The SheBelieves Cup is once again upon us, this time with a fantastic lineup of opponents for the USWNT in Brazil, Canada and Japan. These three games taking palace later this month will be a critical look at the player pool in preparation for the World Cup, now roughly five and a half months away with just four international windows remaining.
Head coach Vlatko Andonovsaki has named his SheBelieves roster earlier this week, which you can read much more about here. Based partially on that and partially on what we think might be to come for this player pool, we’re taking another stab at predicting the 23-player World Cup roster and attempting to fine tune our guesses. Here are our previous versions: 3.0 (Nov. 2022), 2.0 (Oct. 2022), and 1.0 (June 2022).
Keep in mind these aren’t lists of players we want to see, but rosters based on all available evidence to date (and yes, maybe some gut calls), and that there are a lot of players who are on the verge of completing injury rehabs and working back to match fitness, like Catarina Macario and Christen Press.
Steph’s World Cup squad
I’ve swapped in Alana Cook over Kelley O’Hara because even though I think this team needs O’Hara for both her work at fullback and her attitude, it’s clear that Andonovski wants Cook in his roster and as a periodic starter, and with Davidson in, a super-strong central defensive core that can rotate and rest might be more valuable.
Goalkeepers (3): Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars), A.D. Franch (KC Current), Casey Murphy (NC Courage)
Defenders (8): Alana Cook (OL Reign), Crystal Dunn (Portland Thorns), Tierna Davidson (Chicago Red Stars), Naomi Girma (SD Wave), Becky Sauerbrunn (Portland Thorns), Emily Fox (NC Courage), Sofia Huerta (OL Reign), Hailie Mace (KC Current)
Midfielders (6): Andi Sullivan (Washington Spirit), Lindsey Horan (Lyon), Rose Lavelle (OL Reign), Catarina Macario (Lyon), Ashley Sanchez (Washington Spirit), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns)
Forwards (6): Mallory Swanson (Chicago Red Stars), Megan Rapinoe (OL Reign), Alex Morgan (SD Wave), Christen Press (Angel City), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns), Lynn Williams (Gotham FC)
Meg’s World Cup squad
No changes for me from the last time we did this.
Goalkeepers (3): Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars), A.D. Franch (KC Current), Casey Murphy (NC Courage)
Defenders (8): Becky Saurberunn (Portland Thorns), Alana Cook (OL Reign), Naomi Girma (SD Wave), Tierna Davidson (Chicago Red Stars), Emily Fox (NC Courage), Crystal Dunn (Portland Thorns), Kelley O’Hara (Gotham FC), Sofia Huerta (OL Reign)
Midfielders (6): Rose Lavelle (OL Reign), Lindsey Horan (Lyon), Andi Sullivan (Washington Spirit), Ashley Sanchez (Washington Spirit), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns), Catarina Macario (Lyon)
Forwards (6): Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns), Mallory Swanson(Chicago Red Stars), Alex Morgan (SD Wave), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), Megan Rapinoe (OL Reign), Lynn Williams (Gotham FC)
This SBC roster is a good sign for…
Steph: There are some notable omissions and inclusions. It’s important that center back Tierna Davidson is back in camp, although she won’t be available to play in games as she’s still finishing the last of her rehab from a torn ACL in 2022. But when Davidson is healthy and available for match action, that has implications for players like Emily Sonnett, whom Vlatko Andonovski used as a center back against New Zealand in January, but can move out to fullback or, in a really big pinch, step up into defensive mid.
The continued absence of Sophia Smith as she also finishes managing the tail end of a foot injury opens the door for someone like Midge Purce or Trinity Rodman to continue making a very strong case for Andonovski. Purce may feel the impact more as she and Smith are a little bit more like-for-like in their work as wingers, while Rodman looks more like a player you ask to underlap and come central from wide. Regardless, the glut of talented players here is a problem any coach would love to have.
Meg: Rodman had a really excellent trip to New Zealand for the national team. It’s only going to keep getting harder to keep making rosters from here (especially in the forward pool), but based on Andonovski’s comments about how he can “see the growth” of Rodman and others, if she can make the most of SheBelieves Cup and keep dishing up assists, she’s definitely going to keep herself in contention for the final roster.
