The top half of that draw is way better than the bottom half. Be good to see the likes of Sweden, USA, Netherlands, Japan, Spain knocked out whilst we are playing Nigeria and maybe Jamaica (without wanting to jinx us)
If Portugal had scored the chance late on then USA would have gone home. 4 wins and 3 semi finals in 7 attempts explains why they are still the team to beat.
The American media are not being kind to their team this morning.
I think everyone had expected them to turn up, roll over the competition and they’re throwing a bit of a tantrum because it’s not happening.
I think some of that is just...Carli Lloyd being Carli Lloyd. For someone who achieved so much in the game, she could not be more miserable about it. She always comes across as a deeply insufferable person, and quite frankly I think she was overrated as a player.
That being said, I think last night (or Monday night, days get weird with this World Cup) shows that this is a young team made fragile in part by the fact that their coach is dogshit. There is no clear build up plan, everything goes wide to an isolated winger, fullbacks don't overlap, and as a result the central midfield, arguably the best part of this team, is completely bypassed.
I get wanting to start Ertz in central defense, but Cook is a solid defender and even though she and Girma are young, they've been playing together since university. Andi Sullivan is not, and never really has been, good enough as a 6, and she completely disappears from games, whereas Ertz is probably the best defensive midfielder in the world.
DeMelo is going to be very good, but she didn't impact the games she played. How Ashley Sanchez has not played a minute in this tournament is beyond me.
Rapinoe was so bad the other night my girlfriend, who is very new to watching football, commented "I don't know anything and I know she's been awful." I think the myth of Rapinoe as supersub on a team with Thompson, Williams, Smith, and Rodman out wide needs to be done away with.
A lot of fans have had complaints about Vlatko from day one, and frankly he looks massively out of his depth at tournament level. It was true in the Olympics, and it's true now. Yes, this is a team somewhat caught between generations, but the talent is there, and the senior-most players aren't heavily relied upon with the exception of Alex Morgan. Sauerbrunn is a huge miss, as are Macario and Pugh/Swanson, but every team in this tournament seems to be missing at least three key players due to injury.
I hope this is Vlatko's last tournament. He's started feuding with Carli Lloyd now, who is a pundit. I can't believe he's fallen into that trap. It's such a basic mistake: You do not need to respond to, let alone row with, the people on the telly. Especially Carli Lloyd, who is not particularly well regarded in woso circles. Also, making Horan captain on a team with Morgan (second captain), Rapinoe, Ertz, and O'Hara was baffling. I saw Horan play a lot in Portland, and while she is very talented, she does not seem like a good leader.
I think this team goes out to Sweden, and then I hope the US FINALLY hire Laura Harvey. The young generation (all 24 and under) or Girma, Cook, Fox, Sanchez, DeMelo, Rodman, Smith, Thompson, and Macario have a huge amount of talent. Swanson is only 25, Lavelle 27. This team, while not as imperious as past US teams, is playing to far less than the sum of its parts.
Under a better coach I would say this is a young team that just got battered by the group stages but can learn and bounce back from that, but let's be honest, they're going out to Sweden. Again.
Huge blow for Spain. Not in terms of the last 16 as i don't think there's that much difference between playing Switzerland and Norway, but it now means that they'll likely have to face USA in the quarters.
USA don't actually look much cop and were the width of a post from going home.
Despite some relatively strong showings in tournaments, I haven't got total faith in the England's men's manager but I think the women's team manager is an absolute genius. You could tell she had looked at the group and whilst risky, saw it as part of the preparations. The England team needs Millie Bright and she needed those games. She will get better as the tournament progresses.
Now you look at things and yes we have lost Williamson, Mead and probably Walsh but we have Bright back and have found Lauren James. If Bright gets back to her Euro levels which she is on course to do, surely James makes us stronger overall. I was a tad dispointed with Russo in the first two games but thought she was brilliant against China. I think the formation change suits her and it is unfair for her to be isolated and have to battle for scraps. Also Hemp is a player who I think has much more to give. Maybe we will see it in this tournament.
One of the problems the USA have is not that they're getting that much worse, but other countries are getting a lot better. The standard of women's football is on the rise across the world.
