3 things to watch for in USWNT vs. Canada

The United States women’s national team is back in action on Thursday for the first of two games against its biggest North American rival — Canada. The first match is in Vancouver, and the second is in San Jose on Sunday.

USWNT coach Jill Ellis will be happy about her team taking a slight step up in competition after four relatively easy wins in recent matches. Over the course of the four games against New Zealand and South Korea, the Americans won by a cumulative score of 17-2. The Canadians, ranked No. 5 in the world by FIFA, aren’t likely to be blown out easily.

Morgan Brian, Tobin Heath and Mallory Pugh won’t play in these games for fitness reasons, while Crystal Dunn has been left at Chelsea so she doesn’t miss any of their Champions League games. Most of your favorites are on the roster, but there are some new faces too.

Here’s what to watch for on Thursday night.

The USWNT’s longtime starting fullbacks, Ali Krieger and Meghan Klingenberg, have had their roles reduced considerably in 2017. It’s unclear if they’ll play any part in the team going forward. With the World Cup two years away, Ellis is experimenting with some new players at fullback. All of them are converted wingers who are very fast.

Taylor Smith is the most advanced of the group, having made the switch to fullback nearly full time at club level for the North Carolina Courage. Chioma Ubogagu and Sofia Huerta, on the other hand, are going to need a lot of playing time in defense between now and the World Cup to have a chance of making a serious impact at that position. Both are starting wingers for their club teams and have very little experience playing at the back.

There are three big reasons Ellis is pursuing this strategy.

The USWNT can significantly outpossess most opponents, it has a lot of wingers who like cutting inside, and it has central defenders who are adept at winning one-on-one battles in space in the event of bad turnovers by the American midfield. That’s why Ellis is looking for fullbacks who can bomb forward and get crosses into the box rather than ones who are great at defending. Ellis is also an excellent defensive coach and clearly has faith in her own abilities to turn great athletes with minimal experience at fullback into competent defenders.

And while Becky Sauerbrunn and Abby Dahlkemper appear to be the first choice central defense pair, there’s also some new competition for spots in the middle. Emily Sonnett, who was left out of the team for much of 2017 after a shaky start to her pro career, has been recalled after improving significantly in the second half of this NWSL season. She’s one of the most athletic and technically solid center-backs in the player pool, so she’ll be a massive asset to the USWNT if she’s improved her mental game and continues to avoid individual errors.

Since the 2012 Olympics, the USWNT has struggled to replace Shannon Boxx in midfield. Ellis and Tom Sermanni have tried to convert a number of attacking and box-to-box players into holding midfielders, with most of those players having trouble adapting to that role. But Ellis appears to have found a solution in Julie Ertz, who has been spectacular since her move into the middle.

Ertz played midfield in college but was converted to center-back as a professional and excelled in the role at the 2015 World Cup. Despite her great play at the position, though, her ability to win the ball by stepping forward and closing down aggressively was always her best trait as a player. That’s a quality better-suited for defensive midfield than center-back, so both Ellis and her club coach, Rory Dames, elected to move Ertz back to her original position, and it appears she’ll continue to occupy that role for the foreseeable future.

The potential partners for Ertz are also much more defensively sound than their predecessors. While Allie Long struggled as a No. 6, she’s an effective player next to a true holder. Sam Mewis and Andi Sullivan are great passers whose primary role is facilitating attacks, but they’re both positionally sound and help prevent dangerous counter-attacks as well.

Despite having some of the world’s best talent at goalkeeper, defense and striker, the USWNT has failed to live up to its potential due to a lack of good tactical fits at midfield for most of the last five years. That position might now be the team’s deepest and most settled.

Nineteen-year-old Jessie Fleming and 18-year-old Deanne Rose are already established fixtures on Canada’s team. But there are four more teenagers who might see some playing time over these two friendlies against the USWNT.

The most notable is 16-year-old attacker Jordyn Huitema, who already has two goals for the senior national team. But defenders Jayde Riviere and Ariel Young, as well as midfielder Julia Grosso, have also been called up. With regulars like Kadeisha Buchanan, Sophie Schmidt, and Diana Matheson not on this squad, all of them might get chances to play.

With the impact that Fleming and Rose have already made on the CanWNT, it appears that the Canadians might be slowly but surely catching up to the Americans in talent development. And apparently Canada’s coaching staff has faith that some other young players can already make the step up to this level.

Match date/time: Thursday, 10 p.m. ET

Venue: BC Place, Vancouver

TV: ESPN2

Online: Watch ESPN

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