Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #414: A USWNT primer for fans of mostly just the USMNT

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Who is in the lineup? Who is the most fun to watch? How does the team play? Is the coach any good? Greg, Tara and Belz work through the basics about the team as they get ready to kick off vs Vietnam on Friday night.----Consider subscribing to Scuffed on Patreon. You get an exclusive episode once a week, full versions of all our interviews with players and coaches, access to the Discord server and live call-in shows, plus occasional video content: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Hey, everybody, this is Bells. I've got Greg and Tara with me. Welcome to a U.S. women's national team primer. The core of our audiences, of course, men's national team fans. That's how we started and it's still, I think, pretty clearly the base of our listenership. So we thought ahead of Friday night's World Cup opener against Vietnam that we would give people a few things to watch for when our women take the field. Does that sound all right, guys?

Yeah. I can't wait. Sounds awesome. I'm already very excited. The World Cup officially got started early this morning, technically in central time. And it's already been a blast. New Zealand beat Norway. Australia beat Ireland.

So both host nations with the win, which is amazing to give them a pretty solid chance to advance. And both stadiums set attendance records for women's soccer matches in their respective countries. So it's been good news all around, almost, almost all around. Almost good news. We have Sam Kerr out on injury for Australia. She's supposed to miss the first two games, which is a huge loss for them. And then Germany announced another injury as well. So like we've got good news, we've got bad news.

We're just, you know, marching on towards our game day. Yeah, marching on and crossing our fingers for the health of the U.S. women's players because yeah, no one can really escape the injury bug, as we'll talk about as we discuss these teams. Yeah. Let's start by just talking about what the lineup is going to be, because if you haven't been paying attention, this will probably be helpful.

First of all, are we going to play pretty much a first choice lineup against Vietnam, a team that we are going to beat by a lot, most likely? I'm really intrigued to hear what Greg thinks. I've seen a lot of different opinions on this. I'm in the camp that we should try. and score as many goals as we possibly can, run out the A team, let them have time together, and then, you know, sub-out at half-time. That's where I'm landing.

You, Greg? I pretty much agree there. I think it's, you run out a full-strength team without taking into consideration, like, rest and exertion for the second match against the Netherlands. But you do make considerations, like really careful considerations for anyone carrying a knock who may not be full strength, and you bring them on in a more controlled, like, situation later in the match,

if you can. And we're talking about health. That would probably be like a Rose Lavelle or a Julie Earts. The social media, whoever's running the team social media account has not been shy. That Rose is fully training. They're putting out pictures all the time, which on one hand,

I think is a great sign. On the other hand, maybe it doesn't matter at all. So I'd love to hear what you, you guys think, like, would you start her knowing that she hasn't played since April? She needs some minutes. We know she's medically cleared. Whatever that means.

We know she's fully participating in practice. Or would you trust that you know who Rose LaValle is and what she can do and give her even more time to rest? Where do you both land? I would start her if you're not like really, really worried about some kind of re-injury. and I'd give her at least a half. So I'd run her for 45 at the worst in starting 11. And I think it kind of goes to where you're saying, Tara, like set a tone, make a statement,

score some goals. Vietnam is going to sit really deep. We're going to have to unlock a deep block. And they're not great at it. But they're going to do their best to make it difficult for us to run up a score. But we kind of need to because the rest of the group is good enough that we can't just take for granted that we're going to walk away with nine points and cruise into the second round as group winners. I think she should start if she can.

You know, Roosevelt, of course, the most creative attacking player we have, I think that's, well, maybe that's a little bit debatable, but she's right up there. Let's assume Lavelle's starting, then what would our likely 11 be? Yeah. We feel pretty confident about. Alyssa and Aaron goal, and then I don't think there's any doubt, it's going to be Emily Fox at right back. She's, we'll talk more about her in a little bit.

Alana Cook at right center back, Naomi Germa at left center back, and then Crystal Dunn at left back. That's what it's going to be, right? For sure. That's for sure our full strength 11. So if we deviate from that, that's Vla Go saying, I can afford to deviate in this match, and I'm going to either just get some other people some experience, or I'm going to save, you know, some legs or whatever that would mean. Again, I don't think there's going to be a ton of back and forth in this game.

I think it's going to be us having Vietnam pinned in their own half for. 85 out of 90 minutes. So if we don't run this back four, it's because we're very confident in the outcome of this match. Right. And I would say, I guess I would say when it comes to Lavelle or it comes to the back four, no matter how confident you are in the outcome of this match, it still makes sense to me to run the first choice team, at least start them, give them 45 minutes together.

