Commentary
USA-Uzbekistan Women's Friendly Player Ratings
- by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, Apr 10, 2022
April 9 in Columbus, Ohio
USA 9 Uzbekistan 1. Goals: Sullivan 26, Pugh 26, Smith 33, 35, 56, Macario 46, Howell 64, Hatch 86, Sanchez 89; Norboeva 70.
Att.: 12,071.
The USA had a field day in its first women's international against Uzbekistan, which didn't even qualify for the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup, which served as qualifying for next year's Women's World Cup. The USA won, 9-1, but could have scored at least twice as many goals.
USA Player Ratings
(1=low; 5=middle; 10=high.)
GOALKEEPER
Alyssa Naeher failed to react to the flick-on of Uzbekistan's corner kick, allowing Aziza Norboeva to score from close range with her leg and follow up with the game's best celebration.
Player (Club) caps/goals (age)
4 Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars) 80/0 (33)
DEFENDERS
Kelley O'Hara should have done better on the Uzbekistan goal, but she was otherwise excellent the second half, assisting on Ashley Hatch's goal and springing the attack on Ashley Sanchez's goal in the final seconds. Alana Cook was involved in a pair of goals, her headers finished off by Andi Sullivan and Jaelin Howell. In her first match with the national team since October, Abby Dahlkemper was steady in the middle of the backline, spending most of the game in the Uzbek half. On the left side, Emily Fox teamed well with Mallory Pugh.
Player (Club) caps/goals (age)
7 Kelley O’Hara (Washington Spirit) 151/2 (33)
7 Alana Cook (OL Reign) 8/0 (24)
6 Abby Dahlkemper (San Diego Wave) 78/0 (28)
6 Emily Fox (Racing Louisville) 12/0 (23)
MIDFIELDERS
Andi Sullivan opened the scoring in the 26th minute with a header and put Sophia Smith through for her second goal after winning the ball in midfield. Rose Lavelle had the first of four U.S. shots hit off the woodwork in the 4th minute, but she did well to steal the ball to set up Pugh's goal and her through ball found Catarina Macario for the quick second-half opener. Like Sullivan, Lindsey Horan exited after only 45 minutes. Her header off Macario's corner kick led to the opening goal.
Player (Club) caps/goals (age)
7 Andi Sullivan (Washington Spirit) 26/3 (26)
6 Lindsey Horan (Lyon, FRA) 109/25 (27)
7 Rose Lavelle (OL Reign) 70/18 (26)
FORWARDS
Sophia Smith scored a hat trick with easy goals in the 33rd, 35th and 56th minutes, but the star up front was Mallory Pugh, who had her way on both wings. Besides her goal in the 26th minute, Pugh set up two Smith goals and was involved in the goals by Howell and Sanchez. Catarina Macario will have been disappointed to have scored only once, on a breakaway in the 46th minute. She was let down by a heavy touch in the 53rd minute and issued a rather harsh yellow card for a foul on keeper Laylo Tilovova.
Player (Club) caps/goals (age)
9 Mallory Pugh (Chicago Red Stars) 71/22 (23)
7 Catarina Macario (Lyon, FRA) 16/6 (22)
8 Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns) 14/4 (21)
SUBSTITUTES
Both Jaelin Howell (64th minute) and Ashley Sanchez (89th minute) scored their first goals for the USA, while Ashlee Hatch has four goals in seven games after making up for a bad miss by rising high in the air to beat Tilovova to O'Hara's cross in the 86th minute.
Player (Club) caps/goals (age)
7 Jaelin Howell (Racing Louisville) 5/1 (22)
5 Kristie Mewis (Gotham FC) 37/5 (31)
6 Ashley Hatch (Washington Spirit) 7/4 (26)
5 Midge Purce (Gotham FC) 13/2 (23)
6 Ashley Sanchez (Washington Spirit) 6/1 (23)5 Sofia Huerta (OL Reign) 11/0 (29)
TRIVIA: Norboeva's goal ended the USA’s home shutout streak at 1,632 minutes. The team had not allowed a goal at home since March 11, 2020.
April 9 in Columbus, Ohio
USA 9 Uzbekistan 1. Goals: Sullivan 26, Pugh 26, Smith 33, 35, 56, Macario 46, Howell 64, Hatch 86, Sanchez 89; Norboeva 70.
USA -- Naeher; O'Hara, Cook, Dahlkemper, Fox (Huerta 68); Sullivan (Howell 46), Horan (K.Mewis 46), Lavelle (Sanchez 68); Smith (Purce 62), Macario (Hatch 62), Pugh.
Uzbekistan -- Tilovova; Tojiddinova (Kuchkarova 57), Irisboeva, Zaripova; Zarbieva, Panjieva, Turdalieva, Ablyakimova (Khusniddinova 46); Kudratova, Norboeva (Zaynitdinova 72), Khabibullaeva.
