On the one hand, I’m American and dominance in the women’s game is my birthright (or would be if I weren’t way older than the Women’s World Cup and Olympic tournaments), so it’s frustrating to see the team struggling to mesh as we ease into the next generation.
On the other, it’s good to see competition increasing and other countries investing in their setups. A lot of this is down to opponents improving rather than the Americans cratering. It’s good for the game and makes for better storylines.
Yeah we’re going to start to see a lot of that with a lot of EUFA clubs having mirrored women’s programs on a professional level. Like over half the EPL teams having a WSL squad (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, etc). And US women’s pro soccer just can’t seem to take a foothold despite it being the most popular sport for young girls here.
I stayed up to watch the game, at least until the first US goal so I could go to sleep feeling better about the USA’s chances and I’m upset at myself for watching that entire dumpster fire of a performance from the USA. Portugal, despite being unable to produce many dangerous chances in front of goal, was so much better in possession, and came within inches of knocking out the reigning back to back champions. It felt like the US couldn’t string more than two passes together. It was abysmal.
Oh god, why did I get up at 2 AM for this? Vlatko made all the right subs, and somehow they got worse. This seemed to be a formation issue. I was listening to Jonas Eideval on the Men in Blazers stream (which at least made watching the game tolerable, if not enjoyable) and he was saying that he would put in double sixes to counter their diamond formation. I think in the 83rd minute Vlatko did this, and we instantly got chances, though it wasn’t enough to get us on the board. 3 games in and these players still aren’t connecting. I don’t get it.
