USA vs. Canada Match Diary and Player Ratings

Maybe we've been doing a Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope thing

I wish these national team games were more spread out. I just watched the men win the Gold Cup in a great game last night, and right away the women are in a semi-final. And yet I know that three months from now I’ll be watching Augsburg versus Mainz, trying to find a reason to care, and ultimately using logic like “Well, I flew through Frankfurt once, and that’s kind of near Mainz, so: Go Mainz.” I wish I could teleport this game to November.

This team still hasn’t kicked into gear. We looked better against the Netherlands and did just enough to win, but this hasn’t been the team that steamrolled to the World Cup title two years ago. Lynn Williams keeps her spot in the lineup after a goal and an assist against the Netherlands:

Williams | Morgan | Heath

Horan | Ertz | Lavelle

Dunn | Davidson | Sauerbrunn | O’Hara

Naeher

Works for me. I honestly don’t think solutions are on the bench; I think the players we have need to find another gear.

Here’s kickoff from another I Am Legend-style empty stadium…

10’ - They just gave a statistic: Alex Morgan has scored in 77 games for the US, and we haven’t lost any of them -- 67 wins and 10 draws. I know that stat is supposed to be impressive (and the “scored in 77 games” part is impressive), but that actually sounds like: “Picks the low-hanging fruit, struggles against the better teams.”

15’ - No chances yet. This is where we say “the teams are feeling each other out,” which is a polite way of saying “it’s a knockout game and both teams are afraid to commit numbers forward.”

21’ - Naeher is down; it’s not looking good. Someone named Franch is warming up -- I guess she’s the backup keeper, but who knows? It’s been Naeher —> Solo —> Scurry —> Dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Those are the only USWNT goalkeepers I’ve ever known.

28’ - Naeher has to come off; and so begins the Adrianna Franch era. I like her name; it sounds like a sassy way of saying “French” (used in a sentence: “Now that I’m in ninth grade, I finally get to take Franch!”). It also sort of sounds like a third salad dressing option at a diner (“We have French, Ranch, and Franch.”).

36’ - I don’t think either team has had a shot yet. This game is honestly a mess; Canada just floated a corner kick onto the top of the goal. It’s making me wish I was watching Augsburg-Mainz.

40’ - Arlo White: “It’s been a cagey first half.” Yeah, “cagey” -- that’s another one of the words we use to say “boring as hell.”

45’ + 5’ - More Arlo: “Not exactly easy on the eye.” “Not much to report.” Good stuff from Arlo; he’s English, so you know he’s got pockets full of polite euphemisms for “God, that was shit.”

HALF TIME: 0-0. There have been four total shots: three for us, one for them. I don’t remember any of them. No shots have been on goal. That would be the most boring half of soccer I’ve ever watched if I hadn’t recently watched this team play a 0-0 draw against Australia in which the most entertaining thing was the grass growing underneath their feet.

46’ - And now we have fucked up the SECOND HALF KICKOFF. Jesus: Take the medals and throw them in the fucking garbage can -- if we’re going to play like this, we don’t deserve them.

48’ - I padded out a boring match against New Zealand with Flight of the Conchords clips; I padded out a boring match against Australia with Clarke and Dawe. Now we’re committing a mortal sin against the beautiful game against Canada, so please enjoy some Kids in the Hall:

52’ - Well there’s something: Nice flick-on from Heath. Of course, Williams was offside; being offside is sort of this team’s signature move.

60’ - A literal line change: The front three are coming out, a new three are coming in. This time it’s Heath, Morgan, and Williams who can’t get it done, so Press, Lloyd, and Rapinoe will give it a try. Andonovski continues try every combination in attack -- it’s becoming the “let’s try hair down, glasses on” joke from Arrested Development:

64’ - WE HAVE AN ACTUAL SHOT!!! Woooooow! I mean, it was easily saved, but that’s…something! Arlo White confirms: That was the first shot on target of the match.

67’ - Another actual shot! An Ertz header off a corner forces a save! In my opinion, Ertz and Horan are keeping us in this tournament. The front line has been useless; the defense has been spotty. But we usually own the middle of the field.