Ertz is likely the six. Is that true? I want to say yes. I want to say yes. I hope she is, but I don't know. She's never, she's never started for us since coming back from sabbatical. You know, we haven't seen it. So I don't know if you can concretely say she, she is starting.

But I mean, like, I hope so. And I'd love to say yes. Yeah, I'm the same. I have no idea where she stands with the team, with Latco, or how, how capably she'll be able to step in and play once when she is called upon. So total wildcard for me for the, the 11, whether it's Ertz or Sullivan. Okay, so yeah, a decent chance it'll be Andy Sullivan, the Washington Spirit player at the 6th. Not, you know, I think pretty clearly not the level of player that Ertz was at her,

her prime. The question is how close is Ertz to her prime now? And then Lavelle and Lindsay Haran are going to be the more advanced midfielders. I don't think there's any doubt about Haran. Lavell, if she's, you know, if she's healthy, she's there. And then the front three is where there's kind of a lot of discussion, at least on our podcast about it. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking it's going to be Trinity Rodman at right wing, Alex Morgan at Stryker, and Sophia Smith at left wing.

Yeah, we don't know where Trinity lines up in this team. We saw her in the Friendly Against Wales as Alex's backup. We've seen her on the right wing. We've seen her on the left wing. I don't think that Rodman's a lock starter. Do you, Greg? I don't. And I feel like Sophia will probably start out on the right.

So if Trinity does come in, I think they'll run Trinity on the left. It seems strange to, I mean, Sophia has played on the right for the most part for Vlako, you know, with the occasional switching to the left. When it was her and Mal, Pew, as sort of the partnership behind or wide of Alex Morgan. Yeah, that's true. So again, I don't know why. It would frustrate me even more if we just keep punting Sophia Smith around the field to accommodate other players in the lineup as we're already doing to play her out wide. But who do you guys think we'll start, if not Rodman?

Well, I think that there is an argument for Lynn Williams. I think there's an argument for Alyssa Thompson. Which is nice. Assuming Morgan is starting up top and Sophia Smith is one of the wings, there can basically be no disappointing second wing option. I'm just again crossing my fingers that at some point we get an extended front three of Sophia Smith and then two of the other players listed as wingers. Morgan starting at Stryker is not controversial.

I don't gather in the general discourse. Most people think it should be her at Stryker. Vlako seems to think she should be the starting striker at least up until recently. if, I mean, if his mind has changed. We at scuffed kind of disagree, but we're in a lonely little niche on that. Greg, can you just kind of lay out the case for Morgan starting on the bench, legendary Alex Morgan, whose statue is touring the country? So the case is basically just laying out the statistics from the clubs or our various attackers. And the biggest thing is that Sophia Smith, for the last two years, has just been like a total outlier in attack.

plays striker. So she's this outlier attacker as a striker. And you combine that with Alex Morgan's performance fading a little bit in the league. And so when those two things are happening at the same time, it makes me think you have to have a very, very good reason to move Sophia Smith away from the striker role into a winger position that she's not necessarily thriving in for the U.S. She's fine, but she's not just like absolutely running riot in these games in 2023. And so if you've moved somebody from a position where they are running riot to where they're not, you've got to ask, like, well, what are we getting in return?

And what we're getting is space for Alex Morgan to start. And she's not running riot either in the league or with the national team. So for me, it just, it's actually much simpler and makes more sense to take the player who's destroying teams as a striker, a player at striker, when you have multiple other electric options to play on the wing, you know, when we can't even decide which one we should be using in Trinity Rodman, Lynn Williams, and Alyssa Thompson. So for me, it's like, it's almost like open and shut, and there just needs to be a very good reason not to make it open and shut.

And while Alex Rodman's history as a U.S. Women's National player, I mean, she is an icon. She's not necessarily the same player today that she was. So that's sort of my case briefly. You just said the most incredible person ever. You called her Alex Rodman. I want to meet that person. Well, if anyone has any complaints about that segment of this episode, please direct them to Wachie. Wachie, at Wachie underscore.

Can I throw out one more thing? I know I'm trying to. I'm supposed to keep it brief, but what I think we'll end up playing out here is, one, either Alex Morgan will just tear up the tournament and shut everybody up and say, hey, I may have been kind of cruising because I'm 36. Is she 36 now? 34. 34. He's 34. She's, you know, up there for the age of a striker.

Maybe she's just been kind of coasting with this World Cup in mind as sort of the last her off. That could happen, and she could just tear it up. Maybe she'll just tear it up anyway. Maybe she's just that big of a gamer. But if she's not, if she's not tearing it up in the first few games, I think we could kind to see a repeat of what happened in 2015 in the World Cup, where, you know, Abby Wombach goes in as our established, iconic striker. And she started three of the first four games.

