The U.S. Women’s National Team will face top competition in a pair of Spring friendlies following the upcoming SheBelieves
U.S. Soccer announced Wednesday that Vlatko Andonovski’s side will face Australia and Brazil this April in its first friendlies of 2020. Rio Tinto Stadium will play host to the USWNT’s showdown with Australia on April 10th. The USWNT concludes its month schedule at Avaya Stadium on April 14th.
“I love big games,” Andonovski said. “Even if they are friendlies, our players love big games and I know the fans love to see us play the best teams in the world, so these matches in April will be a lot of fun and also great tests for our team and players. Both teams have fantastic coaches and present different styles of play with quite a few dangerous attackers, including some of the best forwards in the world. I can’t emphasize enough how valuable it is for our coaches and players to have to figure out ways to deal with that and be successful.”
Australia come in ranked seventh in the world, and feature one of the world’s best strikers in Sam Kerr. Kerr is the all-time leading scorer in the NWSL.
Ninth-ranked Brazil is led by former USWNT head coach Pia Sundhage, and joined Australia in the knockout stage of last year’s 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
In addition, the USWNT will travel to Australia for a two-match series in November 2021 as part of a new agreement between the two federations. Australia and New Zealand are currently bidding to co-host the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup which will feature an expanded 32-team tournament.
The USWNT are coming off qualification for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The team posted a perfect 5-0 record, outscoring its opponents 25-0 over that span.
Up next is the SheBelieves Cup which sees the USWNT take on England, Spain, and Japan from March 5-11th across three cities.
All these matches being scheduled are XLNT matches for Olympic Development purposes.
It appears that every team in the Olympic Field will be strong, so that we need to be ready from the opening whistle of the opening match. Also, I see the necessity of playing everyone on the roster in these matches. Everyone needs to be able to play a full match if called upon, and be able to adequately cover the position. You never know when a star player will go down and have to be replaced for an entire match. Just like when Megan was down and out for the France match at the W/C and Kristen replaces her and immediately gives the U. S. a lead they never relinquished. Success stories like that only come when the replacing player has had plenty of International Experience vs top teams!!!!