Mallory Pugh powers U.S. women to 5-1 win in 2018 opener

SAN DIEGO -- Two years ago she was still in high school, with life in college dorms still on the horizon. Two years ago Mallory Pugh was still part of a future that couldn't arrive soon enough.

Exactly two years ago Sunday, in fact, she was still two days away from a national team debut.

So yes, when Pugh pounced on an errant pass near midfield in the opening minutes of the second half Sunday against Denmark, she still had a lot of ground to cover to make anything of the gift. She sprinted forward with the ball at her feet, touch after touch toward goal. The last touch took her wide of the retreating defender left twisted like a pretzel by Pugh's pace.

Pugh drove her right foot through the ball. The keeper never had a chance.

Covering a lot of ground in a short amount of time is nothing new for Pugh, who scored twice, assisted on a third goal and helped set up a fourth in a 5-1 win against Euro finalist Denmark.

"She's just a player that obviously has come a long way, but again, I think we're just kind of scratching the surface," U.S. coach Jill Ellis said of Pugh. "But I think the confidence is there. She's obviously got a great skill set, in terms of technique and athleticism. Her understanding, positioning, I think she's grown in every element of the game, tactically and in her sophistication in plays. What I like about Mal is she's not just a finisher, she's also a distributor."

Almost exactly two years after she made her debut in the same stadium and scored a goal, Pugh showed why she is the best example of what the U.S. women's national team wanted to do after winning the World Cup in 2015. Identify young talent, players with athleticism and technical skill. Nurture those abilities now rather than later. Hope it pays off down the road.

And given that only two years into her national team career, Pugh had more career appearances than five of the players who started alongside her Sunday night, there is something to that.

"It's the plan," Ellis said. "It was the plan coming out of 2016, in terms of we had time [before the next World Cup]. That's what last year was all about."

Sunday's lineup was admittedly shaped as much by availability as master plan. Morgan Brian, Tobin Heath, Samantha Mewis and Becky Sauerbrunn were all missing because of physical issues that kept them out of the team's January training camp in the Los Angeles area (as was Rose Lavelle, another of the up-and-comers). Carli Lloyd was called on only as a substitute.

But whether it was Tierna Davidson and Savannah McCaskill earning first caps, Taylor Smith her eighth or Pugh her 30th -- a number Ellis cited as a guidepost for what it takes to get a player up to speed for a major tournament -- this was as good as Ellis could hope her plan would look.

"You can't just suddenly do this in two weeks and put new players out there," Ellis said. "That's what hopefully you start see come to fruition. I think it was an important part in terms of our development. And like I said going into last year, sometimes you take a little bit of knocks in terms of that growth period, but it will pay us off. And it will pay us off in 2019."

She gave credit to director of talent development B.J. Snow for his role in identifying young players. That included someone like Davidson, who made her first start Sunday as the center back partner for Abby Dahlkemper but who has been on the team's radar for a long time. Still only a sophomore at Stanford, Davidson came into camps last fall but looked nervous and was limited by college commitments. But with that experience, she turned heads in the January camp with both her athleticism, which Ellis said tested as among the five best on the roster, and her poise.

Sunday Davidson made her presence felt at both ends, defending well and setting up a goal from Julie Ertz with a header in the 18-yard box in the first half off a long service from Dahlkemper.

"There's obviously younger players on the roster," Pugh said. "And I think that just having that mix between veterans and younger players and how we all jell together is super important."

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None more important than Pugh, who got ahead of the youth movement by not only making the Olympic roster in 2016 but starting for that team before she was slowed by injury. It wasn't just the long run and belted goal Sunday to make it 3-1 or the finish low past the keeper for 4-1 after another errant Danish pass. It wasn't just the assist on Alex Morgan's goal, an answer from the Americans three minutes after Denmark took a surprise 1-0 lead on a set piece. From almost the first minute, at least the eighth minute when she delicately settled a pass from Smith and put herself in position for a shot on goal, she made herself someone Denmark had no answer for.

"I see this all the time in practice, so this is not a surprise to me at all," said Ertz, the reigning U.S. Soccer player of the year who scored a goal of her own Sunday. "She practices like she plays. She's fast, she's always on her front foot, and those are the goals that she gets. She's very calm around the goal, and she's very dangerous. The second she came in -- I can't even remember how old she was when she came in -- we knew big things were going to come from her."

Denmark is not a minnow, even if a veteran roster showed plenty of its own growing pains in its first game under a new coach. But the Danish insistence to play out of the back against the United States was chum in the water for a group of American players who spent much of the January camp working on their defensive shape and approach. Ideally, the U.S. women would love to press teams the way Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool pressed Manchester City in handing the latter its first loss recently.

To do that it needs depth, it needs pace and it needs talent. It needs players like Pugh.

"From that attacking shape, I have a lot of attacking opportunities," Pugh said.

Two years ago she still had a history class to worry about the next day. Now she wants to make her own, rising star for the national team and the cornerstone of the NWSL's Washington Spirit.

Two years ago she looked comfortable on the field but awed by her surroundings.

She has grown up in a hurry. She was expected to be great. She might yet be better.

"For me, I don't really listen to the expectations externally," Pugh said. "More internally the expectations I have on myself."

That's the plan.