The good news: The US women's national team won Group D and are marching on to the knockout rounds of the Women's World Cup, trailed by record-setting throngs of fans both in person and on television back home.
The bad news: Those adoring, patriotic millions surely aren't tuning in for the effervescent quality of the soccer.
This feels alarmingly similar to how I began last Friday's Three Things, after the USWNT held off Sweden in a jittery 0-0 draw in Winnipeg. But even after their 1-0 win over Nigeria in Vancouver, it remains hard to get past the ambivalent nature of what Jill Ellis' team has done in Canada so far.
1) Johnston and Sauerbrunn = Nesta and Maldini
This isn't about comparing women's players to men's players so much as it is a search for an appropriate comparison of the quality the USWNT's center backs have shown in Canada – and really, for months now.
Julie Johnston is the second-youngest player on this veteran-heavy roster. But earlier this year she was given a chance to start alongside Becky Sauerbrunn, and she took it with both hands. The duo led the US to top honors in the Algarve Cup in Portugal in March, and they've started every match since the 2-0 win over France in the tournament final.
That's eight games, six of them wins, two draws: Three goals conceded, and never more than one in one game.
Johnston's aerial skills, relentless engine (she's spent a good chunk of her career covering ground as a holding midfielder) and aggressive mentality pair well with Sauerbrunn, the 30-year-old whose reading of the game and organizational skills are unparalleled. They don't give away many chances, and when they do, their powers of recovery are usually breathtaking, as Johnston showed in disrupting Nigeria's best chance of the game:
Though she's been reluctant to bring in much in the way of fresh faces during her time as head coach, Ellis did give Johnston a chance, and it might just be make the difference between success and failure this summer.
2) Winning Ugly
Four years ago U.S. Soccer, noting the rising tide of improvement in the women's international game, tabbed Jill Ellis and former USWNT boss April Heinrichs to lead a sweeping revision of the entire program from top to bottom, from the identification of pre-adolescent prospects to the daily training environment of the youth and senior national teams.
With mantras like “finding ways to win is not enough, we must develop technical players,” the idea was to supplement the traditional reliance on size, speed and superior psyches with skill and tactical savvy.
Watching this USWNT, you'd never know that their coach had been charged with such visionary ideals. Ellis has built a team that seems uncomfortable with intricacy, always eager to play passes into space rather than feet, and lost without the towering figure of Abby Wambach to win headers, hold up play and bring others into the game with her back to goal.
Aside from a few flashes here and there, we're still watching a team that relies on being bigger, faster, fitter and more resilient than the opposition -- regardless of what gets said in postgame press conferences:
It's worked well enough thus far, so maybe Ellis would be a fool to try something more advanced. Will it take them all the way to the trophy presentation? We'll see. But that bold vision of the future has been shelved.
3) The Company You Keep
Wambach scored with a crisp left-footed finish, and brought a lot of important hold-up play to the table. Sauerbrunn and Johnston snared another clean sheet, and continue to be the best center-back pair in this tournament. And it's going to take something special to beat Hope Solo in goal this month.
But it's still unclear whether this team has what it takes to beat their real rivals for this trophy: a select few teams like Germany, who won twice and drew once in group play like the USWNT, but did so with a 15-1 goal differential – and were so disappointed in their last performance, a 4-0 win over Thailand, that veteran goalkeeper Nadine Angerer said “we can't let it happen again.”
That's the real competition. And they're out there, waiting, working...and taking notes on everything the US does. Like allowing the No. 33 team in the world to play through the heart of their midfield with ease:
And ICYMI above, letting the opposition play a telling pass that exposes the back four in one fell touch:
And how about inexplicably trying one short corner after another when Nigeria were obviously there for the taking with something simpler? Something like the outswinging delivery from Megan Rapinoe that Wambach stroked home with ease just before halftime. (For proof of this one, just go on Twitter and search “short corners USWNT”.)
Ellis has spoken of how competing in this “group of death” will help the USWNT be ready for sterner tests ahead. A first-place finish means they're unlikely to meet daunting opposition in the Round of 16 on Monday. But the elite teams will have ample scouting materials for constructing a plan to beat the Americans.