Yellow Card: USA -- Macario 53. Uzbekistan -- none.
Referee: Katja Koroleva (USA).
Att.: 12,071.
Stats:
USA/Uzbekistan
Shots: 33/1
Shots on target: 17/1
Saves: 0/7
Corner Kicks: 9/2
Fouls: 6/6
Offside: 7/0
Possession: 73%/27%
Glad to see Pugh's performance recognized. What she did was simply to position herself to take advantage of a badly unbalanced Uzbek defense. The flashy stuff is exciting, but her positioning was what was important. As for ratings, given the opposition I give the US team a "5" for solving very easy tactical problems.
You didn't mention Mewis' beautiful ball over the top to Pugh, setting up Smith's third.
While I realize it's tough to get opponents, it's even tougher to have any kind of interest on a 9-1 score against a high-school at-best team like Uzbekistan. Let's get serious. I'm an advocate of the women's game but come on. Much tougher yet to read player ratings on a game like this. US Soccer needs to seek better games. This helps nobody and provides a false barometer for quality.
I differ on three points. 1. The Uzbek players were let down by coaching failures. Horrible game plan and no adjustment until halftime. 2. Nobody should be fooled by this result. 3. Sometimes in training a coach needs a match. Skipping a match because the opponent is not suitable is not a realistic option. Also the US will be playing teams comparable to Uzbek during qualification. This is prep for qualification.
Full agree with Diego.....while these games must be played since few other options exist....and I guess ratings should be offered for any US game...
It is kind of silly to put any real substance in ratings. Regardless of any coaching adjustments (or lack of) the opponent had no chance in this game.
In fact to focus on Pugh for example exploiting a defenses lack of balance is useless since any meaningful game will not have that situation to exploit.
These type of games may actually hurt USWNT development as too European teams are playing much tougher competition on regular basis ..... so they can better develop as well as provide an environment to truly rate and evaluate who should play a role moving forward.
Ratings are reflective of the game that was...
Not what might have been
Easy game....obviously
But it is a good game for young players to get minutes and build confidence
Would like to see today's subs start next game
My takeaways from yesterday's match:
(1) Most pleased that Pugh has resurrected herself. Personally, I thought she was "done". Yet the coaching staff, including Ellis' to Vlatko's, recognized that the talent was still there.
(2) The outcome aside what I was pleased to see was the reaction by the team when they were scored upon. O'Hara was pissed (probably at herself) as was a number of other defenders. Post game reaction by Vlatko said it all... "..we were scored upon" .......
(3) The consensus opinion to have the USWNT play quality opponents is obvious. The question is where are you going to find them? UEFA WEUROS & & WC qualifiers make it difficult for the rest of the year. Then next year you are down to the wire preparing for the WC. Hopefully US Soccer will be able to find a few competitive opponents; but do not hold your breath. .....
When a match is between teams that are very unbalanced, the stronger side will always have things to work on - defending corners in this case. But to advance the womens game globally, these games are important for the weaker side as well. The Uzbeks surely learned a lot from facing overwhelming opposition. Growing the game means giving players exposure to the highest level of competition, even if the chances of getting a result are slim.
Is the USWNT limited to playing against other national teams or can they play against an All-Star team or a men's team?
Men's team????
Trans Team Maybe ???
I'm guessing that the aim here is to find good competition for the USWNT so they can improve. Maybe they need to play against any team that could provide that no matter what that team is comprised of. So men, yes, why not? Again, the salient question is: is the USWMT limited to only playing against women's national teams? If no, then finding good competition shouldn't be difficult.
I can't imagine there's anything preventing them from playing against NWSL teams?
I don't think Macario's performance deserved a 7 rating. Too many heavy touches, not enough vision to recognize Pugh had a sitter and took a shot instead, too many lost balls.
Glad to see Uzbekistan make it out to Columbus. This is an amazing opportunity for the Uzbeks if not the USA, though it helps enormously grow future competition for the USA and build international bridges with a stalwart Russian partner. This game has HUGE international relationship implications. It helps raise the status and power of women in a country that is interestingly somewhat matriarchal and way ahead of how women are treated in many countries, but nonetheless needs the visibility of women raised.
I used to love and respect the WNT. They were until recently a better watch than the men. Then they became "woke" and lost a large number of fans, specifically because the of the despicable Megan Rapinoe AND most importantly their material misprepresentation of their collective bargaining agreement. NOW, they are displaying awful sportsmanship by lining up such poor teams not once but twice and revel in scoring as many goals as possible. The Uzbeks need quality opponents to improve but they need to walk before they can run. There is no large Uzbek diaspora anywhere that I know of in this country so this was just a pointless beat down. Yay team.