that we felt like could have been a problem was the diagonal ball from Buchanan to overload Sonnett on the left, and the best way to solve it is with a defensive-minded forward, and the best defensive-minded forward is Kelley O'Hara.
This makes an assumption, in relation to Sullivan, that may not be correct. Maybe she got dinged in the Panama game. The bigger question, I think, is why not play Franch. She may be carrying a slight injury too, who knows? But if not, then if Naeher or Harris were to get hurt, Franch would be our #2 keeper and the one who would play if the remaining of the other two got hurt. That's a bigger issue, to me.
Well-reasoned, yet defensive-minded and (to me) unconvincing. It's as though he invented a problem that justified his solution. Thank you, though. What's encouraging is that he felt he needed to justify his choice, which should keep him on his toes going forward.
Press, Horan, and Dunn named to the tournament's Best XI: Best of the Best 🔥 Here is the Best XI of Concacaf Women's Olympic Qualifying #CWOQ #WeBelong pic.twitter.com/qWo4A7WvGN— Concacaf (@Concacaf) February 11, 2020 No Mewis who I thought had a great tournament.
I'm sure the coach who has access to his own players through training and games will know who he wants to play. We saw what happened in CONCACAF.
FS2 is re-airing the 2020 Olympic qualifying US games now (yes, right now). Currently, the Costa Rica game is on (8 minutes in). Later the Canada game will be on.