USA have had things their own way for a long time. Even in a country like England where football is huge, the Women's Super League didn't go fully professional until the 2018/19. Spain only as recently as the 21/22 season. Prior to that it was only a few elite clubs that were pro's.
Agree with the above although not sure I agree about Southgate ?
Russo had a brilliant game against China and that was because she had support with Hemp in a 2. She was definitely isolated in the first two matches despite working so hard.
For anyone who doesn't follow the WSL you will be surprised that Lauren James record was 8 goals in 33 matches for Chelsea in all competitions. Just 5 in WSL.
Sam Kerr and Kirby were playing in a 2 earlier in the season and James wasn't always the 10 behind them.
Better teams will have seen what she can do and will try to close her down in those shooting positions which might open up other areas. Hoping for a Columbia win today against Morroco and whilst we must respect every opponent in the knock out stages, I'm not sure we would face one of those better teams until the semis if that happens.
One of the problems the USA have is not that they're getting that much worse, but other countries are getting a lot better. The standard of women's football is on the rise across the world.
USA have had things their own way for a long time. Even in a country like England where football is huge, the Women's Super League didn't go fully professional until the 2018/19. Spain only as recently as the 21/22 season. Prior to that it was only a few elite clubs that were pro's.
This has been discussed a lot down the years, and has been in the wake of the US' group performance. England and Spain are both great examples that they're both full of really, really good players. Netherlands is maybe a few years ahead of them with the kind of golden generation they have, France a little before that. I was explaining to my girlfriend when watching the US-Holland game that you get countries like Netherlands, Spain, and England where women's football wasn't really a thing until relatively recently, but because these countries are so advanced at developing men's players, it really just took a shift of focus and resources to the women's game to start being able to do the same there.
For as bad as the US was the other night, that Portugal team is quietly impressive. I think that them and Italy might be the next couple of European countries to emerge as being able to develop talent in the women's game. And that's just the European teams, it's not counting countries like Argentina and Brazil, who are really just starting to take women's football seriously, Nigeria and Columbia have looked good. This is such a deeper world cup than we're used to, and it's fantastic.
So yes, that is absolutely a factor in all of this, and I will say it's something the US has known about, and even been a bit paranoid about, for a while now.
That being said, I do not thing that's the issue with the current team. I was listening to Christen Press and Tobin Heath's podcast earlier and they went into some depth about the system, the lack of flexibility, the lack of ability to change, and how the system is getting the best out of no one. This has been an issue for this team going back to the Olympics, Vlatko's only other tournament. They look flat, they look ill-prepared (which is weird given Vlatko has the reputation for being incredibly meticulous), and there's no change to the system or style. I don't think Plan A is very good, but with this team, if Plan A doesn't work, there is no plan B.
As I mentioned before, this is a young team, but it's not a team that lacks for talent. If this were a team that was playing well but that wasn't being clinical in front of goal, was making the mistakes that young players new to this stage make, I think everyone would understand that. If they went up against an England, or Spain, let alone the traditional powerhouses like Sweden and Germany, and they just weren't quite good enough, I think most supporters would look at it and say "things look bright for the future, you can't win them all, and a very good US team isn't enough to win the World Cup anymore."
But this team has been bad. And it's been bad with some very talented players sitting on the bench. And talented players on the pitch. It's a team in transition in terms of generations, and two of the players who kind of link the generations: Mal Swanson and Sam Mewis, aren't there due to injury. But unless you take Carli Lloyd and Alexi Lalas seriously (and I never, ever do) about "mentality," which I always think is a buzzword for "I as a pundit don't have better ideas," this is a team in the mold of past teams with talented players of different generations. We saw this in 2015 as that first golden generation was coming to an end and the next was growing into the limelight. And in 2015, they weren't great to start the tournament, and they definitely benefited from being able to grow into the tournament due to there being fewer strong teams than there are today. But it was also noteworthy that Ellis tinkered a lot with that team during the tournament until she found a formation and system that worked.
