USA learning from useful repetitions despite making stylistic adjustments
WASHINGTON --
Late on in the United States women's national team 6-0 destruction of Haiti on Monday night, which clinched their place in the CONCACAF World Cup qualifying tournament's semifinals, striker Abby Wambach engaged in a discussion with some teammates on the bench.
She had scored twice, in just over an hour of work, and after she was subbed out questioned what totally one-sided games such as these -- the USA outshot Haiti 20-1 and prevailed 12-1 in the shots-on-goal while hogging the ball throughout -- taught the Americans about themselves. Most teams at next summer's World Cup, after all, aren't liable to sit as deep and play so unambitiously as to make the game unsightly. "It doesn't even look pretty," said Wambach after the game. "From a spectator point of view, I feel bad, because I want people to enjoy what they see."
Best then, she figured, to forget all about it once these games are done. "Oftentimes, after tournaments like this you might want to put the videos in a box and send them off," said Wambach. "Because it's not indicative of the team that we are. You have to change based on the teams you play against."
Some six months into head coach Jill Ellis's tenure, the USA has pivoted to a more possession-based and flank-oriented system. It's supposed to be quicker, more modern and malleable to the difficult games that win or lose World Cups. Three games into this tournament then, it can be inferred from Wambach's comments, it's tricky to ascertain just how they have progressed on that score.
The trendline undeniably slopes upward, in terms of results anyway. After a difficult 1-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago in their opener, the USA moved on to a 5-0 win over Guatemala and then Monday's even taller score over Haiti.
"I definitely think we're moving in the right direction," said Ellis. "We're talking a lot about our performance and measuring that. We've lowered our unforced errors. We were first to balls in our opponents' box."
"There's a lot of good things happening, things that we are focusing on," she added. "Our combination play out wide is looking really, really good. I am pleased. But this team has an expectation, as does the staff, that there's another level to go to."
Wambach's point stands: There's no context to measure these performances against. The USA needs just one win from its next two games -- either in the final or third place match -- to secure a berth to the World Cup. And it's hard to gauge yet how they will fare there, exactly, on the basis of the last week of games.
There is nonetheless a value in the exercise, no matter how resoundingly superior the Americans have become over the course of these games against their underfunded and mismanaged regional rivals. "I actually think that for the attacking five players we're getting a ton out of these games," said forward Christen Press, who scored once on Monday. "Because we're just relentlessly attacking, ss soon as we lose the ball, we win it and we're back in the final third. Actually, we're never going to spend this much time in the final third against a team like Germany. For us, to be polishing our edges, as an attacking-minded player these games are valuable."
Playmaker Megan Rapinoe, in turn, argues that the World Cup might actually confront the USA with more of this uber-defensive brand of soccer that teams in this tournament have faced them with. "Especially with the World Cup going to 24 teams [from 16 in 2011] you're going to have more teams that are similar to that and don't want to totally expose themselves," she said. "So to have these games and learn to break them down when they totally park the bus like that is really valuable."
There is something of an art to being the bigger, better and badder team and actually delivering the win when an opponent is interested only in avoiding goals, rather than scoring them. "It's hard to play against them," said Rapinoe. "At one point [Haiti] had their entire team in their box and that's difficult when we're an attacking team. For us to be patient and have this extra skill in our bag is important."
These schools of thought, then, can be reconciled. No real conclusions can be drawn on how Ellis's stylistic revolution is going from these games. But at the same time, they are useful repetitions, even if they require a stylistic adjustment. And the experience might yet prove worthwhile when the games are all on the line next summer.
