The U.S. women’s national team barely advanced into the knockout stage of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup on Tuesday and former USWNT star Carli Lloyd didn’t mince words when asked about her former teammates.
Lloyd, who is now an analyst with Fox Soccer, called out the USWNT after its goal-less draw with Portugal, admitting that the team was fortunate to not suffer elimination in the group stage. Portugal almost snatched a late victory in stoppage time, but Alyssa Naeher’s right post denied Ana Capeta the opportunity to the play hero.
The USWNT was seen celebrating its advancement postmatch on the field at Eden Park, which will now see them face Sweden in the Round of 16 on August 6. Lloyd, who earned 316 caps with the program from 2005-21, had plenty to say during Fox’s broadcast in Australia.
“I have never witnessed something like that,” Lloyd said following the match. “There’s a difference between being respectful of the fans and saying hello to your family. But to be dancing, to be smiling – I mean, the player of that match was that post. You’re lucky to not be going home right now.”
Lloyd’s comments were later referred to USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski during his postmatch press conference as the 46-year-old took to the podium with plenty of questions relayed. Andonovski, who admitted that the USWNT needs to improve if it wants to repeat as World Cup winners, questioned Lloyd’s remarks by standing up for his players effort.
“This team wanted to win this game more than anything,” Andonovski said. “To question the mentality of this team, to question the willingness to win, to compete, I think is insane.
“It’s not like we played well, by any means,” he added. “We owned it. We know it’s not good enough. We’re not happy with our performance. But we qualified for the next round. We’re moving on.”
The USWNT have only scored four goals in 270 minutes of action during the World Cup with Sophia Smith and Lindsey Horan both accounting for two apiece. However, there were plenty of offensive opportunities left on the table by the Americans, which eventually cost them top spot in Group E (clinched by the Netherlands).
Ultimately it’s do-or-die time for the USWNT, whom entered the competition with pressure on it, and now has added pressure to rise to the occasion in the knockout stage.
It really is to bad this team and the fans are deprived of seeing the two best USWNT attackers (Macarrio, Swanson) in this WC. Can only imagine how much those two players would have made this teams attack unstoppable.
Rapinoe showed why she’s not starting. I don’t think she or O’Hara should even be on the roster.. The US should be a decent attacking team, even if Morgan has lost some pace, Smith, Rodman and Lewis all look solid. The US is losing in the midfield, missing Lavelle in the next game will really hurt. the midfield has been so poor that other than her it was rare the midfield made good plays, Most of the game the 4 backs are not engaged. If Horan can’t summon the adrenalin to perform well for more than a few instants, she needs to be replaced.
Go to a back 3 so the backs are forced to take more responsibility individually; that will free up another player to help in midfield where the US looks very suspect.
what game did you watch? the second half was basically lavelle pushing the ball up the middle before passing, and rapinoe swerving lead balls to the forwards. to me the problem was the quality of the forwards. in terms of defense, the near-goal was route 1 kickball right up the middle, not down the wing.
the interesting thing to me is vlatko runs up a disappointing 1W 2T group second place finish before likely getting smashed round of 16 and that’s a firing offense but GB runs up the same record and exit and he’s on a project and give him time.
The men haven’t won 4 World Cups including 2 in a row. Vlatko’s poorly playing to a bronze medal was pretty bad performance by WNT standards as well.
but see you’re including in history into the expectations — itself an acknowledgment they are held to different standards — while ignoring from what i can tell the wheels are coming off the WNT (kind of like our ’18 cycle) while the MNT is loaded. not saying vlatko has an excuse, but he has less to work with.
judging this in terms of history back to 1990 is basically saying we never expect anything from the men relatively speaking. isn’t that the problem? isn’t that kind of what i am getting at? like anyone associated with their team is angry. do we seem like what we did is beneath us? or is that “happy to be here” attitude half the problem?
personally i think there is a horrible amnesia problem with the MNT where people forget like 2000-2015 we could take some games off good teams. when’s the last time that happened? when i listen to some of the “project” explanations it sounds like we’re canada or some island country that hasn’t made the world cup ever, or maybe in 40 years. we were a quarters team in 2002. we beat peak spain in 2009 in confed cup. this has a history and it’s not just second fiddle to the women. and if the women are eroding while we’re loading up what’s our excuse?
You are starting with USWNT didn’t meet expectations so it must mean the talent isn’t there so we shouldn’t blame Vlatko. While saying the MNT has a lot of talent so not beating a team like the Netherlands (which objectively has way more talent than the US) is the manager’s fault.
“Gregg Berhalter swipes his Nepotism card 💳, for immunity from getting fired” 😂
i was gonna say it says something that we looked as good as we did at NL finals and then went back to the old coach. except i remembered pregame Mex there were rumors marsch had lost (and i think he was the other finalist) and as the game progressed rumors — turned into an announcement the next day — that GB had the gig. in other words, the choice was made before they played a game. i am curious if the team knew.
Gregg’s brother doesn’t work for USSF anymore and was pushed out by the people that were actually in charge of Gregg’s hiring in 2019.
All know we’re lucky
No insight there
Portugal was lucky to not be down 2-0 before halftime. USWNT has to find a way to be more clinical with their chances in the knockout rounds.
We all forget that the USWNT is not a machine that will win every game. They have the talent to make the final. Maybe some tweaks from are now necessary. Move Ertz to DM. Move Smith to striker and put Williams and Rodman on the wings. Need more control in the center of the park.
Bring Baby horse off of the bench.
I would even say maybe putting Horan at CAM and going to a double pivot with Ertz and Sullivan. They need to control the middle of the park better.
horan is so slow. more i watched them play it was like who is the 6 at all. horan can’t cover ground. lavelle is better creating.
Lavelle is out of the round of 16 game to yellow card accumulation. Horan doesn’t need to cover ground when you have a double pivot.
they are not playing 2 mids back. half their problem is how high up they are exposing space to the backs. and you can go on believing that either 1 or 2 DM don’t need a motor and good luck with that. unlike, say, back marking, which can be like playing safety, DM marking is constant sliding and shifting. MF defense in general is kind of amorphous unless you’re a wing.
right now i’d go something like rapinoe and morgan wide, horan striker, lavelle 10 (but cards). they then need 1-2 DMs who can cover ground and tackle because they were getting whooped on transition plays and had massive gaps MF-backs.
She’s right…
For those who either went to sleep or didn’t wake up and see the entire post game, she really laid into the team, coach, and federation.
And what she said is an extension of things she’s previously said or hinted at when she retired.
When I was watching that impromptu fashion show before the game I started thinking – this is reminding me of a certain evening several years ago (remember all the joking around about jumping over the puddles thinking just a draw and they’re through…?)
After the game when I was watching some of them act like they’d just blown out their opponent… Then Lloyd put everything into words much better than I could have
I get what Lloyd is saying, but this team should still be excited to advance. Remember this is 14 new players first World Cup.