This Sunday on June 26th the 6th FIFA Women's World Cup will kickoff in Germany. 16 nations will be vying for the top prize in women's football, including our very own US Women's National Team (USWNT). The Championship match will take place on July 17th, and we've a great chance to be there. In 5 editions of the Cup we've won twice and never placed lower than third; hosts Germany have also won twice and Norway once.
Normally my posts involve Very Serious topics with a Lot of Numbers, so it's time for some frivolity. And what could be more frivolous than watching a bunch of grownups running around kicking a ball?
It could be pointed out that sports can bring nations and communities together, that the increasing popularity of the women's game is bringing greater respect and opportunities for girls around the world, etc, etc, but never mind all that, it's time for the Women's World Cup! The Germans love their football, and with the home advantage (which, honestly, they hardly need) Germany are favored to win their third World Cup in a row.
But you can't count us out, either. We're ranked #1 by Fifa, and while that may flatter us, we're still a quality side. Here's my opinionated take on the USWNT, and our chances in the Cup.
Terminology
ESPN is covering this event, and usually they have the good sense to use commentators who know the game. That generally means English commentators, and English and American aren't quite the same language. So for those who follow the event occasionally, here's a quick translation for some common terms. BTW, "soccer" is a perfectly good term, it comes from "Association Football", to distinguish it from other types of football such as rugby. But pretty much only the US uses the term. Anyway ...
English : American
pitch : field
touchline : sideline -- IIRC (and someone can correct me) the touchline includes the
byline : end line -- the goal line is that part of the byline between the goal posts
out of touch : out of bounds
manager : coach -- The England manager is Hope Powell, the US coach is Pia Sundhage.
draw : tie
tie (English) -- match or matches between the same opponents. After losing a shocker in qualifying to Mexico the US had to beat Italy in what Americans might call a "home and away playoff series" and what the English might call a "two-legged tie" to advance to the finals (ie, the tournament in Germany, not the championship match).
cap (English and American) -- international appearance in a competitive match for your national team (club matches don't count). Once you're capped as a senior international, you can't change teams. One of Mexico's central defenders grew up and lives in the US and can barely speak Spanish (Natalie Vinti, I believe -- she has helpful words and phrases written on her arms) -- but she's been capped as a Mexico international and cannot now play for the US, even if she wanted to.
friendly (English and American) -- a noncompetitive match (not a qualifier, league match, cup match etc). Used by players to gain cohesion (normally they play on club or college teams with different teammates) and maintain form; by coaches to see who's in form and who isn't and to experiment with new tactics and lineups; and by national football federations to make money (the recent US Men's National Team friendly against Spain drew more than twice the attendance of the Gold Cup tie with Panama. We lost both, BTW) Friendlies between bitter rivals can be quite unfriendly.
Formations
Formations are described from the back and only include field players -- the goalkeeper (aka keeper or goalie, never goaltender unless you're Brent Musburger pretending to have a clue) is special. We will likely line up in a 4-4-2, which means 4 defenders, 4 midfielders, and 2 forwards (also known as strikers). The 4-4-2 has been the most popular formation for decades. In recent years there's been a shift to the 4-2-3-1, 4 defenders, 2 holding (defensive) midfielders, 3 attacking midfielders, and a lone forward. The 4-2-3-1 easily switches to a 4-5-1 on defense, so it brings numbers forward in attack, numbers back on defense. Clubs like Real Madrid and Arsenal favor this formation. The 4-3-3 is coming back: Barcelona line up this way (although their play is so fluid it's more like a 4-6-0 or 3-7-0). There are others, as well: AC Milan like the 4-3-1-2, etc, etc.
The US Women
In Goal: Hope Solo is our clear number one, an elite goalkeeper by any standard of the game, arguably the best in the world. There may be residual questions surrounding her form, as she only recently recovered from a potentially career-ending shoulder injury. She's kept a clean sheet in the friendlies since coming back from surgery, but hasn't been seriously tested in any of them. She likes to keep a chip on her shoulder, so maybe the questions are good for her form -- which would be good for the US, because there's a significant dropoff to our number 2 keeper, Nicole Barnhart.
