{"id":661,"date":"2019-02-28T16:41:41","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T08:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.incirliseviye.com\/2019\/02\/28\/with-world-cup-closing-in-shebelieves-cup-takes-on-added-importance-for-uswnt\/"},"modified":"2019-02-28T16:41:41","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T08:41:41","slug":"with-world-cup-closing-in-shebelieves-cup-takes-on-added-importance-for-uswnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/?p=661","title":{"rendered":"With World Cup closing in, SheBelieves Cup takes on added importance for USWNT"},"content":{"rendered":"
The U.S. will have a chance to replicate the knockout phase of this summer’s tournament in France in its upcoming three matches <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

The U.S. women\u2019s national team shouldn\u2019t have much trouble getting out of their group at this summer\u2019s World Cup in France.<\/p>\n

Thailand, Sweden and Chile will be the opponents in Group F. The top-ranked Americans are expected to breeze through and reach the tournament’s last 16, where the stakes and the competition will be raised considerably.<\/p>\n

For Jill Ellis\u2019 team, the SheBelieves Cup, which kicks off Wednesday against Japan in Chester, Pa., won\u2019t be the last test before the World Cup, but it will be the biggest and the most reminiscent of the tournament’s knockout stage.<\/p>\n

Article continues below<\/span> <\/div>\n
\n

Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n

Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over Man City monitoring Barcelona & Chelsea target Jovic <\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

And that\u2019s why the SheBelieves\u00a0Cup will take on added importance this time around in comparison to recent years, when it served more as three glorified friendlies.<\/p>\n

After taking on Japan, the U.S. will travel to Nashville to face England on Saturday before heading to Tampa to close out the tournament against Brazil on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The variation in style and overall quality of all three teams the U.S. will face make this tournament an ideal tune-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exactly how we want these teams in here because they\u2019re so unique,\u201d Ellis said at her press conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach team has a unique skill set and obviously I think for us we\u2019re going to take it one game at a time but I think what we also look at is what common things do these three teams have and what things do we need to sharpen.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the U.S. wins Group F this summer, they\u2019ll have a round of 16 match in Reims on June 24, before a potential quarterfinal in Paris four days later and then a possible semifinal in Lyon four days after that.<\/p>\n

The SheBelieves Cup, then, will be a very similar approximation of what the U.S. would face in terms of travel, recovery time between matches, and quality of opposition in the 2019 World Cup knockout phase.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can kind of replicate from the travel and there\u2019s a trophy on the line, albeit sort of a made-up trophy, but to try and replicate like every game matters and points matter and goals matter,\u201d U.S. winger Megan Rapinoe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think [for] the players who haven\u2019t had a lot of experience in tournaments, this is a good opportunity for them to at least try to replicate what it\u2019s like to be in a World Cup, because it\u2019s hard to do that any other way.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the SheBelieves Cup, the U.S. will have just five games remaining before the World Cup kicks off and only one of those five opponents, Australia, is in the top 10 of FIFA\u2019s world rankings.<\/p>\n

The chance, then, to play three top-10 teams in quick succession over the course of the next week is not one that the U.S. is taking lightly.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been amazing to be able to continue and grow and get that experience against those kinds of teams, especially for the players who haven\u2019t really been to a big tournament before, these are huge games to learn from,\u201d midfielder Julie Ertz said.<\/p>\n

There is a chance, of course, that the U.S. could end of facing one of its SheBelieves Cup opponents in the World Cup knockout stage. It\u2019s why, as Ellis said, all four managers likely won\u2019t want to give too much away in terms of how they\u2019ll look to exploit their opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we take this tournament seriously every year in terms of good teams and wanting to win it, but I think every coach in here recognizes the opportunity here to probably not show their full hand,\u201d Ellis said.<\/p>\n

Though she may not give everything away in terms of tactics, Ellis will still want to win all three games and lay down a marker, especially with the U.S. having seen a 28-game unbeaten run snapped last month with a loss at France, before bouncing back with a win at Spain a few days later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is only our third game of the year so we\u2019re still putting some things together,\u201d forward Alex Morgan said, \u201cbut these games are important, especially this first game against Japan because I feel like the first two games of the year against Spain and France we weren\u2019t exactly 90 minutes fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is the first true test for us with the training environment we put ourselves in this last week we all should be 90 minutes fit and prepared for this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may be a few months before the real tests begin, but If the U.S. wants to lift its second straight World Cup this summer, there will be no better dress rehearsal than the three matches it faces over the next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of it is just going through and taking every day as it comes and using these games and realizing that they\u2019re not the World Cup final, so there\u2019s obviously a lot that we have to work on and can work on,\u201d Rapinoe said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. will have a chance to replicate the knockout phase of this summer’s tournament in France in its upcoming three matches The U.S. women\u2019s national team shouldn\u2019t have much trouble getting out of their group at this summer\u2019s World Cup in France. Thailand, Sweden and Chile will be the opponents in Group F. The … <\/p>\n

Read more “With World Cup closing in, SheBelieves Cup takes on added importance for USWNT”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}