It took 31 seconds for Saturday’s 2024 SheBelieves Cup opener in Atlanta to look like it might become a complete disaster for the U.S. women’s national team.
The U.S. back line was high near midfield, and Japanese midfielder Keiko Seki flew down her team’s right side, at the back, and accurately placed the ball inside the far post to score. The USWNT has not conceded a goal this early in a game in 21 years.
However, the rest of the match played out as if that opening scene from Japan had never happened. The USWNT stuck to their game plan, holding a high line and applying a relentless high press to disrupt Japan’s desire to play short passes out of pressure.
The result eventually came with an equalizer from Jaden Shaw after 20 minutes, and the United States continued to control the game in the second half before Lindsay Horan’s penalty kick gave the Americans a 2-1 victory.
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More than anything else, the USWNT’s performance exuded the kind of confidence of a global power dictating matches rather than a team reacting to opponents — the kind of swagger the Americans used to win World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019 but have consistently lacked recently. Years.
Even with impending coach Emma Hayes still watching from afar, this was the kind of risk-reward trade-off that is the trademark of Hayes’ plucky team. This was a window into what the United States hopes will be a more fruitful future.
“We’re always looking to be on top,” USWNT interim coach Twyla Kilgore said. “Yes, there are times when we sit in one building, but part of our DNA is to be up front and make sure we dictate the play and influence the way other teams play, and make it difficult to play against us.”
Jenna Niggsunger is a prototypical Hayes defender, a converted full-back who can play in this type of high, wide role, or as she has been used in some of her previous six games, as a more aggressive third centre-back in a back-three system. On Saturday, Nighswonger was also a microcosm of the division taking place in this system.
I was pinned high on the USWNT’s left side when Japan scored early, and Japan targeted the space behind the left back in several other transitional moments early in the game. However, Nighswonger was pushed up to get involved in the attack, and the USA were repeatedly rewarded when they combined with striker Mallory Swanson, both sending dangerous crosses into the box.
Nighswonger stayed high up the field for long periods as the USA sat four or five players on Japan’s back line and pressed into the opposition’s penalty area. The approach meant playing most of the game in Japan’s defensive half, but it also left the US backline, which was forced to make an early change in the 18th minute when Abby Dahlkemper came on for the injured Naomi Girma, in a potentially vulnerable area. positions and the top of the field.
The United States often moved almost all ten field players into Japan’s defensive half, leaving space behind them over the top.
“It’s something we go through in what we call what-if scenarios,” Kilgore said of the balance between risk and reward. “We have triggers that we follow that give us an idea. I won’t tell you what those triggers are. We also have scenarios of what if this happens…or where we need to regroup. What are we going to do? “And that gives us a gauge of where we want to be on the pitch when we defend. “
Swanson’s return to the team, and Japan’s usual reluctance to play for long periods of time, created the perfect scenario for them to take this risk.
Swanson was electric in her first US match in a year after tearing her left patellar tendon last April. A goal-line clearance early in the game denied Swanson from scoring in her comeback, but her ability to interchange with N’Gswonger on the left flank, and with striker Alex Morgan and Shaw in the No. 10 role, made the USA more unpredictable and dynamic in attack.
Swanson is a winger who likes to turn, while Shaw is best used as a No.10 who is free to move wide. The players’ tendencies allowed for fluid interchange in attack and defence, something Kilgore praised after the match and identified as a strategic goal of the game plan.
The USWNT’s ability to pressure a talented and technical Japan team into frequent mistakes on Saturday was impressive. As Japan coach Futoshi Ikeda said through a translator after the game, his team needed a “Plan B or Plan C to overcome the high-pressing US women’s national team,” and his response was very “negative.”
What is even more impressive than the Americans is their ability to forget that the first minute of the match even happened. Kilgore joked that when the United States conceded the first goal, there wasn’t enough time to know if the game plan wasn’t working. And perhaps that was for the best. The United States stuck to its approach and achieved miracles.
Remove that early disadvantage and the hosts will largely dominate Japan with a performance more reminiscent of their 2019 World Cup win than a poor showing in last year’s tournament.
Progress was evident in the U.S. win on Saturday, not only from a recent 2-0 loss to Mexico — which the U.S. recovered from to win the CONCACAF W Gold Cup last month — but also from last year’s SheBelieves Cup meeting with Japan, when the visitors dominated USWNT disbanded but the USA won 1-0 behind Swanson’s individual brilliance. This lack of chemistry boded poorly for the USWNT’s 2023 World Cup, especially with Swanson out injured and unable to rescue them.
Saturday’s performance was completely different. Swanson is back, not to play savior, but to create dangerous combinations with players different from the group she last played with a year ago.
On Saturday, the United States looked like the United States of old, a team relentless in its pressing methods and unshaken by the odd mistake, a team capable of controlling a world-class opponent. Not every game will look this way in this evolving landscape of improving opponents, but it was another step in the right direction before Hayes officially arrives next month.
On Saturday, the risk was worth the reward.
