Young players must lead USWNT into a new era
When Abby Wambach retired, it marked the end of an era for how the U.S. women's national team would go about scoring goals. The prelude to this new era was on full display this summer, when Carli Lloyd rose to become the most fierce goal-scorer in women's soccer. Clearly, the U.S. was headed in a new direction.
Still, if "Death of the Longball" was a point that needed to be driven home, U.S. coach Jill Ellis wielded a giant hammer on Tuesday. Veteran midfielder Heather O'Reilly may have three Olympic gold medals and a Women's World Cup title to her credit, but it wasn't enough to win the New Jersey native a spot on the U.S. women's national soccer team's roster for the 2016 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Championship.
As a winger with a knack for excellent serves into the box, a lot of what O'Reilly brought -- in addition to being a great bench player and locker room asset -- was the ability to lead Wambach and others to goals with her assists. It's not a complete surprise that Ellis would leave the 31-year-old winger behind as the team heads to Texas, where it begins play against Costa Rica on Feb. 10 in Frisco.
But the reality of the changes for the U.S. women's national team are no less startling, especially when it comes to who will create scoring chances up front. In addition to not including O'Reilly, striker Sydney Leroux announced this week that she's pregnant with her first child and will miss the Olympics and the NWSL season.
Like O'Reilly, Leroux was not considered a lock for an Olympic roster berth. given her ankle injury and lack of playing time last year. Amy Rodriguez is also out for 2016, pregnant with her second child. Even A-Rod -- who paired with O'Reilly to score the game-winning goal in the NWSL championship game for FC Kansas City in October -- was not concretely planted in Ellis' starting lineups.
This truly is a turning point for the U.S. women's national team, which is now Lloyd's team when it comes to offense. Instead of the semi-chaotic attack that produced a paltry amount of goals through much of the Women's World Cup, Ellis can install Lloyd under striker Alex Morgan up top and feel confident that she has two strong goal-scorers to finish the job up front.
With Wambach gone, despite her being the all-time leading goalscorer, the U.S. women's team has a fairly breathtaking chance to involve new, different players in generating scoring chances. Wambach's lack of effectiveness last year was an overdue signal that it was time for this team to move on. Now that change is here, it puts incredible impetus on new players like Lindsey Horan and Crystal Dunn to make good on their top-notch playmaking skills.
With Lloyd and Morgan as the focal points, the primary tinkering for Ellis is still a work-in-progress. How Ellis recreates a midfield that can better control play through the middle third of the field and also manufacture scoring chances should be interesting to watch.
As France and other top teams in the women's soccer now prove, quality possession and playmaking in the midfield is where the skill and speed of the game can best generated. That's why the addition of Horan is critical to the U.S. national team, especially with the retirement of Lauren Holiday. As a forward that Ellis hopes thrives in the midfield, Horan has all the potential to be a dominant player for the U.S. Dunn is a highly skilled and versatile player who can contribute on the wing and on the attack, skills she showed in last year's NWSL MVP season. Horan and Dunn should complement Morgan Brian, who emerged as a steadying influence in the midfield during the Women's World Cup.
That throws open how to best use Christen Press. How much is Ellis willing to manipulate lineups to try and free Press up to be the goal-scorer she has, at times, shown she can be? More than any offensive player, Press seems to have suffered from a crisis of confidence. She would get tentative and unable to get untracked for sustained periods, in part because there was a logjam among so many goal-scorers looking for ways to make it work in a system that too often resorted to the Wambach longball.
But that era is over, which is why Stephanie McCaffrey and Mallory Pugh have also been given slots on the Olympic qualifying roster. While it's tough to see a stalwart like O'Reilly left off the U.S. roster this spring, Ellis is clearly eager to let the next generation of players shape a new era of women's soccer here in the U.S.
It's tough to imagine that O'Reilly couldn't contribute to the team, even if it was the way in which Shannon Boxx, Lori Chalupny and Christie Rampone were called upon for the 2015 Women's World Cup roster. But with only 18 players allowed to go to Rio, the loss of O'Reilly, Leroux, Rodriguez, Lauren Holiday and Wambach has to be looked at as an opportunity. Even Megan Rapinoe is still up the air, as she tries to return to fitness after an ACL tear. Hungry, talented young players are ready for their chance.
There's a difference between a Victory Tour roster created to sell tickets and reward veterans and the job of bringing new energy and talent to the U.S. women's national team. For a few years, France and other countries have taking the biggest steps forward when it comes to the women's game.
It's now the U.S. national team's turn to take it to the next level.
