Along with Julie Johnston, Becky Sauerbrunn and Hope Solo hope to be enough to carry the mild in attack Americans in Canada.
Neil W. Blackmon
This much is certain. The United States can defend.
Ahead of their quarterfinal Friday night against China, the Americans have conceded just one goal at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in four matches, and haven’t been under any consistent pressure since the first half against Australia. The Americans have conceded just twice since pairing Becky Sauerbrunn with Julie Johnston at the center of the US defense, and the pair have been the best American players in Canada. Combined with Meghan Klingenberg and Ali Krieger as the outside backs, the defensive group has now started 10 games together and picked up eight shutouts in the process, including three in four games during this World Cup. They haven’t allowed a goal in 333 minutes. Further, with the world’s best goalkeeper in Hope Solo behind them, Jill Ellis can trust the Steel Roses will have difficulty breaking the Americans down.
What’s more: you can win a World Cup defending. You can even win a World Cup where your best three of your best players are centerbacks and a goalkeeper, which is exactly where the US sits in Canada.
In that they are trying to win a tournament where their best two field players are CBs? https://t.co/LOkfGaGeq0
— The Yanks Are Coming (@YanksAreComing) June 23, 2015
Italy won a World Cup in 2006 behind the dominant play of Marco Materazzi and Fabio Cannavaro at CB and Gianluigi Buffon, then the world’s best goalkeeper, in the back. The Italians scored five goals in the group stages, conceding only one. They won two games and drew one. And they limped through the Round of 16, winning a dogfight of a game 1-0 in stoppage time against an Australia team that was better than it was given credit for being. The Italians found their attacking feet in the quarterfinals, where they crushed a deep-sitting and negative Ukraine team, but until that match, the Azzurri looked tentative and disinterested in possession and settled for direct football and individual magic from the likes of Francisco Totti, Andrea Pirlo and Luca Toni to find goals. It wasn’t a formula for poets, but it was a winning formula.
Still, as it turned out, to win the World Cup, the Italians needed goals in each knockout stage game.
And the question on everyone’s mind ahead of the quarterfinal is who will score the American goals? Or more aptly put: who will create them?
Both Lauren Holiday and Megan Rapinoe picked up their second yellow cards of the tournament in the 2-0 win against Colombia Monday night, meaning the Yanks will be without both in the quarterfinals. That’s a heavy loss, given that those are the two US players with by far the most touches for the US in the attacking third at the World Cup. The Americans have played through Rapinoe and to some extent Holiday, when she hasn’t been outnumbered 3 v. 2 and chasing in the midfield zone.
Much could (and has) been written about the wisdom of Jill Ellis’s very flat and narrow 4-4-2, which is ill-suited for the elite talents of her central midfield pairing Lauren Holiday and Carli Lloyd. But the reality is the Americans aren’t likely to change formations now and given that, finding replacements for Holiday and Rapinoe’s production becomes the paramount talking point ahead of the match.
The most immediate problem: There is no replacement for Rapinoe. Who else can play the "scheme breaker" role against China's parked bus?
— Charles Boehm (@cboehm) June 23, 2015
Rapinoe is the most immediate concern.
Her absence leaves the Americans without the player who has statistically created the most chances at the World Cup and who has been directly involved in five of the Yanks six goals in Canada. With Carli Lloyd’s aggressive passing resulting in turnovers more frequently than chances (largely due to her scattershot deployment and lack of lateral help), Rapinoe has been the primary source of imagination in an American attack lacking it, and there’s not really a like for like replacement.
There are, however, quality options.
Contrary to popular belief, longtime American winger Heather O’Reilly has not, in fact, been lost in the mountains outside Vancouver. Here’s photographic evidence she wants to play:
https://twitter.com/spitfire2485/status/610993026270281728
She hasn’t played in Canada though- and Ellis opted not to get her legs under her with the game well in hand in Edmonton, instead using her last substitute sentimentally on Lori Chalupny, who joined Brandi Chastain as the only American player to play in two non-successive World Cups. You can view that cynically, as a sign that the team is splintered and Ellis is committed to her favorites if you want, or you can view it as simply a decision to reward Chalupny, recognizing that she is a versatile option for Ellis who doesn’t have to play fullback. Either way, O’Reilly has experience in a moment as grand as a World Cup quarterfinal and is almost certainly the closest to a positional fit.
O’Reilly is untested in this particular tournament, however, and if Ellis prioritizes familiarity, Christen Press will get the call. Press is arguably the best #9 the Americans have in player pool, but Jill Ellis has continually asked the Californian to play out wide. Save a worthwhile question whether the this deployment is an effort to accommodate an aging Abby Wambach in her last World Cup cycle or simply about Ellis [getting as many elite attacking players on the field at the same time for another day. On Friday night, the safe assumption is that Abby Wambach will start up top with Alex Morgan, and Christen Press will reprise the wing role she played in the opening victory over Australia. And like she did against Australia, Press will have to perform, because while Alex Morgan is shaking off her injury-induced rust, her strike partner, superstar/legend Abby Wambach, has had periods where she’s been almost entirely ineffective.
