USA vs. New Zealand Match Diary and Player Ratings

Consider the Sweden match to be preseason

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How does one react after being humiliated by the Swedes? Well, Peter III of Russia, who was stripped of his claim to the Swedish throne, responded by being overthrown by his wife and dying in prison. So…that’s probably not the rejoinder we’re looking for. I think we’ll dominate this match; we got called out in the first game, but we can reestablish ourselves with a good performance.

This is one of those “I’d change all eleven players if I could” situations for a coach. Andonovski comes close to that, brining in five new faces:

Rapinoe | Lloyd | Heath

Horan | Ertz | Lavelle

Dunn | Davidson | Dahlkemper | Sonnett

Naeher

The average age of our front three is “old” -- 36. Which is young for most things, but when it comes to soccer, being super into trains, and showing up at high school dances, 36 is a smidge old.

5’ - Strong start for the US. Good interplay from the geezers up front -- nobody’s broken a hip, not a Jazzy in sight right now.

8’ - GOAL USA! Heath finds Lavelle, who finishes at the near post! That’s huge -- that relieves the pressure.

19’ - Almost another goal from the US! A nice move ends with Lavelle shooting into the side netting. Our midfielders are free to press high, which wasn’t the case against Sweden.

25’ - Havin Ertz back helps a lot. And Heath played her first game in a while against Sweden; she looks sharper today. This is a different team when those two are in form.

31’ - It’s a half-field drill right now. New Zealand are approaching this game the same way they did Covid: Bunker down, try to survive.

33’ - The US has a FOURTH goal ruled out for offside. I know the joke is that Americans don’t understand the offside rule, but…these Americans understand the offside rule, right?

42’ - Header wide by New Zealand! That’s the most dangerous New Zealand have looked. Dahlkemper needs to work on her marking.

44’ - GOAL USA! 2-0! Off a corner, Ertz finds Horan, who heads it home! These goals are arriving at perfect times -- just as the “should we worry?” thought creeps into your head, it’s being answered with “no”.

HALF TIME: Okay, this is all acceptable and fine. We’re not exactly making anyone forget the ‘72 Brazilian team, but we’re controlling the game and playing our way into the tournament.

48’ - If the US scores one more goal, New Zealand may be dead. Which I’m mentioning just so I can embed this:

56’ - Apparently New Zealand haven’t played in 16 months. That’s a while. And the ones who play in New Zealand haven’t played at all, because there’s no professional women’s soccer league in New Zealand. They’ve basically been doing one-on-one drills against sheep for a year and a half.

57’ - Arlo White and Julie Foudy are saying that the US need to pick up the tempo. I agree: It’s business time.

60’ - Clearly:

62’ - GOAL USA! It’s an own goal, but we deserve it. Arlo White argues that Lloyd should get an assist for that -- I agree. If you force an own goal, I think that equals an assist.

65’ - Jill Biden is at the match -- would she like to play? Because this is all about saving our legs for the Australia match now.

66’ - Subs: Sam Mewis for Lavelle, Press for Rapinoe. Biden stays on the bench -- her hamstring must still be bothering her.

72’ - What’s this? Goal New Zealand! 3-1. Dahlkemper…well, it might be faster to list the mistakes Dalhkemper didn’t make on that play. She didn’t start any fires. She didn’t injure any animals. She didn’t say any racial slurs (one assumes). That’s about it.

79’ - GOAL USA! 4-1. Christen Press controls the ball in the box and slots home. Goal difference matters -- if we tie Australia, we’ll both have four points, and right now we’re edging Australia by one on goal difference. So, that was potentially a big goal.

87’ - GOAL USA! 5-1. This time it’s Press assisting for Alex Morgan. Oh: Alex Morgan’s in the game. She’s in the game and she scored.

90’ + 3’ - Another own goal makes it 6-1. Rough scoreline. I hope New Zealand don’t have any…

FULL TIME: 6-1. Well, that’s the match we needed; we’re back on track. And because of the Zambian Olympic Goalfest Adventure (they’ve lost 10-3 and tied 4-4), we’re almost certainly going to the next round no matter what happens against Australia.

Ratings:

Andonovski: 6. He needed to make changes in order to send a message after that first match, and he made them. It helped that the game was against the weakest team in our group.

Naeher: 5. I wish she would have texted me with few more Flight of the Conchords references I could make, because she certainly wasn’t busy.

Dunn: 5. Still just a touch loose with her passing.

Davidson: 6.5. I can’t even remember the last time the center back pairing wasn’t Sauerbrunn and Dahlkemper. I know this wasn’t the toughest test in the world, but Davidson did well.

Dahlkemper: 3. On the other side of the coin…look players don’t just get bad overnight, except for Andriy Shevchenko. She had a bad game. It happens.

Sonnett: 5.5. I wonder if she’s starting to push Kelly O’Hara -- who was not on the bench -- for that right back spot.

Ertz: 7.5. A total difference-maker -- maybe more key to US chances than any other player.

Horan: 7.5. Does better when she can pass of some defensive responsibilities to Ertz.

Lavelle: 7.5. Great two-way effort. Safe to say that we totally dominated the midfield today.

Heath: 6.5. We need her creativity, but I’m not sure she’ll start against Australia; it’s hard to come back from injury and then play three games in a week.

Rapinoe: 5.5. Got free a couple times but her service wasn’t great.

Lloyd: 5. I know that forgetfulness comes with advanced age and it’s not a big deal, but did she forget the offside rule?

Press: 6.5. She was dangerous, though she came on when New Zealand were really starting to look like a team that hadn’t kicked a ball in 16 months.

Sam Mewis: 6. Got in the game and her sister didn’t, so there’s a nice “in your face, sis.”

Morgan: 6.5. Same assessment as Press.

Krueger, Macario: NR. Good that they got in the game, because that flight to Tokyo is a real ass-deadener, so you should have something to show for it.