For the first time in 18 meetings, the U.S. women’s national team failed to beat Costa Rica.
Emma Hayes’ squad played out a 0-0 draw with their CONCACAF rivals at Audi Field on Tuesday night in the Americans’ final tune-up ahead of the Paris Olympics. Midfielder Rose Lavelle missed the match due to leg tightness, opening the door for minor worry heading into group stage play this summer.
Through four matches of the Hayes era, the USWNT has yet to concede a goal but are struggling to find their final product on the other end of the pitch as well. Entering the match, the USWNT had failed to score against Costa Rica in a single half across their previous 17 matches. Despite forcing 12 saves out of Costa Rican goalkeeper Noelia Bermudez, that number tripled on Tuesday.
“If you play a game of percentages or law of averages, we are creating more and more high-quality chances and we’re getting more numbers into the key areas. We’re getting more touches in the key areas,” Hayes analyzed after mentioning the statistic above. “The last part is the hardest part and I’m really patient because I’ve coached teams that have to break blocks down and it’s the hardest thing to do in coaching.”
Captain Lindsey Horan came closest for the USWNT when she hit the post with her attempted acrobatic volley from close range in the 37th minute but couldn’t find the breakthrough on her 150th international cap. Nonetheless, Hayes continues to preach patience for a U.S. team that dominated 80% of possession on the night.
“It takes a lot of patience to play against a low block. Costa Rica did it really well,” Sophia Smith shared postgame. “It’s definitely challenging for us but I think it’s a good test because that’s what we are going to face in the Olympics.”
“I know that we can create chances. We created I don’t even know how many chances tonight. It’s just getting the ball in the back of the net, however that looks. That will come. That was a big message from Emma [Hayes] at the end of the game; don’t be frustrated. Obviously, we wanted a result from this but these games are preparation for something bigger. We know that we need to peak when we need to peak and that’s at the start of the Olympics.”
The USWNT will now head off to Paris with the youngest Olympic squad since 2008 carrying hopes of claiming a fifth gold medal. Their campaign will begin against Zambia on July 25th, followed by Germany on July 28th, and Australia to close out the group stage on July 31st.
Overrated generation.
they either need to swap out at least one of rodman/smith for someone who can cross to someone in particular accurately, or they need to swap out the striker/horan for similar fast athletes to keep up with the speed of play and get to the wayward crosses.
absence of Macario felt in games like that, vs. low block defending, she will be missed, she’s really good in all those tight spaces and solving, so are Shaw and Swanson, Smith and Williams are ok at it and better than they used to be imho, and Rodman is learning it. Some interesting choices for Coach Hayes depending on matchups etc.
and expect the Gentile effect in games too, those that matter for sure, when teams come out to play us and not just bunker down hopeful to counter; that is, we get fouled repeatedly like Maradona was by Gentile, and it’s essentially allowed or not carded off. it’s basically a given at this point…Yamashita, Act Infinty, Scene Rinse Repeat, Take Groundhog Day
Annnnnd Cut
if you counter, and get hacked down, and it’s not carded to make it stop, it’s complicity by the ref to help the hackers defend successfully, simple as that; if there is no risk on the counter when you get exposed with numbers caught forward in attack, on basically all counter occasions you are allowed to foul to stop play without penalty–which would be cards at some point–so it’s a tactical ADVANTAGE UNPUNISHED, while we get carded the first opportunity in said situation
book it, especially in, oh, like say, the 2nd group match vs. Germany? to set up that pressure cooker vs. AUS while Germany plays Zambia is Match 3? lol
Don’t sleep on Zambia. Barbara Banda is leading NWSL with 12g. They’ve got another attacker with Bay FC too. They did knock off Germany pre WC and handled CR at the WC. Missed Lavelle (although I’m not sure Rose is still Rose with all the injuries the last few years). Could have used Yohannes last night too. Albert brings little against a low block.
i am glad that one of the various YNT and senior teams has decided to try pitching shutouts. 4 in a row under hayes — no goals allowed under her so far. result: despite dubious setup work, 3W 1T 0L.
i like the way they are playing angles on offense, and seem more concerned with chances than possession for the sake of possession. however we continue with the smith/rodman wing pairing that sputtered out in the WWC and do a lot of wayward crossing to no one. they could badly use a wing that puts the ball to feet instead of just pumps it into a general hopeful area. i mean they would get around the flank into the box and still not deliver to any feet or head. if not they need a faster striker to track down the meh service. they just in general could use a focal point.
they also like the men last night lacked a more direct, central thrust. everything went wide. lavelle might help fix that. i am not a fan of the glacial horan and think she tends to just whack it slowly wide to wingers.
ball gets upfield faster and the tempo at least early was good.
someone needs to teach these NT about urgency at the end of games. both recently needed goals late and i’m like counting fart-around passes 40 yards out. at a point you have to quit trying to run the offense, and just play balls in. i think we are actually too programmed and composed that way, as sometimes frustration trying one thing is wise. try something else.
field was abysmal.
I believe there was rugby and MLS at Audi Field over the weekend.
The fact that they are pitching shutouts is due to the fact that they are playing against inferior opponents. I stopped counting how many times we turned the ball over only to be bailed out by the lack of quality of our opponents.
In fact our weakest link is are CB pairing. Girma is great but Davidson is far, far less so. Their backup appears to be Sonnet who isn’t even a CB. I am not confident
at all that they can handle an opponent that is good in the counter attack or is capable os sustained possession against the USA.