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My feeling is that the United States as a nation will have to adjust its expectations for international success in women’s soccer. It’s not that the team necessarily fails, and it’s not just about this team or this coach. For the United States, there needs to be a bigger conversation about their college system and youth development as well as the NWSL.
For some time at international youth level, the United States has had a disastrous record. The United States haven’t won the Women’s Under-20 World Cup in 11 years – North Korea actually won it more recently – and they haven’t left the group stages since 2016. 17 World Cup, which the United States has never won. In contrast, Spain and Japan enjoyed success in both tournaments.
People often say we would cry for a college system here in England. I do not agree. Take the likes of Lauren James: playing with boys up to a point and then getting into professional environments from an early age benefited her a lot, much more than a very short college system.
‘I would be shocked if the best young players in England went to America more to play in the college game’
Going to the United States for academic reasons, for lifestyle reasons, is wonderful. But I don’t think going to play in the American university system is better for players. In the future, I would be shocked if the best young players from England and Europe went to America more to play in the college game. They will stay at home with contracts at their clubs.
There’s still a huge amount of talent on this American team, but with so many of the team playing only in the NWSL, it doesn’t provide enough diversity for their team in terms of playing against different styles. Here in Europe, where you play in different competitions, Champions League or cups, the players will not be confused about other things as they come up against different football matches week after week.
Take a player like Jamaican Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw. Playing for Manchester City in the Women’s Super League means that one week she will face Magdalena Eriksson of Sweden at Chelsea, then the following week she will face Leah Williamson of Arsenal and England. She’s also building a partnership with Australia’s Mary Fowler or whoever else in her Man City squad – most importantly, she trains and plays with some of the best players from multiple nationalities. It adds diversity to their individual games, it challenges them as players, it improves them in different ways.
What always marked the Americans, for me, since I worked in the United States, it was their magnificent mentality: they were always winners. This summer, their former iconic striker Carli Lloyd criticized the erosion of that culture. Those were pretty strong comments from her and I don’t support or condone what she said, but when a former player shouts that on a massive level, I think it’s interesting.
However, mentality alone is no longer enough to win. Not with the improvements the rest of the world has made since the last World Cup.
Take Japan: they have everything. They can play forward football in a 3-4-3, they can sit in a low block 5-4-1, they are tactical, they are great counter attack players, they are great possession players . They can play different types of games. And they are true to their style inside of that. USA are a team that do best when the game opens, that’s where they shine – if there’s a game that isn’t open, they struggle to break up teams – while that Japan shines in all sorts of different tactical moments.
You can have the best strikers in the world, but you have to provide them. Where is the creative face of the United States? The only example is Rose Lavelle, and she doesn’t always have the platform that a No.10 would here in Europe. Megan Rapinoe is still a player who can impact the game because she has personality in her game; she has the combination of an incredible mentality and game-changing moments for 20 or 30 minutes.
But overall, I think America is massively lacking in creative talent. When you play against better organized teams, better trained teams, you have to break them down, and breaking down teams is a combination of strategy, tactics and personnel, and I don’t see that they have the personnel to do that .
It’s not just about this group of players; it’s the whole structure. The realities are that it’s going to be very, very difficult for the United States to get back to the top. I’m not saying they won’t, with hard work and the right conversations around their model. They will have to respond to this World Cup. Perhaps that response would have been greater had they been knocked out in the group stage – sometimes you have to fail, then see change for the better.
telegraph UK
