PARIS—The U.S. national team isn’t in the habit of focusing much on defense. When you’re the most dominant, most offensively potent women’s soccer team in the world, it just isn’t something that comes up much.
Which is why the Americans’ sudden change in tactics, an hour into their World Cup quarterfinal against France, came as such a shock. France manager Corinne Diacre couldn’t believe what she seeing. The U.S. was winning and yet her counterpart, Jill Ellis, was switching the team to a five-woman defense. The greatest offensive juggernaut in the game was battening down the hatches.
“I have never seen the U.S. finish with five at the back,” Diacre said. “That’s a sign of something.”
A sign that the U.S. was rattled? For sure. A hint that, on another night, they might be beaten? Maybe. But for the next 30 minutes, the U.S. kept Les Bleues at bay—and even scored on a counterattack—to beat France 2-1. In its bid to retain the World Cup, the U.S. showed a new side of itself: not only can the Americans blow teams away, they also know how to win with their backs to the wall.
“That was the most intense match I have ever been a part of,” Ellis said. “A win’s a win in a World Cup. I haven’t seen many pretty games in a World Cup. We trained for a back five for moments like this.”
That a moment like this even came about was down to France. The tactical shift was the clearest admission the U.S. will ever make that it felt genuinely in danger. Les Bleues were resurgent through the final half-hour of the game, launching one attack after another. Just as it was during long stretches of its round of 16 match against Spain, the U.S. was vulnerable. Here was an opponent that wasn’t in awe of the Americans, that was capable of sniffing out their weaknesses.
“They went to five at the back and we could see they didn’t think it was going well for them,” French midfielder Gaëtane Thiney said. “And it wasn’t going well for them. We were finding gaps everywhere…I think we scared them.”
After all, the U.S. doesn’t go to five at the back for just anyone. There isn’t a single soccer universe in which the U.S. would have required five defenders against Thailand, for instance. But even if the Americans outlasted France, just as they did against Spain, those two sides have done a service to the teams still alive in this World Cup—namely, the U.S.’s semifinal opponent, England. They’ve drawn up the blueprint for putting them on the ropes.
Spain proved that the U.S. could be shaken by pressing high up the field and getting physical, even exploring the limits of what the referee will let you get away with. France filled out the picture by exposing American vulnerabilities to set pieces, speed on the flanks and possession-based soccer.
Those are all things England can do in the semis. In fact, more countries than ever are able to match the U.S. for speed and physicality thanks to years of increased investment in Europe, driven by the game’s richest clubs. It’s no coincidence that all seven of the non-U.S. quarterfinalists at this World Cup were from Europe. The gap is closing.
And even if the U.S. hasn’t trailed for a single minute of this tournament, the players know that the margins are the thinnest they’ve ever been.
“We had to defend a lot. That’s what the game gave us,” said Julie Ertz, who started the match as a midfielder before dropping into central defense. “We take a lot of pride in having a lot of tools in our toolbox.”
Newsletter Sign-up
France finally broke through in the 80th minute. Defender Wendie Renard popped up behind Megan Rapinoe on a free kick to head the ball home and pull Les Bleues back into the game. The American lead was now just 2-1 and the crowd at the Parc des Princes swelled behind the home team. Half the U.S. outfield players were assigned defensive roles. A lesser team would have buckled.
Instead, the U.S. did what was needed to hang on. Some of it was calmly repelling crosses and forcing France’s quickest players down blind alleys. Some of was more soccer’s dark art of time-wasting. They shepherded the ball into the corners and cleared it into the stands, all to kill the clock. At one point, when one of her teammates hit the deck after a foul, forward Tobin Heath appeared to tell her, “Stay down.”
The only reason it worked was the Americans’ unwavering conviction that they were going to win. Lifting the World Cup three times will do that. So will being undefeated since January and boasting, as defender Ali Krieger put it, that the squad contained the best and second-best teams in the world. That could be mistaken for American arrogance. But when it’s all true, it’s just the American women’s soccer team.
“It’s been our weapon since 1985, when the team started,” Ertz said of that deep-seated toughness. “It’s part of the DNA of the team.”
Write to Joshua Robinson at joshua.robinson@wsj.com
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-womens-soccer-team-wins-with-its-back-to-the-wall-11561805106
2019-06-29 10:45:00Z
52780321211326
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar