I wanted to like several posts in this thread but, being a new member I am not allowed to "like" but I am allowed to post, the "why" of that is not really known by me. To put the way I feel about this as simply as possible I think that trying to judge a coach based on 4 prep friendlies is foolish at best. The only real judgement should come after the Olympic run is finished. She might have seen a few things in practice that she needed to evaluate in matches. She might have intentionally given complex instructions to see how some players reacted to them. She might have given just about any instructions to see how the team and certain players react. She might have some bad habits to correct and she used these four meaningless matches to try and set the seeds for the needs of the team. But she also could be totally incompetent and we will fail miserably at the Olympics. I know I want to judge her based on the VERY limited data we have but I also know the data is not near enough to make any reasonable judgement. So lets just wait and see what actually happens. I know that no matter what happens it at least has a good chance to be full of surprises and THAT is often fun. It will be a LONG time waiting for next Thursday.
That will fix over time and/or a certain number of posts. I assume you will be able to "like" before the Olympics begin.
Apparently it only took one or two posts to free up my likeability. I wish it had been that easy in High School.
Regarding Hayes, I do not think she was hired with the Olympics in mind. Given her contract obligations, that would have been unrealistic. I think she was hired with the 2027 World Cup in mind, to take the US women through a big transition. So I expect the powers that be (as distinguished from some fans) will not have high expectations for the Olympics. Rather, they will be looking to see whether the US seems to be on a road to excel at the next World Cup. So long as the US looks like it is progressing, given how young the team is overall, I think she will be in good shape. One thing I see is that players seem to be enjoying playing. That in itself is an improvement for which I give Hayes some of the credit. (And as an aside, can we please get rid of Foudy as a commentator?)
Seriously, you believe soccer is juggling the ball and kicking the ball into the goal or preventing your opponents from kicking the ball into the goal? Goal scoring and individual technical showoffs are both small parts of the soccer.
My point is soccer is a game more than goal-scoring. In fact, goal scoring is a small part of the game. Consider how many possessions a game usually have, and how many possessions end with a goal or a goal-scoring opportunity? If you only care about goals or clear goal-scoring oppotunities, you overlooked most of match content of the game and will have a very biased understanding of this sport's dynamic.
If you are panicking based on just two or four meaningless matches and a coach that has not had any real time to evaluate the team then you panic easily. I believe the team will be fine in the Olympics but there is a LOT of work to do and I would not be surprised at any result between 3 and out to winning the whole thing. I tend to think a quarter or a semi is reasonable to expect. But soccer is not particularly reasonable. I am betting on a semi at the least but what do I know, I am simply human.
You can have a different opinion, that's fine. Moreover, Lohman is also overrated, less capable than Nusken and unremarkable among midfielders born around 2000.
OTOH scoring and preventing goals both have a very high correlation to winning-- I think you'd be surprised how high. It ain't ballet...
Scoring and preventing scoring is not only due to what happened 5 seconds before a goal is scored or a clear goal-scoring opportunities occurred. It's a great selection bias to only look possessions that lead to goals and goal-scoring opportunities. A 90-minute tug war cannot be summarized by one-minute or shorter video clips that only includes goals and goal-scoring opportunites.
Y'know those other times without goals or goal scoring opportunities? Those would mostly all be times where someone is engaged in, y'know, goal prevention. You're missing a great game...
From this perspective you could not even say defenders contribute more in goal prevention. Because receiving the ball and holding up the play are also goal prevention, and those actions could possibly be more significant in preventing goals than defenders making tackles. Your argument does not invalidate attackers are generally more important players than defenders at all, and the fact is almost no defender in the post-Michels era is considerred an all time great.