They rotated her for one of the group stage matches. But she started the knockout game in the round of 16. And then she did not start again. the rest of the tournament. So there was actually like a torch being passed mid-tournament where Wambach's role significantly changed and was diminished for the knockout games. And Carly Lloyd's attacking role was significantly elevated. And we all know how that went for Carly Lloyd in 2015.

And so my hope is that if Morgan's struggling, we just see that adjustment mid-tournament. Her role maybe becomes this veteran champion off the bench and Sophia Smith's attacking role changes and we get the same outcome. That is such an exciting and respectful way to put it. Lock this thing up right now. I'm fully balled in again. Okay. So that moves us into the thing that I think a reason to watch this team,

you know, if you need any, is that the U.S. Women's National Team has elite attacking talent relative to its opponents at the World Cup in a way that the men's team just does not. It's a different viewing experience when you have the, you know, the best, some of the best attacking players in the world. on your team, some of them not even being played in their correct position. So Sophia Smith might be the best attacking player in the world right now. Is that too crazy to say?

No, she should be in every conversation. Every conversation about the best attacking player in the world, Sophia should be involved in that. Trinity Rodman is also, I mean, she's not quite at Smith's level, but she's also quite good. And Alyssa Thompson might be the best teenage attacking player in the world. So it's kind of like we're, if you want like a men's corollary, it's like we're France or Argentina. And, you know, that's really something to enjoy. And it does, it creates these dilemmas in the front three where you have a legend and these just too much talent to get everybody on the field all at the same time.

And this is why I'm always soft caveating myself to say that, I mean, Alex Morgan is still a good player. And no matter what, she's going to be surrounded by two electric wingers. in any situation where we need to score goals. So, I mean, I'm saying she might be past it. She could also put up eight goals in this tournament. Right. Yeah. She has the tendency to be a big game player.

So I'm looking forward to see how she does. She also mention that there are two players missing from the attack for the U.S. in this World Cup that are also writing the conversation for best attacking player in the world. Katerina McCarrio and Mallory Swanson. and both with devastating injuries in the last 12 months or so. Two players who would be starting no matter what. Yeah, they would, Swanson would eliminate that whole discussion about Rodman, Williams, and Thompson, wouldn't she? Oh, yeah.

Which again, tells you how incredible the cupboard is loaded here because we lose Mouth, we lose Mousonson, which is devastating on a, you know, on a human level and also, you know, on a soccer level. and then to be like, now I am incredibly excited to watch any of these three other players start a match. I know we're trying to keep it quick here, but Mal posted online yesterday, a video of her kicking the soccer ball for the first time in three months. She's coming back. Good. So the next thing is, how does this team play? If you haven't watched them much, what should someone expect?

All right. So I don't want a wet blank of this, but what you will expect is a lot of individual talent that isn't necessarily well connected to the other individual talent when we have the soccer ball, which is most of the time, because we are so good with our individual talent that teams have to be very careful when they play against us. It seems like our best chances come from pressing and then transition, right? Or just somebody taking somebody on and doing them. I would agree with that, yeah. Yeah, no disagreement here. I'm hoping that we really load up on set piece resources, because I think we'll end up with that individual talent lends itself to drawing fouls

or drawing corner kicks. And so my prediction against Vietnam is that we score at least three goals on corners alone. So here's to hope in those set piece routines are really getting drilled down in New Zealand. I also think there's a common misconception, no matter what level of fan you are of women's national team. Lindsay Horan, newly appointed captain of our, captain of our national team going into this World Cup. She plays for one of the best teams in the world in France. But with Leon, she's able to attack with very little defensive responsibility. And that's not really the case with the national team. And it often leads to two completely different viewing experiences.

for Lindsay Horan. She is a really incredible attacking player. She has lost a lot of her mobility. She's not somebody who's I feel great about, you know, tracking back or winning a ball back if she loses it. But that doesn't mean she's still not an amazing attacking player. She just plays a really different role for the national team than she does at club. Yeah, if you're talking about how this team plays,

if we're going to play in possession, it's going to be. much of that is going to come from Haran. If we're going to be playing more in transition or if that's where most of our joy comes from, that's going to be team-wide. And it's going to be us. We are good at creating mistakes from opponents. And then we have the players to quickly and ruthlessly punish them. Yeah.

Absolutely. So watch Horan closely and get out your take generator machine. Here's a simple question. Is Vlako a good coach or not? Vlako and Anonovsky the coach. of this team. Is he good or is he bad? I'll go first.

