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Caitlin Murray, ESPN
Auckland, New Zealand — Head coach of the US women’s national team Vlatko Andonovski’s mission seemed simple: Start the best lineup possible and start the Women’s World Cup with a strong statement of intent.
But once the team that would face Vietnam in the opening match of the tournament was announced, it became clear that Andonovski wasn’t playing it safe or simple.
The question, which will be answered once this World Cup is said and done: Is Andonovsky overthinking it, or is he just being shrewd? The answer certainly didn’t come on Saturday at Eden Park against Vietnam (Friday night kick-off for fans in the US), as unexpected. The talent disparity between the two teams is great enough that an all-US second-choice team was expected to win.
In the end, the USWNT won 3-0, missing a slew of good scoring opportunities in the process – 28 shots in all – and it didn’t matter nearly who put Andonovsky on the court.
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But the USA coach appears to be setting the stage for a tournament in which the USWNT will be hard to predict, and the idea of the “best possible lineup” less straightforward than it sounds. In previous World Cups it was easy to speculate who the coach would start and where, but Andonovski has put together a team with no easy answers.
Julie Ertz – a player who apparently made the list at the last possible moment as a defensive midfielder after not playing competitive football for two years – started at centre-back.
Ertz hasn’t started at centre-back since 2019, and he hasn’t played the position regularly in years before that. But when captain Becky Sauerbrunn was a late scratch in the finals with a foot injury, Andonowski chose not to replace her with someone who currently plays in the centre.
“When we knew that Becky wouldn’t be able to make it, we started looking deeper,” he said after the match. “We had a conversation with Julie before we tried, and did a lot of work before we got into camp (before the World Cup) in terms of video analysis.”
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However, Andonovsky didn’t necessarily have a better choice, in part because of how he built up his World Cup roster. He could have instead opted to start Alana Cook alongside Naomi Girma, but then he would have stayed with an inexperienced central defence. Cook has 25 caps and Jerma – who is the better defender – has only 16.
Erts’ experience in more than 100 caps, especially to ease nerves in the younger Germa, made sense. After all, the only other option on this World Cup roster is Emily Sonnett, the player who has spent more time with the USWNT at fullback than center back.
Ertz didn’t look entirely comfortable in the back when she returned to the role. Vietnam was hardly threatened, so they weren’t exactly under pressure, but with the ball at their feet they looked unsteady at times and took unnecessary risks. I played in the match though, seemed more comfortable as it went on.
“I’m glad we made the decision and I know the back line will get better and better,” Andonovsky said, also refusing to say if Erts will remain in that role throughout the tournament.
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Sophia Smith on her two-goal performance in her World Cup debut
Sophia Smith talks about her two-goal performance in the USA’s 3-0 win over Vietnam.
Savannah Demelo, a player who made the World Cup roster without playing for the United States, was a surprising choice to start in midfield as well. Before the match, Andonovsky suggested the selection was based on her recent form, including a closed scrimmage against the Philippines here in New Zealand.
DeMelo is a playmaker who can open up defenses and certainly create chances for teammates. What Andonovsky did, however, was build a World Cup squad that didn’t play much together — in DeMelo’s case, she grabbed one cap in seeing off the USWNT coming into their World Cup opener.
Show that lack of time together. Americans v Vietnam seemed a version of what they had been looking for for most of the Andonovsky era: steady, slow, and relied heavily on individual flashes of wit.
Andonovsky, for his part, is well aware of the gamble he’s taking and seems confident in his decisions, telling reporters after the game: “If you look at this team, it’s the first time these 11 have been on the field together. They’ve never been on the field together in a one-minute game scenario, so seeing some of the connections and combinations they managed to make was very positive.”
But he also admitted that this USWNT doesn’t sound like everything the group could be.
“If there’s one thing we have to do better besides quitting, it’s how we can help players who are in a position to finish up, give them a little bit of a favor,” he said. “Whether it’s finding them on the right step or on the right foot, the finishing touch—the service before the end.”
For a team as attack-oriented and eager to play up front as the United States, finishing and serving are no small missing pieces.
The USWNT had 297 touches in the final third compared to Vietnam’s 20, but it wasn’t quite as free attacking and dynamic as we’ve seen from the USA in the past – Sophia Smith’s first goal being the only exception. They underperformed their expected goals at 4.34 – including due to Alex Morgan’s penalty miss – and struggled using the flanks, trying to push through a crowded middle.
However, everyone on the outside seemed to be expecting a comeback in 2019, when the USWNT opened the World Cup with a 13-0 win over Thailand, the most mixed result in Women’s World Cup history.
The day before Saturday’s game, Andonovsky was asked by a Vietnamese reporter: “Are you going to crush us like Thailand four years ago?” After the match, another Vietnamese reporter asked, “Did you expect to score more?”
Perhaps it would be unfair to compare that match to this one – that Thailand’s national team was not as good or disciplined as this Vietnamese team. But this USWNT doesn’t seem to have the chemistry of the 2019 team either.
“I definitely think it sticks together,” advocate Emily Fox said of the team’s cohesion. “In training we can feel it coming together and we’ll continue to build on that. It’s our first game of the tournament so we want to keep building on that performance.”
For a team that had only a few actors together, the chemistry had to come together quickly. Vietnam were unable to penalize the United States for their inability to tap, but the Netherlands – recent World Cup runners-up – are next in the group stage. The knockout rounds will be more difficult.
As former USWNT coach April Heinrichs once said, “In coaching, you’re either an ass or a genius.” The choices Andonofsky made could be ones that will be talked about for years to come — reverence or derision, depending on how the tournament plays out.