I won't answer everything you said, but I'll make some sparse observations. I don't agree that defenders and goalkeepers are so irrelevant: of course offensive players catch the eye more than defensive ones, but great defenders definitely make the difference (and this even ignoring how many of the greatest Full-Backs, for instance, are able to be deliver a constant offensive contribution). You make appeal to those same kind of charts that you otherwise deemed as irrelevant; of course, people will always think that the greatest player on earth is the one "who scores goals" (or "who makes people score goals"), but in my book there is a place in top 50, and even in top 20, for a reasonable number of DFs; not prevalent by a long mile, I agree, but not completly absent either. I stand by my idea that GKs deserve recognition too. Of course not "any" goalkeeper, just the ones who can actually make the difference. I don't agree with you that goalkeeper is "replaceable": of course even the greatest GK can't do much to save a mediocre team, let alone an actually bad one, but ther are GKs in the history of women's football who were part of the reason why a winning team was indeed a winning team. I've seen Hope Solo, at her times, almost singlehandedly (ok, sound silly when talking about GKs ) having USWNT win games they had no business winning. More recently, I guess Canada wouldn't have won the Olympic Games if they had replaced Stephanie Labbé with a different GK (and it was close to happening, since she played the whole tournament through an injury: but they played her anyway, they knew how much important she was to the team). I don't follow men's football enough (close to zero, lately) to actually have a say about it, but I am sure there are examples there also. Of course a GK positively making the difference is more unfrequent than any other player doing it, but it happens. As an Italian, I can tell you that Gigio Donnarumma is an unreal shot-stopper: of course he couldn't do anything to avoid Italy's poor team's exit at the last Euro tournament, but Italy's win in the previous Euro was in a not-negligible way due to his skills. So I definitely see at least 3-4 GKs in the top 50 of the women's game right now: maybe 1-2 of the most impressive ones could even make top 20. Off the top of my head Mary Earps, Christiane Endler, Merle Frohms and Alyssa Naher (although this last one can actually alternate big games and WTF performances); of course Daphne Von Domselaar would be there if she wasn't out injured. I never intended that Russo and Smith are similar players, I am aware that they're very different ones instead. What I said is that, if you question Russo's finishing and especially her ability to score when it matters, vs "strong opposition", well, you should consider that one of Smith's shortcomings also. Nothing else similar between them in my eyes. Finally, I'll observe that your view seems a little skewed towards NWSL (at least as much as mine is skewed towards Europe, that's fair): the most glaring sign of that is Temwa Chawinga's evaluation. Tabitha Chawinga was one of the players who most impressed me in the latest years: I saw her play in Italy and in France (and I had occasionally seen her play in China, when her club had happened to cross paths with Japanese teams in the antecedents of AFC Champions League) and she looked at times completely unstoppable to me. Now, since I admitted I followed less NWSL matches than I should, I was much less exposed to Temwa Chawinga (also because, unlike Banda's Zambia, Malawi NT is mostly irrelevant even on the African scene, let alone internationally): the few times I saw Temwa Chawinga play, she seemed very strong to me, but I've got the impression that her sister remained in a totally different ballpark. Maybe I could change my mind by seeing her play more, but I guess this is a telling sign of NWSL's weight in your chart (since she's basically the only player in it who can't really be assessed outside NWSL).
Russo's goal scoring ability versus strong teams and goal scoring abilities overall is worse than Smith. In the entire last WSL season, she only scored in one match against other 3 major wsl contenders, two goals in one match against Chelsea. In the current NWSL season, Smith scored 3 goals in two matches against the top two team Kansas City Current, and 3 goals against Chicago Red Star and North Carolina Courage both are play-off teams. Moreover, as I said in my previous post, the Smith's has much higher shooting efficiency than Russo. Chawinga sisters' biggest assest is their speed, and they both have decent back-to-goal techniques and could be reliable ball receivers in the advanced area. Tabitha is a bit more techincal and shoots better, Temwa is slightly taller and more physical and she contributes more to pressing, tracking back and has a stronger aerial presence.
the poster is right though of iinking Brand & Rodman as essentially the same type of player; both pretty close to the same age,both start at right-side wingers, both got incredible agility & quickness, both put up an ton of mileage & put on an ton of workload on the playing field….but alas, both don’t have that ‘final touch’ to stop them from becoming multi goal scorers—-I’m taking it that both can’t seem to hit the break pedal in time to take accurate shots due to their massive speed. Brand growth has been hampered a bit due to German philosophy of being switched all over the place from her original right-side winger(whereas Rodman gets to stay mostly at her original position) and the poster is not that far off base suggesting that Rodman is top 20 material; FOTMOB power rankings has her at #1 in the NWSL, and while you might now follow or respect that much thr NWSL, who was Germany’s mvp in their impressive win over Austria?—-none other than the current NWSL GK, Berger!
So far since Hayes's appointment I've seen a more dynamic and team-oriented attack that is fun to watch, right up until it's time to put the ball in the net. I get the impression that these incisive passes that are surprising the defense are also surprising to the attackers; they consistently put themselves in the wrong positions to take advantage of them. So many bad angles and less than optimal runs spoiling a great team move. If we can improve the anticipation and positioning of the forwards, I think this will be a great team. I'm not counting on it to happen in the Olympics, but by the World Cup I am cautiously hopeful. I also agree with one of the posters above about Foudy... can't stand her. I think women's soccer has progressed to the point where the product can stand up on its own. We don't need commentators whose main goal is to talk up the team anymore.
I kind of think of it as 2 medieval knights fighting each other. A lot might happen before what really decides the match. Yeah, being able to stab or cut your opponent is really important and the main thing you remember, but being able to parry or use that shield is probably pretty useful. Not that I've ever seen knights hacking away at each other except in movies!