Without a doubt, he is really bad at roster construction, I think. But when you look at the big picture, he had a really tough time at the Olympics. Like, COVID Olympics had to be brutal. He was assigned with switching this team up a bit.

I mean, not winning the Olympics was a shock to our core. We act like it was the worst thing to ever happen and we got a medal. But he did bring in a lot of new players. I mean, 14 out of the 23 players, this is going to be their first World Cup. I like that. He has a decent, decent record. I don't think he's a very good coach, but I'm not ready to, you know, burn him at the stake or anything. It's going to come down, I think, his whole legacy because he didn't he didn't cover himself in glory in the Olympics and it wasn't just like well you know that happens in an international tournament it's there's variants i mean the guy had macario

I think as an alternate in that he didn't have her in the roster and then they did that change the rules to allow the alternates to play and that's how she got in remember cat macario played seven minutes in the Olympics that's crazy yeah so some of this and for me that's that kind of a decision isn't like again like a hindsight one and for me that'd be the same kind of thing thing with like the Sophia Smith not playing forward. If we can't generate goals in in the knockouts and we're leaving this dominant attacker out of position, then he's going to have real questions to answer. He probably won't have to answer them because he will probably be working somewhere else. But if he can adjust, if he can, if things are going poorly and he can write them,

then that will make up a lot of ground. I'm not, I'm not holding my breath because, you know, he's had some of these attacking issues for going on two years now, that he hasn't seemed that interested in even trying to address. So it's just going to be out whether or not sort of the incredibly high stakes of the World Cup sort of force his hand. Again, to call back to 2015 and some of those changes being enforced on us that we made throughout that tournament. Or if he's going to win it his way,

or if he's going to go down with a ship his way. Right. He's a ding-dong. And he could still win the World Cup. Yeah. Kansas City has an open position. He can slot right in. It'll be glorious.

So the next thing I've got is something else to enjoy besides our just wonderful attacking talent, both at the World Cup and home with injury, is our fullbacks. We have two extremely progressive fullbacks in Crystal Dunn and Emily Fox. They both get forward. They both get forward. they both combine and can threaten in the other team's defensive third. How much joy they get and how well we can cover for them, I guess, when they get forward are important things to watch.

Yeah, I absolutely love Emily Fox. I absolutely love Crystal Dunn too, but I just think Emily Fox has been severely underrated. She's creative. She's always wandering around. You know, she's hard to keep track of. Her defensive ability has gotten a lot better at North Carolina. This is the first year she's at North Carolina.

Previously, she was at Racing Louisville, and she wasn't able to attack as much. So we're getting to see her be her full self. She's a joy to watch, and I think she's going to be around for a long, long time. Yeah, so between Fox and Dunn, fullback play will be outstanding. Like, I'm not worried at all about people getting cooked around the edge. I'm worried a little bit about our depth, if anything were to happen to them, which also makes it tough to, again, hope for the thing we all want so badly, which has Crystal Dunn to get her chance to play some attacking midfield.

I feel like it's not going to happen with the way this roster is built. So the other thing I'm hoping for is that Crystal Dunn is put in more attacking positions to actually do the kind of combining she can do as a midfielder. I feel like even though we get her advanced all the time with the baller feet, a lot of the times it's sort of out on the wing where we end up just getting one of those sort of aimless crossings. And I want to see Dunn put in better positions to attack in ways that she is capable of being a huge difference maker on. Anybody can hit a cross in. I want Dunn to be able to do Crystal Dunn things.

I wanted to add on Emily Fox being underrated, maybe it's just because she's so stoic, you know? She's got a stoic face. I don't think stoicism plays very well in the 21st century. Another thing to enjoy is the poise and general. flawlessness of Naomi Germa, the centerback. She's a Stanford grad. She has some like really impressive master's degree, I think. Do you remember the specifics on that, Tara? Yeah, she's working on her master. She put it on pause, 2023 to focus on the World Cup, but she's going right back afterwards. Organizational dynamics or something like that. Oh, you meant that type of specifics. No.