Defense: Our back line will likely be anchored by center backs (aka center halves) Christie Rampone and Rachel Buehler, with Ali Krieger and Amy LePeilbet as fullbacks (defenders on either wing). Rampone at 35 is a fixture in our defense, highly experienced with a massive 234 caps in a position that favors experience and positioning over outright pace. Buehler (aka the Buehldozer) is strong and a bit of a beast, which is not a bad thing in central defense. Krieger at right fullback IMO blows hot and cold. Sometimes she's everywhere on defense and hustles up the wing on attack, sometimes she is inexplicably AWOL. Her previous club was FFC Frankfurt and she's fluent in German, so hopefully she'll feel at home and be on form. Our backup at right back is Heather Mitts, for many years our starting right back but who has the uncanny knack of getting injured just before a major tournament. She's just recovering from another one now, and (knock on wood) at 33 this will be her first World Cup. You can't help get the feeling that this is a sympathy call on the part of Sundhage as Mitts looked slow and rusty in the Mexico friendly, but the USWNT is a tight knit group, Mitts has been a key player for so long, and this may well be a popular decision with the team. Left back is also a little problematic. LePeilbet is actually a centerback by training and it shows: she's sound on defense, generally makes good decisions, but doesn't support the attack (which is the other part of a fullback's job) and she doesn't have great skill on the ball. Stephanie Cox is our other option: she plays more a like a real fullback, but is not as defensively sound as LePeilbet.
Overall, our defense is strong and physical, one that should see off weaker sides easily enough. But it won't scare the better attacking teams.
Midfield: Control of the midfield generally means control of the match. That doesn't guarantee a win -- last year Jose Mourinho's Champion's League winning Inter primarily played the counterattack -- but unless you really know what you're doing control is something you really want. My guess is that Sundhage will play a 4-4-2, which means two central midfielders -- one to coordinate the attack, the other more defensive -- and two wings. At left wing Megan Rapinoe plays a fluid and stylish game, very active in attack and a good goalscorer. She delivers most of our set pieces. But she can be exposed on defense, which may be why LePeilbet gets the nod over Cox at left back. On the other wing, Heather O'Reilly came up as a striker but has turned unto a world class right wing. She's a great goalscorer though she spends more time being probably our best playmaker, has great mobility, is great at stretching opposing defenses, and provides our best delivery of crosses into the penalty box. With 28 goals, she's the highest scoring active US player not named Abby Wambach. Shannon Boxx at holding mid is a USWNT stalwart. Tall, strong, her primary job is to break up the opponent's attack but she works box to box and she's dangerous in the air on set pieces; technically, though, she leaves much to be desired, she cannot work tight spaces, and is not great at linking up back to front. Her partner in the middle is another stalwart, Carli Lloyd, our third leading scorer and nominal playmaker, with 27 goals just behind O'Reilly. But, like Boxx, the flip side of being a stalwart is that she came up at a time when selection was based on size and strength. The game has changed a lot since then, and those are no longer enough. If it were me, I'd start Lauren Cheney, a striker who can play attacking mid. She has great mobility, plays at a higher speed with better skills and vision than Lloyd, and with more minutes might become our best playmaker. But Sundhage likes experience, Lloyd is a proven winner, and she'll probably get the start.
Obviously I like the wings better than the center of our midfield (opposite of our defense). Our central midfield needs a refresh, but Sundhage apparently felt that that could not have come in time for this WWC. That said, this is a strong and solid midfield, with dangerous attacking wingers.
