Nobody who has watched this team play was surprised they lost to Sweden today but because they aren't talented enough but because the team has underperformed for a while.
They played listless and uninspired in the group stage, nothing told me that they had an ability to just turn it on. The lineup took no chances and any layman could see they were not able to generate a real offensive push. The entire gameplan seemed to be defend and hope for a corne, they only converted one. When half your team (Rapinoe, Morgan, Ertz, Dunn, Horan) are legacy players with amazingly long resumes and the other half (Smith, Rodman, Thompson) are 22 and younger, you can see the divide. The team is going through an identity crisis, we have seen the old guard rise so many times that we hope they can give us one more magic trick but the world has caught up. This World Cup came down to coaching and strategy and the ability to gel a team of stars and our coaching staff failed miserably. Rapinoe was shot, Morgan is a shell of her old self. The midfield was fine if you are ok with them just not being a hlating weakness. The only unit that I thought played well was the defensive line and half of them were forced to play out of their natural position as we as a country have decided that we should start the 11 best overall player, instead of the best cohesive starting XI.
There is talent but the US team is too top heavy to be able to take advantage of it. How Thompson plays all 10 minutes is beyond me. How we throw two girls in there cold off the bench and ask them to take penalty kicks having played a minute each is asinine and giving Rapinoe her send off when she can't strike the ball more than 20 yards stinks.
Four years is going to feel really long, just hoping to see a gameplan that is creative and not this plop and kick concept.
Sent from my iPhone
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