Press acknowledged before the tournament the adjustment to playing out wide has been a difficult one. “If you ask me which position I prefer playing, I’m a forward because that’s where I’ve always performed,” Press told TYAC. But she also indicated that with increased reps and training, she was feeling more comfortable out wide. “I’m feeling more comfortable out wide with the national team because that’s where I’ve been training,” Press said.
Christen Press addressing the media in New York City before the World Cup.
And that’s a comfort that has finally shown itself on the field, with Press scoring impressive goals against France at the Algarve Cup and the winning goal in the World Cup win over Australia. Press says the France goal made all the difference, proving she could make the adjustment. “I think because when you are playing in the lower position, you have to work so hard just to get in a scoring position, whereas as a forward you wait just for the one chance a game to score. I like the work, I like getting back on defense, I like being held accountable, but I didn’t like being out of breath, exhausted and tired when the chance came. So I think when I scored the France goal I realized I could score from anywhere on the field.”
Given the performance of the Matildas since losing 3-1 to the Americans, that’s two elite teams Press has scored against from the deeper, wide positions. So she’s finding ways to influence games against quality teams. Whether she can accomplish that without Rapinoe is a different question. A big issue for the US has been players looking static in attack, not moving and finding space off the ball. Finding space and angles for herself is something Press is naturally gifted at, and it’s that ability, to spark the US attack in space, that could make all the difference against a China defense that promises to park the bus.
Meanwhile, the Americans will have to replace Lauren Holiday, one of their outnumbered central midfield pairing as well. The US have only two options: 22 year old Morgan Brian, two time winner of the Hermann Trophy (national player of the year) at Virginia, who is by and large a flex option at this stage in her career and who started on the right against Australia, and Shannon Boxx, a 37 year old veteran who at this stage, is a late substitute six if the US are protecting a lead. In other words, the choice is clear: Morgan Brian will start for Holiday in a World Cup quarterfinal. That’s heady stuff no matter how many youth awards you’ve won.
Morgan Brian is a technically gifted and highly decorated player. But is she ready for a World Cup quarterfinal?
Brian did play well in limited action against Colombia, completing 14 of 16 passes while on and earning the endorsement of the manager.
“[Brian] has played significant minutes,” Ellis said in her postgame press conference. “In our games, we’ve partnered [with certain players] specifically because we knew she would be one of the players to come in. We partnered her with Carli at times, we partnered her with [Holiday] at times, specifically so she would be comfortable in that position. [Brian] is a tremendous ball distributor.”
And maybe in that respect, Ellis’s talk will match tactics. The Americans are in dire need of a presence in the middle who is highly technical on the ball and can circulate possession and carve up the seams to find Alex Morgan and, Friday, Press when she floats in the channels. From a pure talent standpoint, Brian is capable.
Before the tournament, Lauren Holiday talked to us about a similar scenario, one where Lloyd or her was missing and Brian was called into action. Like Ellis, she sounded confident.
“Our practices are insanely competitive,” Holiday told TYAC. “We embrace the players who have the confidence to compete with you for spots, which is Morgan. So if someone is missing, there is trust and confidence behind it. And a young player like Julie Johnston or Morgan Brian, the confidence they show that young, we respect and feed off that. We know they’ll both be ready.”
Certainly Holiday’s remarks have proven prophetic when it comes to Johnston. But Johnston had competitive, tournament-setting reps to make adjustments and gain confidence in a starting spot. Brian will have to do it with limited minutes under her belt in a pinch at the World Cup.
Johnston recognized the difference in those scenarios before the tournament.
“You see where you are when you get reps and try out partnerships in January. You don’t want to have to do that at the World Cup,” Johnston said.
“We [Becky Sauerbrunn and Johnston] benefitted from the partnership starting in a tournament like the Algarve Cup where you are playing elite teams and where mistakes are punished with losses. It forced us to push ourselves harder to develop an understanding together, to make it ready for this moment, for this tournament, Johnston told TYAC.
Brian doesn’t have that advantage.
But neither did Becky Sauerbrunn in 2011, when Rachel Buehler [Van Hollebeke] was sent off in the World Cup quarterfinals, forcing Sauerbrunn to partner with Christie Rampone. Sauerbrunn responded tremendously. Johnston is confident other US players will respond the same way. That’s the great thing about having so much depth, she argues.
“Any athlete wants to be on the field,” Johnston said. “That’s the beauty of our team. We all want to be on the field. Playing with these girls, all 23 of them for two years now, means I’m constantly playing against the best players in the world. It rubs off on you. It makes everyone better and gets you prepared”” she says.
We’ll see just how prepared for Morgan Brian Friday night. And given how well the US defend, prepared enough to help score on goal should do the trick.
Neil W. Blackmon is Co-Founder of The Yanks Are Coming. He can be reached at nwblackmon@gmail.com and you can follow him on Twitter @nwblackmon.