Yes, Jill Ellis, English born, is a hard act to follow. I don't think the players always liked her, but she won stuff. A lot. She was a very good coach at this level, and I think Wiegman (and Veurink, who is supposedly the great tactical mind) is a very worthy successor as the top coach in the women's game. You look at what England did against China, changing systems and thriving, I could not see this US team doing that, even if I think you could line them up in a 4-4-2, or 3-4-3, or 4-2-3-1 and you would improve some areas of the team. It just won't happen.
Lastly, I head Meg Linehan, the great journalist for The Athletic, say yesterday that she thinks some questions need to be asked about the tactical strength of the NWSL. And she's not wrong. It's a very athletic league, a lot of it is played in transition, but tactically, it really hasn't advanced in I would say the last five years. And I do think it's something where, as the European league grow and thrive, the US is going to need to buck up its ideas. I think that might be an area where US Soccer has grown complacent, and they can no longer get by being one of the only professional women's leagues in the world.
Comments
So if we beat Nigeria we get Colombia or Jamaica in Quarters?
The draw is working out very nicely for England.
4 wins and 3 semi finals in 7 attempts explains why they are still the team to beat.
That being said, I think last night (or Monday night, days get weird with this World Cup) shows that this is a young team made fragile in part by the fact that their coach is dogshit. There is no clear build up plan, everything goes wide to an isolated winger, fullbacks don't overlap, and as a result the central midfield, arguably the best part of this team, is completely bypassed.
I get wanting to start Ertz in central defense, but Cook is a solid defender and even though she and Girma are young, they've been playing together since university. Andi Sullivan is not, and never really has been, good enough as a 6, and she completely disappears from games, whereas Ertz is probably the best defensive midfielder in the world.
DeMelo is going to be very good, but she didn't impact the games she played. How Ashley Sanchez has not played a minute in this tournament is beyond me.
Rapinoe was so bad the other night my girlfriend, who is very new to watching football, commented "I don't know anything and I know she's been awful." I think the myth of Rapinoe as supersub on a team with Thompson, Williams, Smith, and Rodman out wide needs to be done away with.
A lot of fans have had complaints about Vlatko from day one, and frankly he looks massively out of his depth at tournament level. It was true in the Olympics, and it's true now. Yes, this is a team somewhat caught between generations, but the talent is there, and the senior-most players aren't heavily relied upon with the exception of Alex Morgan. Sauerbrunn is a huge miss, as are Macario and Pugh/Swanson, but every team in this tournament seems to be missing at least three key players due to injury.
I hope this is Vlatko's last tournament. He's started feuding with Carli Lloyd now, who is a pundit. I can't believe he's fallen into that trap. It's such a basic mistake: You do not need to respond to, let alone row with, the people on the telly. Especially Carli Lloyd, who is not particularly well regarded in woso circles. Also, making Horan captain on a team with Morgan (second captain), Rapinoe, Ertz, and O'Hara was baffling. I saw Horan play a lot in Portland, and while she is very talented, she does not seem like a good leader.
I think this team goes out to Sweden, and then I hope the US FINALLY hire Laura Harvey. The young generation (all 24 and under) or Girma, Cook, Fox, Sanchez, DeMelo, Rodman, Smith, Thompson, and Macario have a huge amount of talent. Swanson is only 25, Lavelle 27. This team, while not as imperious as past US teams, is playing to far less than the sum of its parts.
Under a better coach I would say this is a young team that just got battered by the group stages but can learn and bounce back from that, but let's be honest, they're going out to Sweden. Again.
Sorry to make this so USA-centric.
The USA coach has a difficult job because Jill Ellis, the Folkstone born coach won the WC in 2015 and 2019. She is a hard act to follow.
If the USA go out in a semi final, they have failed as they have done 3 times as they are winners on the other 4 occasions.
Amazing record to get to at least the last 4 since 1991 when the women's WC started.
Ask David Moyes what its like to follow a legend...
Now you look at things and yes we have lost Williamson, Mead and probably Walsh but we have Bright back and have found Lauren James. If Bright gets back to her Euro levels which she is on course to do, surely James makes us stronger overall. I was a tad dispointed with Russo in the first two games but thought she was brilliant against China. I think the formation change suits her and it is unfair for her to be isolated and have to battle for scraps. Also Hemp is a player who I think has much more to give. Maybe we will see it in this tournament.
