{"id":724,"date":"2019-02-28T16:42:44","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T08:42:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.incirliseviye.com\/2019\/02\/28\/three-observations-from-the-uswnts-shebelieves-cup-draw-with-japan\/"},"modified":"2019-02-28T16:42:44","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T08:42:44","slug":"three-observations-from-the-uswnts-shebelieves-cup-draw-with-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/?p=724","title":{"rendered":"Three observations from the USWNT's SheBelieves Cup draw with Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"
The U.S. began the tournament with a lackluster performance against the side they’ve faced in each of the last two World Cup finals <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

The U.S. women\u2019s national team kicked off the SheBelieves Cup with a 2-2 draw over Japan on Wednesday night at Talen Energy Stadium.<\/p>\n

Jill Ellis\u2019 side entered the game missing two of its most vital performers: Lindsey Horan had been ruled out prior to the tournament with a quad injury, while Becky Sauerbrunn was on the bench but was held out with a minor knee problem.<\/p>\n

The U.S. clearly felt those two absences and conceded a late equalizer from Yuka Momiki on a night where they were far from their best.<\/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

Here are three observations from the USWNT’s draw against Japan.<\/p>\n

\n

Horan’s absence clearly felt<\/h2>\n
\n

Ellis provided a surprise before kickoff when she named Mallory Pugh in her starting lineup as a central midfielder. Pugh, who normally plays as a winger, took the role of the injured\u00a0Horan. With more like-for-like options in McCall Zerboni and Sam Mewis left on the bench, the U.S. had Pugh next to her club teammate and roommate Rose Lavelle in the center of the park, with Julie Ertz behind them as the No. 6.<\/p>\n

The results were certainly mixed. Pugh and Lavelle predictably got themselves into attacking positions consistently, but neither were able to find the final ball as often as they would have liked. The U.S. clearly missed Horan\u2019s ability to connect defense to attack, and neither Pugh or Lavelle gave the U.S. the calmness and tidiness in possession that Horan provides.<\/p>\n

Megan Rapinoe, who scored the game\u2019s first goal, admitted that the U.S. is still figuring things out in the midfield without Horan, alluding to the fact that the team missed her two-way play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think she\u2019s getting there, I wouldn\u2019t say she\u2019s ready [for the World Cup] right now. I don\u2019t even know how you say if you\u2019re ready or not,\u201d Rapinoe said of Lavelle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s imperative for the midfield in general to control the game, both offensively and defensively, set tempo and really set the tone for the team and I think we\u2019re still working on nailing that down.”<\/p>\n

\n

Press provides another injection of dynamism<\/h2>\n
\n

Christen Press was the team\u2019s clear star in its friendlies against Spain and France last month, as the 30-year-old put in a dynamic display against France before scoring the game\u2019s only goal against Spain. If those performances didn\u2019t lead to calls for Press to start over either Tobin Heath or Megan Rapinoe, they at least served as a reminder of the strength in depth the U.S. has in attack.<\/p>\n

Press was at it again on Wednesday, making an immediate impact off the bench when she was put in the game in the 76th minute. It took Press less than a minute to receive the ball, beat her marker, and play in a cross that Alex Morgan chested in from close range.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething you look at when you go into a World Cup is your depth and your players that change the game,\u201d Ellis said in her post-game press conference. \u201cShe was obviously great in the Spain game, made a difference there.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s posing a lot of challenges now in terms of selection because I thought she was just an instant game-changer for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Lavelle and Pugh not at their best on Wednesday, one wonders if Ellis will find a way to get Press into her starting lineup against England on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\n

Another lackluster performance<\/h2>\n
\n

If one is an aberration, then three is certainly a trend. The U.S. started 2019 slowly with a loss to France and a narrow 1-0 win at Spain last month. Wednesday made it three straight games that the USWNT wasn\u2019t at its best.<\/p>\n

Though she did acknowledge her team had some hiccups that led to goal, Ellis insisted that she was happy with her team\u2019s performance on the night.<\/p>\n

“The result? Disappointing for sure,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cThe performance in both halves, I thought there was some really good things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we played as a team, we made two mistakes in the back that cost us, for sure we left things on the table but in terms of our team play, what I asked the team to do defensively, the work ethic, attacking \u2013\u00a0we got in their goal zone 34 times.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. did have 13 shots and six on goal to Japan\u2019s five and two, but in the end they were unable to get the result. Though performance is more important than results right now, the SheBelieves Cup is set up in a four-team round-robin style similar to a World Cup group stage, and the U.S. is obviously using the tournament as a simulation for the World Cup this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have to understand in a tournament setting the importance of winning and how we accomplish that in a game like this,\u201d Heath said. \u201cObviously [we learned] a lot of good lessons, Japan is a quality team no matter who they put out, they play their system really really well, they\u2019re so disciplined. We\u2019re going to learn from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rapinoe, as she normally does, had her own way of processing her team’s performance and the\u00a0late equalizer it conceded.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall I think there are a lot of good things we can take from it. I thought we created some good chances and obviously outside of the two goals they didn\u2019t have a lot of other chances,” Rapinoe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can take a lot from that but at the end of the day it\u2019s about results, and\u00a0the great and sh*tty thing about soccer is you only need one shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

The U.S. began the tournament with a lackluster performance against the side they’ve faced in each of the last two World Cup finals The U.S. women\u2019s national team kicked off the SheBelieves Cup with a 2-2 draw over Japan on Wednesday night at Talen Energy Stadium. Jill Ellis\u2019 side entered the game missing two of … <\/p>\n

Read more “Three observations from the USWNT's SheBelieves Cup draw with Japan”<\/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-724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724","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=724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}