72’ - Uh oh…we have a VAR check. PENALTY FOR CANADA! In my humble opinion, that’s an awful call. Davidson is trying to clear the ball, the Canadian player comes from nowhere and throws her body in front of Davidson’s foot. If there’s a foul there, it should go the other way. But as I’ve said before: I think referees just like walking away from that screen and going: “PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPENALTY!”

74’ - It will NOT be soccer’s all-time leading international scorer, Christine Sinclair, for Canada. Jessie Fleming is over the ball, and…GOAL! Side netting. Well, I see why they gave Fleming the ball. There’s no Naeher/Franch talking point here -- that shot made the ‘keeper totally irrelevant.

76’ - The whole tournament, there’s been a sense of “we’re holding back, we’ll kick into gear when we have to.” We’re about to find out if that’s true.

81’ - Mewis on for O’Hara -- I think this will basically be a 3-3-4 with Lavelle becoming the extra striker.

85’ - Lloyd with a header off the crossbar! That was a look; she got free.

90’ + 2’ - We haven’t done much, but we have a corner. Franch is coming up, and…Canada deal with it. Canada’s center backs have stood strong tonight.

FULL TIME: 1-0 Canada. We’re out -- it’ll be bronze at best. It wasn’t a mirage: This team isn’t the team they used to be.

So: What the hell happened here? The USWNT usually shows up at tournaments and shows something approaching Harlem Globetrotter-level dominance. But we looked awful twice (Sweden, Canada), fine twice (New Zealand, Netherlands), and I don’t think the Australia match really counted as soccer. What the fuck was that? I’m going to bring back something I wrote at the beginning of the tournament:

There’s a pattern (on the men’s side) of teams winning the World Cup and then doing badly next time, and I think the reason is that players become national heroes and they keep their spot in the lineup even when they shouldn’t.

I think that’s basically what happened. Lloyd, Rapinoe, O’Hara, Sauerbrunn, Heath…these are outstanding players but I think it’s probably time to salute them for their service and move on.

I think Covid also played a role. NWSL and women’s soccer in Europe have only been partly-operational for the past 18 months; I think we didn’t see these players enough to know that they’d lost several steps. At the same time, we didn’t identify the up-and-comers who might have taken their place. There might have also been fitness issues; this team just didn’t have any spark at any point in the tournament.

Ratings:

Andonovski: 4. As usual, I don’t have many problems with his lineup choices or formations, but the team just didn’t show up. So part of the blame has to go to the coach.

Dunn: 4.5. She’s played the most minutes of any of our field players, and I think it showed. Playing five games in 13 days is brutal under any circumstances, but especially if you haven’t been playing a schedule anything like that in the past year.

Davidson: 5.5. I don’t blame her at all for the penalty; I think she was trying to clear the ball, which is what you’re supposed to do. Bad call.

Sauerbrunn: 6. The problem today was connecting the second line with the third, not connecting the first with the second.

O’Hara: 4.5. On a day like today, when Canada really aren’t doing much of anything in the attacking half, I’d like to see our fullbacks more involved.

Ertz: 7. Maybe the only player whose stock went up in this tournament.

Horan: 7. It can be true that we played very badly and that the ball was in Canada’s half basically the entire game. Horan was a big reason why we had most of the ball.

Lavelle: 4. She continues to be hit-and-miss. We needed creativity in this match, and she didn’t deliver.

Heath: 4.5. She was usually good when she had the ball but couldn’t find the game.

Williams: 4. Have we tried hair up/glasses off? Let me see hair down/glasses on again. After the Netherlands match, I thought she might be the answer in attack, but she didn’t look like it today.

Morgan: 4. She’s starting to become completely invisible against good defensive teams.

Lloyd: 4. Nope.

Rapinoe: 4. Not her, either.

Press: 5. Showed a little something, but not enough for a breakthrough.

Franch: 5. When Naeher went off, it seemed like that might be a major development, but in the end, Franch had nothing to do.

Sam Mewis: NR.