A bit of drama here and there. I can’t remember a good English shot, but the visitors have created a bit of pressure on the American defense. No one is parking the bus here, and it should be an engaging second half.
Remember: If England get a draw here, they win the SheBelieves Cup.
45 mins: CHANCE. and Mallory Pugh nearly scores a beauty. She dribbled across the top of the box, wrong-footing the English defense and unleashing a shot that glances off the side of the post.
44 mins: Rapinoe remains on the right after the corner and gives the ball to the overlapping Pugh.
Alex Morgan falls at the edge of the box, and Rapinoe really wants a call. That would be harsh, to say the least.
43 mins: CHANCE. Rapinoe crosses (probably), and Karen Bardsley can only parry it. The ball sits tantalizing on the ground in the box, but no U.S. player can get to it. They win a corner.
41 mins: Allie Long is a little lackadaisical receiving a ball from Crystal Dunn, and England are off to the races. But not for long.
At the other end, Lindsey Horan sends a header well wide. The ever-steady Lucy Bronze had it covered.
39 mins: That was promising for England. Demi Stokes shrugged off pressure to play it up the left flank, and the ball is one-touched into space for Jodie Taylor. U.S. keeper Alyssa Naeher is forced to race out and boot it away.
36 mins: English winger Melissa Lawley tests Crystal Dunn’s defensive skills and manages to get a little cross in.
Then a longer cross sails to Ellen White, who either (A) attempts to pull a Maradona Hand of God or (B) loses control of her body under a foul from Emily Sonnett. The whistle didn’t blow, so maybe it’s neither.
35 mins: Like my dog chasing chipmunks in the backyard, Alex Morgan is determined to create a costly turnover in the English box. Still not happening, but she’s certainly disrupting things and giving the USA plenty of time to organize and mark everyone.
33 mins: The rhythm of this game has been set. USA play keepaway in their own half. Probing pass forward. No finishing product, England briefly play keepaway in their own half but get mugged in midfield.
31 mins: ESPN’s Sebastian Salazar says it best when describing Lucy Bronze -- “confidence in her own third.” This English defense is not easily perturbed.
29 mins: Mallory Pugh leaves a trail of English wounded in her wake, as McManus and Stokes fall as they try to catch the young American forward. The ball careens forward, where Karen Bardsley ushers it away from pressure like James Bond examining a martini.
Ruth Purdue writes: “I wouldn’t say this is much of an intense England press against the US defence, more like a hold and varying interest in tight closing down. The worry for the USA is that they panic with the ball at the back despite having all the time and space in the world. I cannot believe that the US centre midfielders are hardly showing for the ball or even coming to take it off their defenders.”
True, but in fairness, this formation only has one center mid -- Allie Long. But Lindsey Horan, theoretically off to one side. hasn’t seen much of the ball.
26 mins: Considerable U.S. pressure now. Morgan’s cross finds no one. Mallory Pugh sends one that drifts over the goal.
25 mins: They trade a couple of giveaways, and then Allie Long passes up a 22-yard shot attempt to let Seattle teammate Megan Rapinoe try. Her shot makes a loud thud as it hits the dasher board well to the left of the England goal.
24 mins: Lucy Bronze shows fellow North Carolina alumna Crystal Dunn she’s not the only defender who can get into the attack. A phantom foul call ends the English surge.
22 mins: England win a corner, with Fran Kirby beating a couple of defenders (not including former Chelsea teammate Crystal Dunn) and sending a short cross that deflects out. Nothing comes of the set piece.
21 mins: Corner kick to the USA, and Rapinoe plays it short to Tierna Davidson. Back to Rapinoe, and it’s stripped.
20 mins: Abby Dahlkemper blasts the ball across the field to Megan Rapinoe on the left wing. They keep trying to feed it to Rapinoe, but Lucy Bronze has kept the veteran winger contained thus far.
18 mins: Pugh tracks back into her own half to challenge for the ball and wins a free kick. Then we’re back to another bit of patient U.S. possession within their own half. The ball really hasn’t been in the English half too much so far.
16 mins: Abby Dahlkemper slides the ball away from the onrushing Demi Stokes. Then England press again. They’re not making it easy for the U.S. defense.
14 mins: A Dunn-Morgan-Rapinoe combination looks promising. Again, Dunn is reminding us of the old Roberto Carlos joke -- left back isn’t her address, but it’s where she can be found in case of emergency.
13 mins: A bad turnover for U.S. right back Emily Sonnett on a weak pass back to the center backs, but she sprints back to recover. Perhaps not coincidentally, the English midfield races toward Sonnett when she gets the ball again.
11 mins: Like a U10 team in a blowout, the USA are starting every possession by playing the ball back to the keeper. Not sure what’s going on with that.