I mean, no, the specifics you gave are very, very, very welcome. You know, calling her flawless, right, the World Cup starts probably a little bit tempting fate, but she is a pleasure to watch because she is so smart and composed. She makes the job of a centerback look effortless. She never seems to exert herself, and yet there she is breaking up that attack or collecting the ball and finding feet. She's world class, and only 23 years old, you will see her starting at left centerback, probably in every game of this World Cup. And we are so lucky for it. Remember, Megan Rapino said Naomi Germa is first person on the team sheet type of player. Like if you're looking for one reason to be excited about watching our women's national

theme, it's Naomi Germa, hands down. Flawless is underselling her at this point. She's so good. Yeah. Careful here, friends. You guys think I might be being a little hyperbolic. No, she's that player. She is.

and it's awesome to have that on the roster. Again, Sauerbrun down with an injury. We have so much talent on our team that even Sauerbrun being injured and missing the World Cup doesn't come out until like the fifth item on the list. So the fact that Sauerbrun can go down, you know, the captain of captains,

and it's just like a shrug because we have Naomi Germa sitting there. Again, just an incredible group of players we have. Becky, Becky Sowerbund, like, of course, heartbreaking that she's out. But Alana Cook and Naomi Germa have spent the better part of, what, the last year and a half playing beside her, playing together. They learned from the best. I think they're ready for this. Totally ready.

And then we just, again, cross our fingers that they remain available for the entire tournament. Because we got no one else. Not eager to dip into the pool after that. Right. We got some placeholders, but if you didn't break down the roster when it came out, there is actually no other named centerback on the roster. We just brought the two, and then we will, if we have to duct tape it together, it will be some combination of Julie Ertz and Emily Sondit. Two players who haven't played centerback, even for club in a pretty long time. It'll be all right.

You know, if you're going to, if you for some reason have to miss the Vietnam game, you know, the Netherlands game next Wednesday, which is also at 9 p.m. Eastern time, that is the real test in the group for us. And it's the one that's going to show us how we stack up right now. The question I'd like to end with is, are we going to win the World Cup for the third straight time? I, oh, so sorry. Tara, Tara, Tara. Tara. Tara. I apologize. I, I feel. strongly we could have a very wonky start to this tournament and I still back us to win. My little pretend bracket has US versus Brazil in the final. You know, love Marta, love Marta for life, inspired by how inspired their team is for her. But yeah, if it comes down to it, may Sophia bury them. I think we're winning it.

And it kind of goes back to what I said. If we're looking off, I think we have so many adjustments, ready, made in the attack at least. We don't have a lot of adjustments in the back line. But in attack, we have so many ready-to-go impact players that we can afford a couple of mistakes, a couple of lineups that don't quite work. And so I think we'll either fly through it with the group that Vlako chooses or adjust mid-tournament and win the rest of the way.

I think we've got the players to do it. That said, this tournament, man, you look through even even, even the tournament. like the quarterfinals on, you're not going to have easy games to lift this trophy. And it's important for us to win the group so that our first knockout game is at a reasonable hour. It's at, if we win the group, our first knockout game, I think is at 8 p.m. on August 5th. And if we get, if we're runners up, it's like, you know, way later. Anything else you guys want to cover before we.

get out of here. I think it's really important and really exciting. Like, the games are getting tougher and tougher. And that's great for us. Like, all of these teams are getting better and better. We're not the powerhouse we once were. But that's going to only make us better. It will. It's not something to be scared of, is my point. So our plan for the next few weeks is, you know, in general, Greg and I will do the recaps on a two-day delay. So the games are pretty late at night, and then we'll take the next day to sort of digest it, and then we'll record the next day.

We might adjust that for the Netherlands game, since it's pretty important, but we'll see. Also, we're going to be doing post-game call-in shows on the Discord, definitely after the Vietnam and Netherlands matches, because they'll both end at about 11 p.m. Eastern Time, and that's just a great time to chit-chat. Everybody's had a few drinks. They're just sitting around.

So I hope a lot of you who are patrons and on the Discord will join us and sound off. And then if all goes to plan, we'll post those for patrons after we're done. And then finally I want to mention Wosso Daily, which is a podcast being put together by Joe Yo, sort of the prodigy of the scuff Discord. He and Tara and Ryan McNaughty, a rostorologist and sort of Discord guru, are going to work on it. I think Greg, you might help out a little bit here and there. Yeah, I'm hoping to jump in any time in the morning after Japan plays.

Okay, I see. I got you. I got you. I adopted team for this tournament. But it's a good example of Joey's remarkable energy and initiative, and check it out if you get a chance. I'll put a link in the show notes. Anything else? Last thing is I just want to try to remind everyone that the World Cup is a party.

And each soccer game is a party. the tone right. There was a fantastic tweet during the Qatar World Cup about U.S. soccer fans waiting eight years for these games and then not enjoying a single minute of it. Like, whether things are going right or wrong, like, just appreciate the event for the event actually just existing and occurring right now because it's such a long wait for the next one. So just enjoy it, even if things aren't going perfectly, treasure whatever you get.

Yeah, that's good life advice. general, isn't it? Isn't it, Tara? Love that. I'll enjoy every second of it. Don't worry. Okay. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.