A little more than a week ago, I asked United States midfielder Christine Nairn if the Under-20 team found time between training and other summer activities to watch any of the men’s World Cup games. Not only did they watch, she said, but they sometimes used them as discussion tools in training — what would they do if presented with similar situations to those they watched unfold?
Someone should have stressed those were just hypothetical questions.
In a game that played out far too much like most of the men’s game from South Africa, the United States surrendered a goal inside 10 minutes and had to fight for dear life before finally tying the score in the second half. The major difference in this case was as the opening game of group play in the Under-20 Women’s World Cup, there wouldn’t be any extra time for the Ghanaians to score a second time.
As it was, the 1-1 draw represented the first time an African team has ever taken points from a United States women’s team in the World Cup, Olympics, Under-20 World Cup or Under-17 World Cup. And it leaves the defending champions in an uncomfortable second-place tie with Ghana behind South Korea in Group D.
U.S. starting lineup: GK; Bianca Henninger; D: Rachel Quon, Toni Pressley, Crystal Dunn, Kendall Johnson; MF: Kristie Mewis, Amber Brooks, Christine Nairn, Zakiya Bywaters; F: Sydney Leroux, Vicki DiMartino (Subs: Maya Hayes for DiMartino, 46th minute HT, Teresa Noyola for Nairn, 54th minute)
What went right, Part I: Start with the players who didn’t start the game. Jill Ellis’ first two substitutions worked out precisely as she presumably hoped. Maya Hayes came on at halftime for Vicki DiMartino and stretched Ghana, before and after she set up the equalizing goal with a great sprint down the middle of the field and showed poise in making the finishing pass to Sydney Leroux for the goal in the 70th minute. As she made her run, Hayes ended up with the ball at her feet courtesy of a pinpoint pass between defenders by Teresa Noyola. The Stanford midfielder came on early in the second half for Christine Nairn.
It’s fantastically easy to second-guess coaching decisions after the fact (fun, too), and it’s equally easy to stay quiet when the second guess you make in your mind prove far more fallible than a coach’s first guess does in reality. To that end, I was surprised (i.e. I thought it was the wrong move) when Ellis took out Nairn. Noyola was a clear choice as the kind of playmaker in the middle of the field that the U.S. needed and didn’t have in the first half, but I wouldn’t have had the guts to take out Nairn to do it. Ellis did, and that decision might have saved the point for her team.
What went right, Part II: The United States needed Noyola and Hayes because it wasn’t getting much play through the middle of the field for the first 45 minutes. What it did get throughout the game were good runs forward from Kendall Johnson and Rachel Quon, outside backs in the 4-4-2.
Talking to Ellis before the team left for Germany, she said exhibition losses against Germany and Japan left her concerned that opponents could focus too much on the middle of the field against the Americans without having to worry about getting burned by the outside backs. But until Noyola and Hayes came on, almost the exact opposite was true against Ghana – going wide was just about all the U.S. had. Quon wasn’t healthy in those earlier games against Germany and Japan, and her track record at Stanford and the international level speaks for itself as a player of attacking skill out of the back. But Johnson has a chance to be one of the truly promising long-term developments of this tournament for the U.S. program.
What went right, Part III: It’s usually not a great sign for the United States at any level when the keeper has a monster game, but credit Henninger all the same. There was nothing she could have done on the goal — beaten by a perfectly-struck ball that ricocheted in off the post — but she saved the draw on at least two occasions in the second half. Time and opponents with more sustained possession and set pieces will reveal more about her management skills, but she played the part of shot-stopper extremely well against Ghana.
What went wrong: Frankly, that’s a lot of positives for a game in which an American women’s team dropped points to an African side for the first time ever in a major competition. In part, that’s because Ghana didn’t luck its way into a point. The underdogs hit lulls and fell into a shell late, but they also showed a lot of creativity and talent. Nevertheless, the picture for the Americans is not entirely rosy coming out of the game, obviously.
Noyola and Hayes played well after the break, the outside backs provided some good push and Leroux netted a goal, but this again looked like a team for whom the attacking whole is less than the sum of the parts. It struggled to score against Costa Rica and Mexico in the late stages of qualifying. It struggled to score against Germany and Japan. It even struggled to score in the scrimmage I watched against a WPSL team over Fourth of July weekend.
It’s difficult to point to one particular pressure point. All too familiar with losing big to their regional not-quite-rival, Costa Rica and Mexico played defensive soccer, packing it in against the United States. I didn’t see the games against Germany and Japan, but from what Ellis said, it sounded like good teams bottled up a somewhat depleted United States through the middle and dared it to adapt. And against Ghana, a lack of precision and patience with passing in the first half morphed into some understandably hurried chances during the scramble to equalize in the second half.
What’s next: The United States faces Switzerland Saturday in Dresden (live on ESPNU, 12 p.m. ET). The Swiss turned in perhaps the worst performance of the entire field in a 4-0 loss to South Korea. It must be assumed they can’t possibly be that bad again. Still, this is a game the United States not only needs to win, but should win. Switzerland’s Ramona Bachmann plays for the Atlanta Beat in WPS and showed why with a few moves against South Korea, but she was also even more isolated (sometimes her own fault) and lacking for service (not her fault) for much of the game than Leroux was against Ghana.
Graham Hays 