So. I would like to see better use of ‘ticky tacky.’ For example, what Lindsey Heaps is really good at, or even what Sentnor, Coffey and Patterson are good at. A lot of teams press nowadays and being able to use ticky tacky is important to maintaining ball control and for moving the ball forward. Players need more confidence with this.

Players need to have better positional and player awareness of how ticky tacky works and where they should physically be to either assist or contribute to ticky tack or to get out of the way of the ticky tacky. Ultimately, players need to be able to plan 1, 2, 3 steps into the future, while using ticky tacky.

Lastly, we need better in box (attacking third) awareness – at least we did in game one against China. There were plenty of times during this game that Alyssa was open in the box but the team didn’t see her or didn’t pass to her.

Ultimately, I think the team did well. Go Team!