And it’s a bad sign for…
Steph: Hailie Mace and Sam Coffey missed out on SheBelieves this time. Mace is another part of the fullback question, where it looks like the main question with Emily Fox, Crystal Dunn and Sofia Huerta is how much time they get, not if they’ll get any. But I think it’s a fair bet we’ll see Mace back in at some point, especially if she keeps showing out at club level for the Kansas City Current. I think she just adds too much versatility to really keep her out unless she’s completely making a hash of these training camps.
Coffey is a bigger question mark; it’s a little puzzling why Andonovski prefers to try Taylor Kornieck in the no. 6 role when Coffey has been handling those duties pretty well for the Portland Thorns, but it’s always good to remember that we aren’t fully privy to what goes on in camp. Sometimes players who do well for club have a harder time for country, and vice versa, and of course anyone can have a bad camp. But we also know that Vlatko likes to use camps and games for evaluation of unknowns, and that he does watch plenty of NWSL, so putting a player out there who’s a question mark may be more about the coaching staff filling in the blanks rather than ranking one player over another. In that sense, I still think there’s room for Coffey in this squad, although as we saw against New Zealand, Kornieck is big (literally and figuratively) in any throw-it-at-the-box tactics the team might have to resort to in the World Cup.
Meg: Agreed on everything no. 6-related. Watching live, Kornieck settled into the role a bit better by the time the Auckland game rolled around, but Lindsey Horan wasn’t on the field so we only have a limited look at those two playing together. Kornieck definitely provides this team something they don’t otherwise have, but I still find it a little baffling to try this experiment out months before the World Cup. (I guess we figure out how serious it is if suddenly she’s the defensive midfielder for the Wave?)
And it’s not really a bad sign exactly, but there’s still a few big players on the way back in that I’m sure Andonovski would have preferred to have fully back by February instead of the next window in early April. If you think about the remaining FIFA windows left, there’s really not a lot of time left with the squad to make these final decisions. Two games in April, and then the next window isn’t until July 10…. which will be used for send-off games. That’s potentially a big influx to manage in one springtime camp, and means players might only have a limited window of their own to make their case for heading to the World Cup.
More on the midfield
Meg: Over the past few months there have been a lot of lingering questions around Sam Mewis’s return to the national team and if there was any chance she could possibly make it back in time. Earlier this week, Mewis announced she underwent another knee surgery and does not have a timeline for her return to the field.
On Wednesday, Andonovski confirmed she won’t be available in time for the World Cup — and for as much attention as Julie Ertz’s absence has garnered, Sam Mewis was another major factor in the team’s 2019 World Cup win.
(On Ertz, Andonovksi noted: “Julie Ertz is someone that we see that she hasn’t committed to any team in the league so far. Time is running out, pretty much, for her as well, and she’s someone that we’re probably not going to be able to count on in the World Cup.”)
I was pretty sold by Lavelle’s performance in more of a box-to-box, deeper lying midfielder that we saw in Auckland, with Sanchez as the no. 10. I know I just complained about experiments above, but one I wouldn’t mind seeing is testing Lavelle in the no. 8 role against a tougher team — and we’ll have that opportunity thanks to the three teams at SheBelieves Cup. Steph, am I way off base here? Biased because I saw it live? Is this a bigger waste of a player’s talent then when Lauren Cheney got pushed back into a defensive midfielder role?
Steph: I think the closer Rose Lavelle is to goal the better, and that there are other players or formations out there that optimize for the resources that the team has on hand. For example, I would’ve liked to have seen more testing of players like Jaelin Howell or Savannah DeMelo if the U.S. is looking for more midfielders that can work to cover defensive space or help distribute. In that setup, Horan can continue to act as a shuttler and help dictate tempo, while Lavelle is given more freedom to roam and to step high. We see lots of good things when Lavelle is allowed to find space, whether it’s in setting up others or simply taking a chance for herself, and it feels kind of clunky to push Lavelle deeper.
I think Howell will eventually find her way to a role with this team and maybe the timing just didn’t seem right to the coaching staff. There’s so many variables that can go into optimizing a roster.
(Photo: Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