Then a ball pops over the top to Alex Morgan, who gets a step or two on the defense but can’t control the ball. Morgan is playing this game with a black eye suffered against France.
8 mins: England puts Alyssa Naeher and the U.S. central defenders under a bit of pressure. They look a bit shaky at the moment.
Then Allie Long is knocked down with no call. So it’s going to be one of those games? Fortunately, she’s used to it from the hyper-physical NWSL.
5 mins: Are we sure Crystal Dunn in playing defense? She charges up the left wing for the second time in this game, contributing to the buildup of a half-chance.
Just don’t concede a goal to someone who nominally plays on that side, or Ellis will ... OK, maybe we should let the Taylor Smith incident go.
2 mins: Yes, they kicked off while I was summing up that tribute, and it’s been interesting so far. The USA unleashed a high press, not quite troubling the veteran Karen Bardsley. And Tierna Davidson, the young central defender, had a devil of a time settling a ball on the edge of the USA box but finally cleared the danger.
We begin on a somber note, remembering the victims of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, including a soccer player named Alyssa Alhadeff. The stadium in Orlando observes a full minute or so of silence, unusual for the USA and its typical “moment” of silence. Many of her high school and club teammates are in attendance, guests of U.S. Soccer.
Anthony DiCicco 💜 (@DiCiccoMethod)Pristine and reflective moment of silence for Alyssa Alhadeff and Douglas HS. Could’ve heard a pin drop. Well done USSF & crowd. #PlayforAlyssa #USWNT #Parkland #NeverAgain
March 8, 2018
This is the 250th cap for Carli Lloyd, the enigmatic midfielder/withdrawn forward who changed her reputation for erratic play with some of the biggest goals in U.S. history -- the lone strike in the 1-0 win over Brazil in the 2008 Olympic final, both goals in a 2-1 win over Japan in the 2012 Olympic final, then a 16-minute hat trick in the 5-2 win over Japan in the 2015 World Cup final that included a ridiculous goal from midfield.
If you want to watch the game in the USA, we may have some bad news for you. It’s not on ESPN or ESPN2 or even the online ESPN3. It’s on ESPNews.
So you have a few more minutes to check your cable subscription and/or sign up for a trial of a streaming service that carries that channel.
Or just follow along here. That’s why I’m here.
Familiarity ...
A couple of English players are employed in the USA’s women’s league, the NWSL -- Houston’s Rachel Daly and Seattle’s Jodie Taylor. The latter has played several spells in the USA, going back to her college (university, in England English) days with Oregon State. She also had a strong season with the Washington Spirit and played for Portland. (Her first visit to rival Portland with her new Seattle team will be fun.)
Daly also played college soccer in the USA with St. John’s.
(Apologies to our English readers staying up late to read this, but I think I’ll stick with American English from now on. It’ll be “soccer” and “college,” and I hope no one gets stuck in an “elevator.”)
As noted below, Karen Bardsley was, in the words of Bruce Springsteen, born in the USA and spent her college (Cal State Fullerton) and early professional years in the States. Lucy Bronze played for former U.S. coach Anson Dorrance at the University of North Carolina. A couple more England players also have spent time in the USA.
But this is no longer a one-way trading route. Younger English players are more likely to stay with their increasingly professional clubs rather than getting an education in the States. And Crystal Dunn (Chelsea) and Carli Lloyd (Manchester City) have spent a bit of time in England.
Also, we have Lyon teammates potentially facing each other tonight: Morgan Brian (USA) and Bronze.
USA defensive dilemma: Coach Jill Ellis gave right back Taylor Smith a swift hook in the draw with France, taking her out of the game a couple of minutes before halftime. That seemed unfair. Ellis was dropping defensive midfielder Andi Sullivan back as a de facto center back, splitting the actual center backs wide and sending the wide backs up into the attack. Or the stands. Anywhere but the back line. So to hold Smith responsible for Eugenie Le Sommer finding space seemed a bit like the scene in M*A*S*H in which the addled general (played by a pre-Potter Harry Morgan) asked Radar where he was from, then snapped, “No talking in ranks!”
In any case, Ellis is opting for the peripatetic Crystal Dunn, who has just wrapped up a stint playing in England with Chelsea. Yet there’s still no space for Sofia Huerta, a player Ellis has been converting to defense but has not yet played in this tournament.
Center backs Tierna Davidson and Abby Dahlkemper are competing with each other in a sense to be Becky Sauerbrunn’s defensive partner when the rock-solid defender returns from injury. Davidson was far better against France.
If you really, really want to know how the teams will be ranked in this tournament, no matter what happens tonight:
Keeper Notes (@keepernotes)A USWNT win tonight means they earn the #SheBelievesCup trophy. Loss or tie and England wins, and #USWNT could end up in third depending on final score. Tiebreakers in order: GD, total goals, head to head, FIFA ranking. pic.twitter.com/E36a0gClsQ
March 7, 2018
Which team will have more fatigue?
