USWNT's World Cup lineup under Vlatko could backfire - ESPN

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — The task for U.S. women's national team coach Vlatko Andonovski seemed simple: start the best possible lineup and begin the Women's World Cup with a strong statement of intent.

But once the squad to take on Vietnam in their tournament opener was announced, it became clear Andonovski was not playing it safe or simple.

The question, which will be answered once this World Cup is said and done: is Andonovski overthinking it, or just being shrewd? The answer certainly didn't come Saturday at Eden Park Stadium against Vietnam (a Friday night start for fans in the U.S.), nor was it expected to. The talent differential between the two sides is large enough that a fully second-choice U.S. squad would still have been expected to win.

The USWNT won 3-0, missing a slew of quality scoring chances in the process — 28 shots in all — and it almost didn't matter who Andonovski put on the field.

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But the U.S. coach appeared to be setting the stage for a tournament where the USWNT will be difficult to predict, and the notion of the «best possible lineup» will be less straight-forward than it seems. In previous World Cup editions it was easy to predict who a coach might start and where, but Andonovski has put together a squad without easy answers.

Julie Ertz — a player who had seemingly made the roster at the last possible moment as the solution at defensive midfielder after not playing competitive soccer for two years — started at center-back.

Ertz hasn't started as a center-back since 2019, and hasn't played the position with regularity since years before that. But when captain Becky Sauerbrunn was a late