2024-08-12 04:20:02
This is part of Slate’s 2024 Olympics coverage. Read more here.
It’s a golden start to the United States women’s national soccer team’s new era.
Driven by the dynamic front line of Mallory Swanson, Sophia Smith, and Trinity Rodman; the brilliance of young defensive superstar Naomi Girma; and the rock-steadiness of goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, the USWNT has returned to its winning ways. Manager Emma Hayes, in just her 10th game in charge, has led the team back to the top of the international pecking order. This Olympic gold is less an endpoint than an extended and explosive introduction, the soccer equivalent of a James Bond opening.
All this would have been true regardless of the outcome in the final Saturday. History will record this as a gold medal for this set of American players, and at some point later in their careers when we’re checking their Wikipedia pages to gauge their legacies, we’ll add some amount of value because of that color. But in the present, winning or losing against a hypermotivated Brazil team playing to earn the retiring Marta, the greatest player in the sport’s history, her first major international championship would not have changed the fact that this U.S. team looks ahead of schedule. The Americans glided through the group stages and they ground through the knockout rounds, and by proving they could do both they gave themselves perhaps the best preparation for their future pursuit of trophies. That they won this one so early in this new era almost feels like a bonus.
First came the bright start. After struggling through its previous two group stages at the Tokyo Olympics and the 2023 World Cup, the USWNT raced out of the blocks at these Olympics, dispatching Zambia and its dangerous forwards Barbra Banda and Racheal Kundananji comfortably, 3–0, and beating eventual semifinalists Germany 4–1. Unlike prior iterations, this U.S. team seemed to be able to adjust their collective throttle at will—revving up the tempo to play fast and direct to its three dynamic forwards, but also easing back off to keep possession, move the defense around, and probe for weaknesses in it. The change of pace made the trio of Rodman, Smith, and Swanson look almost impossible for opponents to keep up with; the three finished with 15 goals and assists between them for the tournament, including one goal apiece in each of the USWNT’s three 1–0 knockout round wins. They interchanged seemingly at will, popping up across the width of the field to support and assist each other. At the last World Cup, the U.S. wingers would dribble into traps on the sidelines and end up turning the ball over or launching hopeful crosses toward Alex Morgan. The U.S. was, for a time, far better at working its way out of cul-de-sacs that its opponents threw up, sometimes by retreating and sometimes by simply Kool-Aid-Manning its way through them as they closed around its players.
At the Olympics, at least, there was a sense that the only thing that could stop them was Hayes’ reluctance to rest their legs. The Olympic tournament is a punishing grind, with only two days of rest between matches (three before the final), games in four different French cities, and rosters limited to just 18 players. By going to extra time against both Japan in the quarterfinal and Germany in the semis, the U.S. made it even harder on itself. Going into Saturday’s final, Hayes had given seven field players more than 400 minutes on the field in two weeks. You could count on one hand the number of changes she made to her starting lineup, despite being forced into some by injuries and yellow card suspensions. Asked about it after the semifinal, Hayes said, “Truthfully. I want them to suffer,” and revealed that she had motivated the team ahead of that match with tales of ultramarathoner Courtney Dauwalter.
OK, but Dauwalter doesn’t have to beat a defender to a bouncing ball in the box in the 87th minute. Better than learning how to expand your mind’s pain cave is staying out of the pain cave in the first place. Brazil, which won both its knockout games in regular time, had just one field player on the field for more than 400 minutes going into the final, center back Tarciane, who clocked just 405 minutes. Despite rotating heavily, it beat host nation France and embarrassed defending world champions Spain in the knockout rounds. The finalists’ difference in freshness was obvious from the outset of Saturday’s match. Brazil were first to the ball all over the field. They harassed the U.S. more energetically, denying them quiet periods of in-game rest that they had been able to get by keeping possession. Throughout the first half, the American defenders and midfielders were playing catchup on Brazil’s pacey vertical attack. One team was able to create separation on the ball, and the other could not. Smith, Swanson, and Rodman are irrepressible, but their irrepressibility is built on their movement, the ease with which they flit around each other and attack into the gaps in a defense that’s rotating to cover. When that happens more slowly, it’s infinitely easier to keep up with.
