David J. Phillip/Associated Press
The United States women’s national team plays its first true road game since April in Australia late Friday night.
The USWNT is ending 2021 with two friendlies against Australia. The first one will be played in Sydney. The second, set for Tuesday, takes place in Newcastle.
Vlatko Andonovski’s squad last played Australia in the bronze-medal match of the Tokyo Olympics in August. In the three months since, the USWNT roster has gone through some changes to gear up for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup cycle.
Only two of the players who made the trip to Australia have made more than 100 international appearances. Twelve members of the traveling party have fewer than 10 caps.
Andonovski should use the next two games as an opportunity to see what the younger players in the talent pool bring to the international stage to get a good idea of how 2022 will look.
USWNT vs. Australia Info
Date: Friday, November 26
Start Time: 11 p.m. ET
TV: FS2
Live Stream: FoxSports.com and Fox Sports app
Odds: Available odds can be found on DraftKings Sportsbook.
Preview
The Americans have two major tasks at hand Friday.
The first is for Andonovski to decipher which of the newer players in the squad he can begin to trust on the field. Carli Lloyd played her final game for the USWNT on October 26, and a handful of other mainstays are closer to the ends of their international careers than the beginning.
Alyssa Naeher, Kelley O’Hara, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and others should still be around for the next World Cup cycle, but the USWNT needs to build younger depth beneath them.
All three of the USWNT goalkeepers and four of the six players listed at the forward position have fewer than 10 caps. The pair of games in Australia should do wonders for their integration into the setup.
The USWNT will have an experienced defense in front of the goalkeeper, whoever that may be. Captain Becky Sauerbrunn, Abby Dahlkemper, Tierna Davidson and Emily Sonnett have 378 international appearances between them.
The defense will be the most important positional unit Friday since it will be tasked with slowing down Chelsea’s Sam Kerr, who has 49 goals in 102 appearances for Australia. She scored one of the Matildas’ three goals in the bronze-medal match in Tokyo.
Kerr is one of the best strikers in the world. Behind her, midfielder Emily van Egmond, who plays for NWSL’s Orlando Pride, and Manchester City defender Alanna Kennedy are two of the other players who could wreak havoc on the Americans for 90 minutes.
If the Americans contain Kerr’s threat, they should feel confident about getting a result on the road.
The USWNT is 1-0-1 in true road games in 2021. It drew with Sweden and beat France during a two-game road trip in April. The rest of the team’s games were either on neutral fields in Japan for the Olympics or on home soil. The USWNT has 16 wins, four draws and two losses in 22 matches this year.
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