I’m backkkkk!!!!! After watching the SheBelievesCup I wanted to express my thoughts, so here I am!

Firstly, I’m disappointed with the game against Japan. I feel we definitely could have kept a clean sheet, while winning the game, if not for poor defense.

Sonnett lost track of a mark, panicked, and bowled over Campbell. If she hadn’t, Campbell could have prevented that goal, easily. Regarding the 2nd Japanese goal, no American fought for the 2nd ball. The Japanese used a trick which Americans traditionally use, and it worked.

My diagnosis of the problem is that American defenders don’t see themselves as part of a defensive unit, as they should. Sonnett should have analyzed the situation and seen that Campbell had the mark and then adjusted her defensive strategy accordingly; for example, to the needs of Campbell and the rest of defensive effort, she didn’t.

Not one of the U.S. players fought for the 2nd ball off the initial strike at goal by Hasegawa and accordingly a Japanese player picked the ball up and went for the nutmeg, the only possible way she could have scored on Campbell from that angle.

Defense is about more than individual efforts. It’s about coordinating individual efforts to protect the goal. Being a chicken with your head cut off ain’t it and being excessively reactionary won’t save yourself or the team and may even do more harm than good, which we saw with that first Japanese goal.

Regarding offense, I think a lot of our players fumbled, hard. The amount of errant passes that were given away, the lack of effort from specific players, even when they had just come in for the 2nd half, was crazy.

As Fowdy mentioned in her commentary, the lack of urgency and need to send the ball in, especially when we were losing. The lack of urgency to put ourselves in positions to fight and put the Japanese in a position to fight us was disappointing.

Going forward, I’d like to see our team reassess our defensive approach to functioning more holistically and not panicking.

Throughout this tournament, I think the front end of our offense has improved regarding the greater comfort in holding the ball in the attacking third, but that comfort came off as complacency and cowardice in the game against Japan, wherein we were too comfortable passing the ball instead going for the goal. Once again, and reminiscent of previous games, the U.S. offense still struggles to find that bite, that scrappy, go for the jugular approach. And because we played a team that had no intention of being bowled over, it didn’t work. To be honest, I’m glad it didn’t.

Patience is a virtue, but sometimes you have to be the magic and create the opportunity on goal through sheer force of will, through sheer intent. That’s what the U.S. is missing. We have upped our passing capacity and ability to be more comfortable in the box, but where is that killer-instinct switch? It’s missing right now.

Anyway, going forward I would love it if the next SheBelievesCup, as well as other friendly games and tournaments, had VAR. There were at least two calls that would have been overturned if there was VAR.

Lastly, why do we play Colombia and invite them to participate in our tournaments, when they consistently play dirty? I’ve posted about their conduct in a previous post, but they’re always fouling, faking injuries, etc.. I’m sick of it. If you want to play with the United States, be a better team. Play with honor and integrity. And if you’re not willing to, bye!

Anyway, that’s it. I’m going to post another analysis that I had come up with for the previous friendly games in Europe from the end of last year (2024) – see below. I had written it up separately from this blog, but now that my blog is back, I’ll post it here.

Cheers! and thanks for reading! And as always, Go Team! :)