Lessons from the USWNT’s Brazil friendlies: Thompson’s a star and a keeper dilemma | OneFootball

The United States women’s national team were very much in the mode of trying out new stuff during friendlies over the last international window. A mostly first choice team looked sharp in a 2-0 victory over Brazil during the first match between the teams, but an extremely young, rotated squad showed their inexperience in a 2-1 defeat on Tuesday.

Head coach Emma Hayes has some tough decisions ahead of her to figure out difficult situations in midfield and goal. But in the forward line, Hayes mostly learned that she has a new star she can rely on.

Alyssa Thompson takes the next step

The biggest bright spot was the play of left winger Alyssa Thompson, who set up the opening goal in both matches. On both occasions, Thompson picked up the ball deep in midfield and surged past a Brazil defender before carrying the ball 20-plus yards. In the first match, she played a perfect pass for Trinity Rodman. In the second, she dribbled all the way into the box and had a shot blocked, before Catarina Macario finished off the rebound.

Thompson has shown she’s capable of these kinds of highlight plays in NWSL and youth national team games, but this was the first time she’s brought out her best stuff for the USWNT.

Even though Thompson was the youngest member of the 2023 World Cup squad, it’s taken a few years for her international career to properly get going. She missed the 2024 Gold Cup with an injury, and was not called up for the Olympics.

“She’s someone who, her international career started at a very early stage,” Hayes said after October’s 3-1 win over Iceland, when Thompson scored her first international goal. “That’s why, I believe it does take time.”

Thompson was asked about missing out on the Olympic squad during an appearance on CBS Sports, and explained how she reacted.

“I was disappointed, but I knew at that time I wasn’t one of the best forwards that they could have brought,” she said. “So understanding that – kind of knowing that, going back to my club and being like these are the things I need to work on in order to be on that level and on that stage – that’s what I did.”

The second half of the last NWSL season went very well for Thompson, as she finished with five goals and seven assists, leading Angel City FC in total goal contributions. And she’s started hot this season as well, with two goals in three games.

Thompson has always had the speed and dribbling ability to make a big impact for the USWNT, but now she has much higher levels of decision-making and confidence to go along with those skills. She’s cemented her place in Hayes’s squad going forward.

Midfield still a work in progress

Hayes has not made significant changes in midfield personnel between international windows, seemingly finding a group of more experienced players she trusts and younger players that she wants to develop. But she’s yet to find a lineup that doesn’t have some kind of deficiency.

The group from the first match looked excellent in possession. Sam Coffey and Lindsey Heaps appeared to have an excellent understanding in early buildup play and both offered excellent progressive passing from deep in midfield. Ally Sentnor played as a second striker making runs past Macario, who regularly dropped deep to combine with Coffey and Heaps. This made Macario look much more like a midfielder than Sentnor, who was the nominal No 10. This created some excellent sequences in possession, and the US could have scored quite a few more goals than they did.

But similar things could be said about Brazil, who were unlucky not to get on the scoresheet. As good as Heaps and Coffey were with the ball, they looked slow and lacking in physicality without it, as Brazil threatened with counterattacks through the middle of the field.

Claire Hutton and Korbin Albert took up the deeper midfield positions in the second match, with Lily Yohannes playing as the more advanced midfielder. The trio of youngsters didn’t look as if they fit their given roles very well at all. Neither Hutton or Albert is good at playing medium-range, line-breaking passes at this point in their careers, and Yohannes was an awkward fit as a No 10 playing with a striker who wanted to come deep and combine, rather than run on to Yohannes’s through balls.

These players (and playmaker Jaedyn Shaw, who came off the bench) all have valuable skills, but Hayes has yet to find the right combination of players to give the team excellent contributions in all phases of play. I wrote last window that the combination of Hutton and Yohannes could excel in the future, but Hayes doesn’t look particularly close to settling on her best midfield for the present.

A goalkeeper decision probably isn’t coming soon

The USWNT has had a clearly defined No 1 goalkeeper for most of its history, with Alyssa Naeher, Hope Solo and Brianna Scurry all spending long stints as the unquestioned starter. That has fans anxious to anoint the next No 1, but it’s probably not coming anytime soon.

Phallon Tullis-Joyce was excellent in the first match, keeping a clean sheet. And while Hayes was pleased with her performance, she also pointed out why Tullis-Joyce is facing stiff competition from other players, and what she needs to improve to win the job.

“There’s work to do to ensure that we don’t just go long all the time,” Hayes said in her post-match press conference. “Her next step is something I’ve been clear on. Her team Man United don’t play a lot of buildup. They tend to go from back to front but her next steps is with pressure, being able to make the short passes to come out. I thought she looked authoritative and commanding but I don’t want to compromise on the things that I think are really important if you want to control football matches. That’s the challenge for her and she knows that.”

Game 2 starter Mandy McGlynn is much better than Tullis-Joyce with the ball at her feet, but didn’t look as commanding in the box. It might be unfair, bordering on impossible, to make an apples-to-apples comparison between the players. Tullis-Joyce played with close to Hayes’s first-choice team, while McGlynn was in a heavily rotated side with youngsters and backups. And Jane Campbell, the most experienced of the goalkeepers called into this camp, is not out of the running for the job just because she didn’t get a start in these friendlies.

Of the three, Tullis-Joyce appears to be the best shot-stopper, McGlynn the best in possession, and Campbell a compromise option. Expect to see two different starters in upcoming friendlies against China, and probably a few more similar windows before Hayes declares a No 1.

Header image: [Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images]