Rapinoe and Morgan continue tear: 3 takeaways from USWNT victory

The U.S. women’s national team beat Japan 4-2 in the first game of the Tournament of Nations. Here are three takeaways from the match.

The USWNT opened up play in the second annual Tournament of Nations on Thursday afternoon. Alex Morgan had a hat-trick and Megan Rapinoe added another in the 4-2 victory over long-time rival Japan. In the second game of the tournament, the USWNT will face Australia on July 29. In the meantime, here are three things we learned from Thursday night’s matchup with Japan.

The U.S. lack depth at outside back

Since the 2016 Olympics, the USWNT have struggled to find consistency and depth at the outside back positions. Ali Krieger and Meghan Klingenberg seemed to have fallen out of favor with head coach Jill Ellis. Kelley O’Hara has dealt with numerous injuries and Taylor Smith has fallen out of form with her club team, the Washington Spirit, in 2018.

With all of these things happening, Ellis has had to get creative with her options. This means her choices are typically being played out of position. Thursday night’s match against Japan was no different. Crystal Dunn, a more attacking-minded player, was slotted in at left-back while Emily Sonnett, a natural center-back, was the right-back.

At this point, there’s really no reason to think Ellis will attempt to bring in any new players to try and fill the void at outside back. It seems as if she’ll just continue to build around the system she has as the USWNT prepare for World Cup qualifying in October.

The pairing of Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe remains the best for the U.S.

Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe are individually playing some of the best soccer of their careers right now. Rapinoe has seven goals and four assists in 2018 for the Seattle Reign. As for Morgan, two goals in each of her last two international games leading into Thursday night, and seven overall in 2018, are impressive. Put these two together on the same field and you’re looking at a pretty strong offensive threat.

And that’s exactly what we got on Thursday night. The USWNT opened the scoring in the 18th minute when Rapinoe played a well-timed ball into the box, where an on-running Morgan tapped in at the near post. Morgan added two more to complete her hat-trick and Rapinoe put the nail in the coffin in the 66th minute.

The USWNT are at their best when players like Morgan and Rapinoe are scoring goals and getting involved offensively. If they can keep that going as qualifiers draw near, the USWNT should be in good shape to book a ticket to France for 2019.

The lack of communication and familiarity between the backline and Naeher is a problem

Heading into 2019, the biggest question for the USWNT has to be the defense. While there’s definitely talent on that backline, the general lack of experience, both on the international stage and just with each other in general, makes it difficult for them to work well together as a unit. This was very apparent on the first goal scored by Japan.

Because Ellis wants her defense to play so far forward and to help contribute in the attack, they’re getting pulled way too far up the field at times. On Japan’s first goal, both of the center-backs were up too tight on the midfielders and one bad pass from the USWNT caused an odd man break for Japan.

While that was really the only time the USWNT were burned for it, their lack of familiarity was apparent on several other occasions. At times during the first half, center-back Tierna Davidson would have a player on her back as she was facing toward Alyssa Naeher in the USWNT goal. Instead of making herself available as an option, Naeher stood close to her goal line, forcing Davidson to make an awkward play to kick the ball out of bounds.

These things will start to work themselves out as the back five get more playing time together, but that requires Ellis to put the same five out there for more than one game in a row. If they can get more time together, this group has the potential to be a good offensive-minded back line.