Forwards: In the post Mia Hamm era, the face of the USWNT is Abby Wambach. She's easily our leading goalscorer, with an astonishing strike rate of 117 goals from 154 caps. She's big, strong, and makes a living plowing through opponent's central defenders. But her form is a major question right now: since coming back from recent heel surgery she's had trouble scoring. If she doesn't play well it will be hard going for us. In a 4-4-2 Sundhage's been pairing her with the speedy Amy Rodriguez. "A-Rod, as she's known, is smaller than Wambach but plays a similar game (though obviously less of a threat in the air) -- very direct, go right at goal. She's also had trouble finding the net recently, though, missing some absolute sitters in the recent Mexico friendly. In fact, the USWNT have had problems scoring these last 8 months, and finding goals from somewhere is a major priority. If it were me, I'd start Alex Morgan, the bright young prospect everyone's expecting great things from. Her game is a little different from that of the other strikers: it's less direct, more crafty, more involved in the buildup. She's tactically sophisticated, with great speed and lateral movement. She's played fewer minutes than the others, but seems to create just as many scoring opportunities. Her strike rate of 7 goals from 16 caps is impressive given her playing time.
Overall, our attack is a little too dependent on Wambach, and too predictable as a consequence. Basically our attitude is that we'll jam it down your throat, you know it and we know it. But other defenses are getting bigger and stronger too. IMO Sundhage needs to trust her younger players more.
The US team
This is a team based on strength, size, and speed, one that favors a direct, "English style" of sending it the ball up to the forwards or up the wings to cross into the box. But the game is changing, other teams are getting bigger, faster, stronger, but more importantly, they're becoming more technically skilled. That is, players are better at close control, have a better first touch, can hold the ball in tight challenges, can pass in tight places. Tactically the game is moving to a possession oriented one, with shorter, faster passes, more positional interplay, lateral and diagonal as well as forward passes. The master of this is the Spanish club team FC Barcelona, but even the English no longer play the "English style", mostly, anyway.
Pia Sundhage recognizes this and is trying to change it, but that takes time. It also takes players with the requisite skills, which among the Americans are found in the younger generation, like Morgan, Cheney, and winger Tobin Heath, none of whom are regular starters. Against the better, faster closing defenses, we struggle to hold the ball, to string 3 passes together. Against the better defenses we sometimes fall back into passing the ball a few times in the back then hoofing it up the pitch for Wambach to run onto. In fact a big problem for our offense is that all too often it looks to Wambach to solve our problems. Sundhage is trying to instill a more patient, probing, possession-oriented offense, but we sometimes still get lazy and play boot and chase.
On defense Sundhage wants us to press high up the pitch to win the ball back early. But the higher up you press the more space there is behind you -- that can leave you vulnerable to the counterattack, especially against those teams that sit back and encourage you to come at them. We are not very good at tracking back and too often leave a huge gap between the midfield and our back line. The central midfielders in particular are highly experienced but not so young anymore and too easily skinned on pure pace when they press high. It's too late to make big changes in lineup or tactics now, so we just have to hope that our women pay attention to this.
All that said, we have a very strong side, one that should make the semifinals and have a good chance at the championship match. It's just that that has been getting less and less of a gimme in the last 12 years, and is even less true now. The women's game is improving dramatically, and we're trying to make the transition to the modern game. We have the second oldest squad in the tournament, and while fitness is not an issue for us, the fact is that the younger players are the better ballhandlers and playmakers. As far as our chances go, we can take nothing for granted. We lost a qualifier to Mexico in Mexico, our first defeat to Las Tri ever, a Four Nations Cup match to Sweden in China (Sweden's traditionally strong, to be fair), a friendly to England in England, our first defeat to the Three Lionesses in forever, but beat Italy in a home and away series to qualify and Japan and Mexico in home friendlies. And Monday this week we dropped a warm-up to Norway, 3-1. Still, this is the World Cup. We've a ton of experience and should show no nervousness on the Big Stage. We may have been the last nation to qualify for the Cup, but really only Germany can be considered a better side. And it would be a surprise but not a great shock if we don't make the semis. We have a mini-rivalry going with Brazil, who have more raw talent as well as the best player in the world, Marta, but a shambolic national organization (Brazilian women pretty much have to leave Brazil to play competitively and do not play together much -- a real shame given the talent level there): Brazil are the other favorites (with the US and Germany) to win it all.
I'm a fan of the USWNT but first I'm a fan of the game, so I can't get into that "USA! USA!" thing. But I'll rooting for our women, and I hope you will too.