Fatigue even seemed to finally come for the U.S. team’s single best player in this tournament. Girma, who played every minute of the Olympics and was Gandalf-on-the-bridge impassable for five straight games, was for once a step slow in the final. Nearly every time Brazil got past her it got a good shot, even netting a goal that was called back for offside. By suddenly looking human—a good defender, say, instead of, as Hayes called her early in this tournament, “the best defender she’s ever seen”—Girma revealed just how reliant the U.S. is on her perfection. Fortunately, Alyssa Naeher remains an American icon, who made clutch, sprawling saves at the end of both the semifinals and the finals to keep the U.S. clean sheet. Brazil looked dangerous, but the two-factor authentication of Girma and Naeher never failed for the Americans.
So yes, as the tournament went on, the American attack dulled. Australia defended more resolutely in the final group stage game, but the U.S. won relatively comfortably 2–1. Japan in the quarterfinals decided its best hope of success was to abandon its own possession game and keep 10 players behind the ball and try its luck on the counterattack. It wasn’t the worst plan. If this U.S. team had a weakness that wasn’t its own tired legs, it was too-quick entries into the Honorary Julie Ertz No Fly Zone just ahead o’ its own defense. Neither Sam Coffey nor team captain Lindsey Horan seemed entirely comfortable working together in midfield to defend this area. Horan in particular had a tough Olympics, playing a role that had her popping up all over the field, from target forward bringing down long balls on one end to emergency defender on the other. Her omnipresence was less noticeable than her struggles with turnovers and defending in the center, the most elementary parts of her position. Korbin Albert replaced Rose Lavelle in the starting lineup for the final in part to allow Horan more freedom farther forward, but without Lavelle’s comfort on the ball the U.S. had trouble keeping possession against an aggressive Brazilian press.
But the American front three bailed them out each time. Rodman scored with a beautiful curling shot after bringing down a perfect long pass from Girma in extra time against Japan. Swanson slipped Smith through for the winner against Germany. And Albert capitalized on a midfield turnover to lead Swanson for the winner in the final.
Perhaps Hayes’ refusal to rotate players was some kind of Hoosiers-esque new coach pass-four-times restriction that will be removed to make future tournaments even easier. There is depth there, if she’s willing to dip her toe into it. Nineteen-year-old Jaedyn Shaw scored five goals for the national team this year but got hurt before the Olympic tournament and never made it into a game, though she was on the bench for each of the knockout rounds. Shaw’s roster replacement in the group stages, NWSL rookie Croix Bethune, is averaging 0.89 goals and assists per 90 minutes played for the Washington Spirit, but she saw the field for just 11 minutes in the tournament. Catarina Macario remains uberpromising and often-injured; she missed this tournament with knee irritation after finally returning early in the year from an ACL tear suffered in 2022. Hayes will need to find someone she trusts to spell the forward line and allow them to be even more dangerous late into tournaments. She’ll need to figure out the midfield balance. And she’ll need to dip the 35-year-old Naeher into the Fountain of Youth so she can play for another few decades.
But the future is as bright as the glean off of their new medals. The U.S. played with heavy legs but also purpose and intent, and so it looked better than it has at any point over the past five years. Swanson is the oldest of the starting forwards at just 26. If I were a fan of another nation, the sheer unfairness of the USWNT going from a decade-plus of bomb-defusal expert Becky Sauerbrunn to (hopefully) a decade-plus of chess grandmaster Girma would give me fits. This team can win games when it’s easy and it can win games when it’s hard, and it will hopefully figure out more ways to turn the hard games into easy ones, even if that means resting one of its stars. The rest of the world is catching up, but the rest of the world is still catching up. For today, no one can outpace the USWNT.
