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Is the USWNT struggling with their post-Abby Wambach identity?
When Abby Wambach retired from the U.S. women’s national team last year, they lost the greatest goal-scorer the USWNT has ever known. She holds the world record for the most international goals, man or woman, and the USWNT had long built their attack around Wambach.
When a player like Wambach goes away, it’s difficult to replace her and even harder to try to forgo having someone in her role entirely. After all, the 5-foot-11 Wambach and her aerial presence were firmly ingrained in the Americans’ direct attacking style, an identity that still persists for the USWNT, even though Wambach played her final game in December.
As Wambach played a substitute role in last summer’s World Cup, the U.S. has had a long runway to adjust to playing without her, but their stumbles in the 2016 Olympics suggest there may still adjusting to do. Outside of tournaments, the USWNT plays so many weak opponents that systemic problems can be easily masked by individual skill and athleticism — but the USWNT’s loss to an organized and disciplined Swedish side in the Olympics quarterfinal especially shined a light on weaknesses that have been seldom exposed.
The Americans, frustrated by Sweden’s defensive 4-5-1 formation and unable to find passing outlets, often defaulted to long balls and crosses — the kinds of balls Wambach built her career on. They attempted 38 crosses, with most of them unsuccessful and ending up in turnovers. Without Wambach in the box, the Americans mostly struggled when they put the ball in the air. Alex Morgan, their lone striker now, has improved her aerial presence since Wambach’s departure, but she can’t turn hopeful crosses into goals the way Wambach could — no one can.
With the Americans chasing the game against Sweden, coach Jill Ellis saw an opportunity to bring Megan Rapinoe on for her crossing ability. It ended up being a controversial decision since Rapinoe was only fit to play 30 minutes, but as Ellis told reporters: “I felt I needed to get Megan in when we were chasing the game to get a set piece goal or some good service in the box.” It’s true that Rapinoe has been a great server for the U.S., with the quintessential example coming in the 2011 World Cup. Her game-saving long ball against Brazil allowed a crucial equalizer in the 122nd minute of the quarterfinal. It’s one of the most famous goals in U.S. Soccer history.
The problem in hoping for similar magic from Rapinoe is that she wasn’t crossing to just anyone in 2011 — she was crossing to Wambach, arguably the greatest header the women’s game has ever known. Without that target on the field against Sweden, who was she supposed to be crossing the ball toward that could win it?
It’s not just Wambach’s missing aerial presence that has forced the USWNT to adjust, though. Her partnership with Morgan was perhaps the best the U.S. has ever seen — being around one another had the effect of making them both better. With Wambach gone and Carli Lloyd becoming a more prominent piece of the attack as a deep-lying striker, the Americans have mostly stuck to a 4-2-3-1 where Morgan is alone up top and Lloyd tucks underneath. Now, Morgan has to have chemistry with everyone else in the attack instead of just one person. Morgan has managed to do well often and there is no better player on the USWNT roster to take on the solo striker role, but would the attack just work better if she had a partner?
“It took a while for me to adjust to playing lone forward. You have to be unpredictable in your runs, but when there’s a back line that’s only worrying about you, then your runs tend to be predictable,” Morgan said during the Olympics. “You have to connect not only with the other forward in a two-front, but being a lone forward, you have to connect with the wingers, you have to connect with the attacking mids.”
“You have to be more in tune with the rest of the team, whereas with a two-front, it’s just kind of opposite movement…” she added. “It’s a bit different of a game and sometimes more frustrating because you don’t get the ball passed frequently.”
Morgan had seven shots total against Sweden, but only two were on frame, with most of her efforts coming from the poor angles she was pushed into. That, of course, was by Sweden’s design, but if a player like Wambach is on the end of some of those crosses, history tells us she would be more likely to get them on frame. For stretches of the tournament, with the match against France a particularly good example, Morgan was starved for useful service up top. The Americans still often try to get her the ball with the sort of long balls and crosses they used to send when she had Wambach by her side — but against opponents like France and Sweden, the Americans looked better when they kept the ball on the ground and attacked in front of goal that way.
It’s an open question whether a technical forward like Christen Press would be suited to that style of attack alongside Morgan — without a big aerial presence, playing with the ball at their feet seems to be the way forward — but that pairing hasn’t been explored much under Ellis. To keep the system that gets the most out of Lloyd, which was the key at last year’s World Cup, they can't really have two-striker system like the 4-4-2 that Wambach and Morgan used to play in without creating new defensive vulnerabilities. Press and Morgan started together three times this year, but Press was always in a winger role or in the central midfield — never as a striker.
Finding a way to cut out the default tactic of lofted long balls in exchange for keeping the ball on the ground may be worth exploring, though, because the best penetration from wingers Crystal Dunn, Mallory Pugh and Tobin Heath often came with the ball on the ground — either at their feet on the dribble or with short, quick passes as they pushed in centrally. That, in turn, helped Morgan get more of the ball. The system the U.S. uses now is great at getting the best out of Lloyd — and in Canada last year, that was enough — but with the next major tournament three years away and no sign of the next Wambach, the hunt for a new style may need to become the immediate priority.
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