Let’s look at England’s first two lineups in this tournament, first the 4-1 demolition of a young French team, then a 2-2 result vs. Germany:
1-Karen Bardsley (21-Carly Telford, 83); 2-Lucy Bronze (capt.), 5-Anita Asante (15-Abbie McManus, 14), 6-Millie Bright, 3-Demi Stokes (14-Alex Greenwood, 87); 7-Nikita Parris (19-Mel Lawley, 61), 8-Jill Scott, 22-Keira Walsh, 10-Fran Kirby (16-Izzy Christiansen, 71); 9-Jodie Taylor, 11-Toni Duggan (18-Ellen White, 71)
13-Siobhan Chamberlain; 3-Demi Stokes, 6-Millie Bright, 15-Abbie McManus, 2-Lucy Bronze; 10-Fran Kirby (9-Jodie Taylor, 90), 4-Fara Williams (22-Keira Walsh, 59), 8-Jill Scott (16-Izzy Christiansen, 67); 11-Toni Duggan (7-Nikita Parris, 67), 18-Ellie White, 19-Mel Lawley (17-Rachel Daly, 84)
The defenders have played most of the way. The midfield and forwards have seen a bit more rotation.
The U.S. lineup notes helpfully tell us seven players are starting for the third straight game, including Alex Morgan, who looked exhausted toward the end of the France game.
And they tell us Crystal Dunn will indeed play at outside back, where she played in college and for a short time in the NWSL before the Washington Spirit moved her up front, where she shredded the league’s defenses.
USA lineup:
Oh no, no, no. We’re not looking at the three-back formation that flopped so badly last year, are we? Or will Allie Long or Crystal Dunn be drafted back to defense?
Here’s a rough guess based on the USSF email ...
GK 1-Alyssa Naeher
D: 16-Emily Sonnett, 17-Tierna Davidson, 7-Abby Dahlkemper
M: 9-Lindsey Horan, 10-Carli Lloyd (capt.), 11-Mallory Pugh, 20-Allie Long, 15-Megan Rapinoe
F: 13-Alex Morgan, 19-Crystal Dunn
Substitutes: 18-Jane Campbell, 24-Ashlyn Harris, 2-Casey Short, 3-Andi Sullivan, 5-Kelley O’Hara, 6-Morgan Brian, 8-Julie Ertz, 12-Lynn Williams, 14-Sofia Huerta, 21-Savannah McCaskill, 22-Taylor Smith, 23-Christen Press
England lineup:
Lionesses (@Lionesses)
Here's the team that could secure @England the #SheBelievesCup! 🤞 pic.twitter.com/u2MYXMdzK5
March 7, 2018
Hello everyone, and welcome to a Big Game.
No, it’s not the Olympics, and it’s not the World Cup. But this is big. Both of these teams are in the world’s elite, and they both have a few questions. Both coaches have a few skeptics to win over.
And it’s in Orlando, so the “standing on the bow of the Titanic” weather that we saw earlier in the SheBelieves Cup is no longer a concern.
England will win the tournament with a draw or a win. The USA need a win. The Cup itself isn’t the biggest storyline, but it would restore some pride for the USA after a dismal showing last year.
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s a little more on England’s US-raised goalkeeper Karen Bardsley:
In 2014 the Women’s Super League expanded into two tiers comprising 18 teams and Manchester City were ready to take the opportunity to climb. Having worked their way into the Premier League National Division, they ambitiously bid for a place in the top two leagues. Controversially, the side were granted a place in the top flight, relegating Doncaster Rovers Belles to the second tier to make way.
City were serious about cementing their place at the top, and one of the players they recruited to help do so was Lincoln Ladies’ Karen Bardsley. Now 33, the England international has watched as City have shaken off the discontent around their WSL place to become one of the world’s leading women’s football teams.
With the WSL set for further change next season – the top tier becoming fully professional and second tier semi-pro – she is excited about what this next step will do for women’s football.
“I think what’s really exciting about the women’s game at the moment is the professional interest from clubs,” the goalkeeper says.
“The technical ability and tactical understanding is going to improve massively, which is going to improve the game as a whole. But also, as you can already see, it can start attracting international talent and you’re going to open the league up for even greater global audiences. So that, for me, is what is really exciting about the league and obviously competition for places is also, importantly, going to improve the national team too.”
For Bardsley – who was born, grew up and developed as a player in the US but, with parents from Greater Manchester, chose to play for England – the opportunity to provide young girls with aspirations to become professional is also key. “For girls coming into the game it’s really important that they realise that there is a potential career and a living to be made playing women’s football,” she says.