Opinion: USWNT still has the world's best talent, but it's not enough to win tournaments
KASHIMA, Japan — Had the U.S. women played like this all along, they’d be going home with gold.
Instead, they leave with a bronze – and a valuable lesson for future tournaments.
“Come out with a mentality, come away with hardware,” Carli Lloyd said Thursday after the USWNT clinched a medal for the 14th time at a major international tournament, giving it hardware from all but one of the 15 World Cup and Olympics that have been held.
This was largely the same team that steamrolled its way to a second consecutive World Cup title just two years ago. It arrived in Tokyo on a 44-game unbeaten streak.
And then it got knocked around by Sweden, a 3-0 loss in which the Americans were overmatched from the opening whistle.
Instead of bouncing back, the USWNT continued to struggle, looking like a shadow of the team that has been the world’s No. 1 for most of the past decade. They were held scoreless in two of their three group-stage games, and played for a draw against Australia. They needed penalties to beat the Netherlands in the quarterfinals, and lost to Canada for the first time in 20 years in the semifinals.
There is no shame in being beaten, but the Americans were largely beating themselves with their listless, disjointed play.
“Not to put this in a bad way, but when you win a lot, it’s like how do you keep finding that next gear and that next push, to keep getting better? That’s what’s really difficult,” Lloyd said. “I just think we lost our way a little bit, the mentality, the fight, the grit.
“I don’t think it was one particular thing,” she added, “but I think that we perhaps maybe needed this tournament to go the way that it did for everybody to realize how important that culture is. Because piece of paper? Yeah, we look like the best team in the world. But talent doesn’t get you medals.”
There were other factors, as well. The U.S. women went six months without having even a training camp last year because of COVID-19, and hadn’t played a top team since April. While coach Vlatko Andonovski said the USWNT’s opponents in the Summer and Sendoff series mimicked the styles of play they’d see in Tokyo, it probably would have served the Americans better to play teams that posed more of a challenge.
One that would have alerted the U.S. women to their lackadaisical passing or holes in the midfield, perhaps.
The Americans also had the oldest roster in Tokyo, with an average age of 29 years and 8 months. That was a year older than Brazil, the next-oldest team – even with the Brazilians having 43-year-old Formiga.
Rapinoe, 36, acknowledged she couldn’t go a full game as she once could. At 39, Lloyd is still one of the fittest players there is, and even she looked slow-footed at times. So, too, Alex Morgan.
Given the age of the roster, the fast pace of the tournament – the teams played every three days – and the oppressive heat and humidity, Andonovski tried to manage the wear and tear by rotating his roster every game. While that shouldn’t have been a problem – the U.S. backups would be starters on pretty much any other team in the world – the inconsistency seemed to keep the Americans from ever finding a rhythm.
“I think we had the freshest legs of any team,” Morgan said after the semifinal. “But (opponents) also had the consistency in lineups. That’s what you have to weigh in a tournament like this. It’s very different than a World Cup. There were more substitutions than there’s ever been, so it was very different.”
This was Andonovski’s first major tournament as the USWNT coach, and he said he’ll take a look at everything he did to see where he erred and what can be improved. No doubt that will also include his tactical strategy, which raised eyebrows, particularly in the group-stage game against Australia.
The Americans have always been a foot-on-the-gas, play-to-win team, and bunkering down is considered sacrilege. Remember Hope Solo’s rant after the 2016 quarterfinal against Sweden? But that’s exactly what Andonovski had the Americans do against the Matildas, wanting to preserve the U.S. women’s second-place spot in the group.
“It was a tactical decision by Vlatko for us to shift defensively a little more conservatively and really allow them to get impatient, play it long and give it back to us,” Morgan said after that game. “Eventually, I feel like both teams kind of sat in and it became a game of playing a professional game and moving on.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the strategy there.
“Before the tournament … I had different chats with the more experienced players. They were all saying that it’s different, it’s different,” Andonovsk said. “Especially the Olympics, they’re difficult. They’re tough mentally, they’re tough physically. I was trying to prepare myself, but you can never prepare yourself for it unless you live it, you go through it, you experience it.
“I will certainly have a deep dive into everything I did, and see what it is I could have done different and evaluate and analyze what I could have done better,” Andonovski said. “I know there are things I could have done better. And hopefully I don’t make the same mistakes in the next major tournament.”
That the women’s game is getting more and more competitive is obvious at every World Cup or Olympics. The Tokyo gold medal will be the first major title for either Canada or Sweden, while Chile and Zambia made their Olympic debuts here.
The Americans still have the best team in the world. But as they learned in Tokyo, that’s not enough.
“It’s about a mentality this team has had forever,” Lloyd said. “Talent doesn’t win you championships. Without the mentality, without the heart, the grit, the fight, we won’t win anything.”
That takeaway is just as important as the bronze medal the USWNT is taking home.
Follow Paste BN Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.