ST. PAUL, Minnesota — USA Women’s national soccer team coach Emma Hayes is still learning some American sports lingo in her first weeks on the job.
On Tuesday, in persistent rain at Allianz Field that made the England coach homesick, Hayes begged her team to finish the game Korea the team rarely threatened the Americans but only led by one goal at the time.
“‘I want you to put your pedal to the metal,” Hayes recalls telling the group. “And [assistant coach Denise Reddy] told me, ‘Don’t you ever say that again!'”
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As awkward as it was, it worked. The USWNT scored two more goals – including the debut goal for the 16-year-old midfielder Lily Yohannes in his first cap — to win 3-0.
Now is a tough time for Hayes to borrow another uniquely American sports phrase. After two matches and just over a week of training, she must choose her 18-player Olympic roster in the coming weeks. The performance of several players on Tuesday made the job much more difficult.
Yohannes has made it onto that list after making an immediate impact in his much-anticipated debut. Her late goal ended 20 minutes of steady distribution in midfield, which included passes for Trinity Rodman moments earlier had resulted in Rodman shooting off the crossbar.
However, the midfield was crowded even before Yohannes saw the field. The team’s starting trio Korbin Albert, lavender roses and captain Lindsey Horan helped control the game against a South Korea side, again sitting in a low block of five defenders. Hayes has praised Horan throughout this camp as a team leader. And Lavelle is a known entity having won his 100th cap on Tuesday; she is arguably the team’s most creative player.
Albert is much newer than the combination, but Paris Saint Germain The midfielder has quickly shown he can compete at this level.
On Tuesday, Albert and Horan combined to dictate the tempo of the match, patiently waiting for the right moment to pull South Korea off the defensive. It’s not always perfect but it works at the right time. Above all it is patience.
“I think it’s important for us to be more patient on both ends of the ball and not just move forward every time,” Lavelle said. “I think that’s just it [being] Patience with our movement, patience with us moving off the ball and finding different ways to beat their strikers, beat their midfield and break them down.”
Hayes made nine changes from the squad that beat South Korea 4-0 three days earlier in Colorado. Hayes said Monday that the goal will be to give new players a chance to process the “overload” of information the staff has given them all week and show that they can apply it in a game scene.
Of those who seemed intent on making Hayes’ Olympic roster, Albert did it as well as anyone on Tuesday.
However, there is context to her on-court success. Albert’s previous social media activity – which appeared in March – appeared to support anti-LGBTQIA+ content and shed light on the former US winger’s injuries Megan Rapinoe. Albert apologized and the team held internal discussions during an April camp that were not shared publicly. Albert remained on that list and was called into this camp again.
Hayes made pointed comments on Saturday that she expected a tolerant environment in the locker room and her words about players needing to feel supported when they take the field after Albert was booed by the home crowd in Colorado on Saturday.
“I want everyone to be patient,” Hayes said Saturday. “There are a lot of young players. On the field, they are learning but they want to give everything for their shirt and want to give everything for their country. Off the field, some make mistakes. One some have to learn. My job as a coach is to help teach and guide them.”
In pure football terms – no doubt an oversimplification – Hayes and her staff appear to rate the versatile Albert, and the midfielder’s performance on Tuesday. will reaffirm that. How Albert, Yohannes and others are likely to make the Olympic roster is the mental gymnastics that will preoccupy Hayes in the coming weeks. Horan and Lavelle are both World Cup-winning veterans. Defensive midfielder Sam Coffey has become a regular, including alongside Albert in the team’s Concacaf W Gold Cup triumph earlier this year, and is the best pure defensive midfielder of the group.
Then there’s the question of where to play versatile attackers Catarina Macario And Jaedyn Shaw. Macario starts as the USWNT’s number 10 on Saturday, while Shaw starts as a hybrid winger on Tuesday. Shaw struggled to find her way back into the game in the first half before coming alive in the second, even as she moved into the No. 10 role. That reiterated a trend: Shaw is clearly best suited to the No. 10 role. , but the same could be said for some equally talented players.
Defensively, Hayes was further confirmed on Tuesday that Jenna Nightswonger is actually a left-footed, left-back who can get forward into the forward line. Nighswonger assisted on the opening goal — scored by Crystal Dunn, who started as a striker for the team for the first time in nearly seven years. Nighswonger is magnetic on the ball and is one of only two players, along with Horan, to start both matches against South Korea.
Center back to the left Sam Staab earned his first international cap. Staab’s steady run in the National Women’s Soccer League seemed long in the making, but it didn’t come until the most recent camp. She played her role seamlessly on Tuesday, almost scoring on a set-piece in the first half.
“I think it was worth it and I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Staab said of the long wait for his first cap.
Hayes has no shortage of talent to choose from. She frequently talks about the need for balance between this group of young rising stars and the veterans who have brought the team to where it is today.
That includes transitions Alex Morgan, who started at No. 9 on Tuesday and received praise from Hayes for working hard despite limited touches against South Korea’s low block. Morgan’s turnover sparked transition play that led to Dunn’s early goal.
A wave of USWNT substitutions at the hour mark opened the match. The connection between Rodman, Sophia Smith And Mallory Swanson It was easy to see, even though they all came out with fresh legs against a tired Korean defense.
An exhausted Hayes appeared to lose his voice after Tuesday’s game. She said she had been competing for 10 months straight, mentioning that she had spent the entire season in Europe with Chelsea before joining the USWNT a few days after that job ended in May. She said she would meet with her staff on Wednesday morning and then she needed to rest for the rest of the last week when arriving at US Soccer headquarters in Chicago to plan for the Olympics.
“[The group’s] Not afraid to let go of the things we have to let go,” Hayes said Tuesday, amid a chorus of praise for the player. “Bold enough, brave enough to want whatever it takes to improve. I’m very impressed with them as people.”
Now Hayes must choose who she will invite to the 2024 Olympics and press her foot on the accelerator. The Paris Olympics begin next month.
