It's a game of inches...but in reality the chickens came home to roost after failing to beat Portugal and Holland despite having many chances. I think they had like 30 to 40 shots, more than half of those on goal, over the past 2 1/2 games and converted none of them. In such a low scoring sport you have to put your chances away. The issue wasn't so much with the front three as with our midfield's lack of creativity. Rose's injury and Julie's move to the back to cover for Sauerbrumm's absence really disrupted them. Julie would have been much better than Sullivan in that holding midfielder regista role. Going to a 4-2-3-1 helped against Sweden but just inability to finish.
With them out I like either England or Japan to win now.
Agreed about the midfield. We needed more creativity there because the forwards Vlatko chose to start want to shoot and they're great at it, but we needed playmaking somewhere. Julie should've been in the midfield and clearly, Sonnet should've seen more time at DM. As I said earlier in the thread, I would've started Rose and subbed her out at half. Better to get ahead than to try to work from behind. I get that Becky going down hurt our defense so putting Ertz there was supposed to shore us up in the back, but why play Cook on backline so much in the run up to the WWC just for her to not see the field once the tournament kicks off? A lot of the coaching choices were odd. I always thought they should've given the job to Laura Harvey in 2019. This is a chance for US Soccer to correct that mistake. Yeah, it's on the players to perform but they also weren't put in the best system to succeed. The problems have been brewing since the Olympics.
I also think our bench was really underutilized. Not sure if it was a trust issue with Vlatko, but he just didn't do as much as he could there. Even in this game going to extra time, he didn't use all of his subs.
This is the first WWC in 12 years where there's no clear favorite, so the next few rounds should be a bunch of fun. It could be Japan. Could be England. France is always tough. The Netherlands were runners up in 2019, why can't it be them? Could also see the Matildas make a run at the final in their home country - especially if Sam Kerr can come back and is healthy. I'm personally really looking forward to the Colombia/Jamaica matchup on Tuesday.