Pre/pbp: WWC: USA vs Colombia 7/2

Game time is noon, correct? 11:30 advertised start includes pregame show?

Thanks for breaking out the Post Game thread......

 

I hope this is true as well. They need rest. I guess I would prefer her to rest Boxx in this match because I think we will need her more versus Sweden.

 

holtzman reports at halftime that at the only full practice they had before saturday's game lindsey was in boxx's position. pia also told him that she plans to use all 3 subs to rest some players legs.

 

GD could be our friend if we can finish against Colombia. Aren't we the only team to win by >1 in the first set of games?

Oh yeah - not sure where I'd put her, but she has earned the spot.

I think Pia has looked at the first game and decided if that's the back 4 she wants for the tournament (barring injuries, of course). If she decided she's happy with that group and that they'll continue the improvement we saw between the first half and the second half, then we'll have that group the whole time. We'll know at kickoff.

I would start Lindsey for Boxx to do 2 things - rest Boxx and see how the team looks with Lindsey there for a whole game.

 

ESPN reports that Lindsey will be starting in place of Boxx.

I laud the choice, but why do we feel the need to broadcast these decisions? It seems to give the opposing team an easier scouting job without providing any practical benefit.

 

Perhaps Boxx is not starting to rest her legs, but because that hit she took in the first game has caused an injury?

Might explain why we are announcing it so early hoping to stop any speculation if we did it right before kick off.

Again, I don't have any information. I am just speculating.

 

tough to do any scouting on a player who has had precious little playing time this year ...

but I agree with the decision

 

I'm sure the cop will understand.

 

That's correct, and we're +4 on North Korea, so we should be in good shape.

 

I agree with it too. I'd give Lori L the full 90 for Boxx. This is why she's on the roster. I would be curious to see how she and Lloyd partner together. Both are naturally offensively oriented but Lori might be able to help with possession and outlet passing. Also would like to see Abby get a blow in the second half if they get a lead.

On the backline, I would give Becky a chance to start in place of Rampone and maybe Cox for Amy L. But does anyone think that, looking beyond this game, the best answer at LB in this tournament might just be Rampone. She hasn't played there in a while and she's 36 but she still had pretty good wheels and looks to be in fantastic shape. If anyone could handle such a switch at this point. it's Christie.

 

She and Mitts were both tried there back when in the hope that one of them would become comfortable on that side. Neither did and IIRC we went back to Kate because it was better even though she was not all that effective there.

And that was prime Rampone, not aging Rampone. I think you'd see the difference between playing 90 in the middle and playing 90 on the wing at about 55-60 minutes.

I much prefer Amy there; she's going to get beat sometimes at least for a while, but as long as we know that going in we should be able to cover it.

 

Thanks for the info. Your point is quite valid about someone her age getting gassed by playing outside. What time period did they try her at LB?

I just worry if we have to constantly cover for Amy, then the defense will lose it's shape. Moving Abby out wide helped take pressure off Amy because the NK RW and RB had to stay at home more. We'll see what Pia does when they face a top flight RW/RB.

 

Sorry for ripping open an old wound. So the Rampone at LB was also during the April era? My memory is bad with that.

You mentioned earlier about WNT practicing in front of the armed service personnel and their families. Turns out it was more than 500 of them watching. Very Cool. And the players seemed very moved by it on twitter.

@alexmorgan13 To all our troops and families who came out to practice today, THANK YOU! Thank you for your service, We hope to make you proud on saturday.

@jloyden So inspiring to have hundreds of american troops and their families come to training today to spread the support and love. So empowering!

@hopesolo We have the honor to represent our country in front of the men and women who serve to protect it. Heidelberg has already been inspiring.

@CarliLloyd Best practice environment I have ever been apart of...thank you to all the troops/families for your support. Proud to be an american!

@christierampone I had the privilege of speaking to hundreds of military troops and their families in Germany today. Amazing, emotional experience - #USA!!!

@laurencheney8 Overwhelming amount of love and support from our troops at practice today. #proudtobeanamerican

@TobinHeath practice was unbelievable! our troops rock!

Abby with the troops afterwards
http://yfrog.com/h8t8a4xj

 

philafan, i'm surprised that you'd suggest that kind of tinkering in the backline in a wc tournament. that stuff's just not done.

 

Can't give you a year-- at my age they all smear together. It was during one of Mitts' healthy stretches-- IIRC the four best backline players available at the time were Rampone, Fawcett, Sobrero and Mitts, and so the obvious approach was to try to play them in that order, right to left. Mitts established fairly quickly that she really belonged on the right, and so the Mitts, Fawcett, Sobrero, Rampone approach was tried, and worked better but not well. Next up was Rampone, Fawcett, Whitehill, Sobrero if my memory is clear-- I think Mitts got hurt again and made the change necessary. Rampone was so obviously better on the right that I don't think she was ever tried on the left again-- moving Chalupny was supposed to be the ten year solution. (Through some of this Brandi was playing in the middle too I think-- can't remember why she was out of the picture for a while.)

(Sobrero had played on the left for Tony some too, when Brandi had knocks or cards IIRC-- it wasn't just April's idea, and while the drawbacks offensively were obvious, I'd take it today in a heartbeat. Kate didn't get beat a whole lot there, it was just that her service was scattershot and a bit prone to be hospital balls.)

 

You are probably right. I suppose I am overreacting to Amy L's lumbering around in the first half of the NK game. So combined with the fact that Rampone's never played there successfully, moving her there right now would probably be a bit unsettling. So we live and die with Amy L. at LB, unless her play is so poor and then the only option is Cox. But we are not there yet.

But I don't think that playing Becky for Rampone in either the Colombia or Sweden games would be too much of a big deal. Just trying to save the legs of some of our 30+ vets for the knockout rounds. Same principle as the Lindsey for Boxx swap.

 

Can someone give an assessment of Columbia? Who do we need to watch for? How's their speed? Strengths, weaknesses? Can they handle our offensive punch? Should we expect them to maintain possession? I'm a bandwagoner and don't know much about our next opponent.

Thanks in advance!

 

Well respected Ivy league University which loses some status since Sunil Gulati teaches there.....