As for USA, I wouldn't write them off just yet.
USA have had things their own way for a long time. Even in a country like England where football is huge, the Women's Super League didn't go fully professional until the 2018/19. Spain only as recently as the 21/22 season. Prior to that it was only a few elite clubs that were pro's.
Russo had a brilliant game against China and that was because she had support with Hemp in a 2. She was definitely isolated in the first two matches despite working so hard.
For anyone who doesn't follow the WSL you will be surprised that Lauren James record was 8 goals in 33 matches for Chelsea in all competitions. Just 5 in WSL.
Sam Kerr and Kirby were playing in a 2 earlier in the season and James wasn't always the 10 behind them.
Pretty confident it won't stay like this though.
For as bad as the US was the other night, that Portugal team is quietly impressive. I think that them and Italy might be the next couple of European countries to emerge as being able to develop talent in the women's game. And that's just the European teams, it's not counting countries like Argentina and Brazil, who are really just starting to take women's football seriously, Nigeria and Columbia have looked good. This is such a deeper world cup than we're used to, and it's fantastic.
So yes, that is absolutely a factor in all of this, and I will say it's something the US has known about, and even been a bit paranoid about, for a while now.
That being said, I do not thing that's the issue with the current team. I was listening to Christen Press and Tobin Heath's podcast earlier and they went into some depth about the system, the lack of flexibility, the lack of ability to change, and how the system is getting the best out of no one. This has been an issue for this team going back to the Olympics, Vlatko's only other tournament. They look flat, they look ill-prepared (which is weird given Vlatko has the reputation for being incredibly meticulous), and there's no change to the system or style. I don't think Plan A is very good, but with this team, if Plan A doesn't work, there is no plan B.
As I mentioned before, this is a young team, but it's not a team that lacks for talent. If this were a team that was playing well but that wasn't being clinical in front of goal, was making the mistakes that young players new to this stage make, I think everyone would understand that. If they went up against an England, or Spain, let alone the traditional powerhouses like Sweden and Germany, and they just weren't quite good enough, I think most supporters would look at it and say "things look bright for the future, you can't win them all, and a very good US team isn't enough to win the World Cup anymore."
But this team has been bad. And it's been bad with some very talented players sitting on the bench. And talented players on the pitch. It's a team in transition in terms of generations, and two of the players who kind of link the generations: Mal Swanson and Sam Mewis, aren't there due to injury. But unless you take Carli Lloyd and Alexi Lalas seriously (and I never, ever do) about "mentality," which I always think is a buzzword for "I as a pundit don't have better ideas," this is a team in the mold of past teams with talented players of different generations. We saw this in 2015 as that first golden generation was coming to an end and the next was growing into the limelight. And in 2015, they weren't great to start the tournament, and they definitely benefited from being able to grow into the tournament due to there being fewer strong teams than there are today. But it was also noteworthy that Ellis tinkered a lot with that team during the tournament until she found a formation and system that worked.
Yes, Jill Ellis, English born, is a hard act to follow. I don't think the players always liked her, but she won stuff. A lot. She was a very good coach at this level, and I think Wiegman (and Veurink, who is supposedly the great tactical mind) is a very worthy successor as the top coach in the women's game. You look at what England did against China, changing systems and thriving, I could not see this US team doing that, even if I think you could line them up in a 4-4-2, or 3-4-3, or 4-2-3-1 and you would improve some areas of the team. It just won't happen.
Lastly, I head Meg Linehan, the great journalist for The Athletic, say yesterday that she thinks some questions need to be asked about the tactical strength of the NWSL. And she's not wrong. It's a very athletic league, a lot of it is played in transition, but tactically, it really hasn't advanced in I would say the last five years. And I do think it's something where, as the European league grow and thrive, the US is going to need to buck up its ideas. I think that might be an area where US Soccer has grown complacent, and they can no longer get by being one of the only professional women's leagues in the world.
OMFG! 😳