By Bhaskar Shenoy
It’s 5.30 in the morning and I’ve just finished the first work “day” back from vacation. It’s almost cruel that in the times of TV advertisers despairing over losing the key 18-30 demographic to that new-fangled interwebs, here I am looking up illegal streams to watch a world sporting event. Incidentally, most advertisers now view live sports as their last chance to feed the public shiny tooth creams and lifestyle-changing cars, but since this is not cricket – well, men’s cricket, at any rate – India is not particularly interested. Not that FIFA itself cares, apparently. What with the WORLD CUP being played right in the middle of the NBA finals, NHL finals and the Copa America.
I started following the USWNT (United States Women’s National Team for the uninitiated) during their 2007 World Cup campaign where they reached the semi-finals playing inspired, dominating football before running into Marta and the Brazilians, eventually settling for a third-place finish. I was a student in the United States at the time, and got swept away by the general frenzy surrounding the team that year. Then in 2011, the team made it all the way to the finals before losing to Japan in the penalty shootouts. Linear progression would suggest that 2015 could be the year they win it all, if linearity and sports had anything to do with each other.
The Americans came into this year’s cup as prime contenders, along with the Germans, but they need to sort their offensive struggles out quickly. They are entirely too dependent on forwards Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan to create scoring opportunities, and the ball just stops moving unless midfielder Megan Rapinoe does something about it. They do not have the pace that, in the past, led to them outrunning opponents on the wing, playing a cross and watching Wambach finish with her masterful headers. Here’s where you have to hand it to Megan Rapinoe, though. There are still moments in the current tournament when it feels like the entire American offense just flows through her, a feeling made fact once she is substituted and the offense just stalls.
The good news, however, is that the US defense is solid – so solid, in fact, that goalie Hope Solo (Star Wars-sounding name notwithstanding) barely had anything to do in the latest match. This denied poor commentators the chance to talk about the stuff they love to dredge up about the controversial goalie – her domestic violence incidents, senators calling for her suspension, TMZ following her everywhere, her two terrifying Dobermans. Perhaps that is the way America will win the Cup – with boring 1-0 scorelines behind a strong defensive performance, and Hope Solo bored at her post. But somehow, I miss the flawed, overachieving, playing-on-the-razor’s-edge feel from the 2007 and 2011 squads. This current version seems more of a think-tank creation of smoothed-over defects in defense and plodding offense.
In their opening World Cup game this year, the Americans blew past Australia in the second half after a closely contested first (final score 3-1). The issues with the offense however were clear with a 0-0 draw against Sweden in the second game.
Nevertheless, it’s 5.30 in the morning and by the time I find a working video stream the commentators are already complaining about the line judge calling offside on a US goal. It’s pretty apparent in the first few minutes that the Nigerians are over matched and conventional wisdom demands a blowout. But (and this is a big but) the Americans look like they are playing out a script written by a sports analyst. In 2011, when they came oh-so-close to winning it all, sports analysts everywhere said that it was their defense, specifically the back four, that was letting opponents score too many goals. The offense was never really the problem – any team would go to war with the Wambach-Rapinoe-Morgan trinity, and when you have forward Sydney Leroux ready to come off the bench at any time, scoring goals shouldn’t be the worry of any coaching staff. But here we are, 5.30 in the morning in 2015, and the Americans apparently can’t score goals but have a solid back four, leading to solid possession football and inevitable one-goal victories.
The Wambach-Rapinoe-Morgan trinity is seemingly running circles around the Nigerian defense, but sticking to the script, keep faltering at the last second. The referee is not helping matters; a couple of blown offside calls and a missed Nigerian hand ball is keeping the score firmly at 0-0. The only chance the Nigerians have is for solid defense and a lightning-quick counterattack once the frustrated Americans over-commit. Nigeria showed what was possible with this tactic earlier against Sweden, earning a hard fought 3-3 draw, but then went on to falter against Australia (a 2-0 loss). However, with impeccable ball control in the American mid field this tactic does not look like it will work.
When Wambach scores on a Rapinoe cross in the dying moments of the first half it has a feeling of inevitability to it. The goal itself is masterful with Wambach (who’s said that artificial turf messes with her game) completely taking the artificial turf out of the equation by just slamming in a perfect volley. Set pieces like corner kicks were going to be Nigeria’s Achilles heel from the start, but with misjudged headers and overthinking on corners, the threat somehow never materialized. There’s no knowing what the US’ coaching team learned from watching Nigeria’s previous games. But with the difficulty they were having marking the Americans in the box, surely it would have been simpler for the US to just go the aerial route and send the corner kicks into the middle of the penalty box. Instead of trying, as they did, to thread the ball between defenders along the ground with short kicks, which were going nowhere. Still, it is better than Nigerian coach Edwin Okon’s non-strategy of proudly stating that he would not do scouting (research) of the opposition at all.
The second half shows promise of more exciting football with the Nigerians not having the option of sitting back and launching a counter-attack. Their defensive lines have clearly moved up, allowing for more space and more goal-scoring opportunities, but the chances never materialise. Rapinoe sends in some long-range efforts and Morgan comes close a couple of times, but Nigerian goalie Precious Dede keeps them all at bay. The added desperation from the Nigerians leads to the inevitable yellow cards and eventually a red card for defender Sarah Nnodim, but this counter-intuitively leads to the American offense stalling further. The game comes to an end after the Americans play a bit of keep away. End result? The previously mentioned 1-0 victory behind a strong defensive performance for the USA.
US plays Colombia in the round of 16, and if all goes according to plan, the other favourites Germany in the semi-finals. The other end of the knockout stage table has Brazil and host nation Canada at opposite ends, well poised for the other semi-final. This should be the year the Americans win the Cup and as a fan I am going to ignore all the reasons they cannot, telling myself they are merely rounding into form… right on time for the games that truly matter.
Bhaskar Shenoy is a financial services consultant by day and a sports junkie by night.