Emma Hayes‘ first game in charge saw the USWNT defeat South Korea 4-0 and, most importantly, offered a glimpse into how the coach will get the best out of her attack.
— If the United States women’s national team’s 4-0 win over South Korea on Saturday at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park was any indication, the stagnant attack from last year’s World Cup is fully an issue of the past.
The era of Emma Hayes as USWNT coach got off to a slow first half-hour before forward Sophia Smith turned quickly and slotted a ball to winger Mallory Swanson for the first goal of the match in the 34th minute. Swanson made a slashing run behind South Korea’s back five and tucked the ball away for her first of two goals on the night in a play that exemplified both the team’s patience and the front line’s fluidity.
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„I think something that’s really good about Emma’s style and the way that she wants us to be fluid in our structured principles, so I think she gives us a lot of freedom,“ USWNT midfielder Catarina Macario said after the match.
Macario played the No. 10 role on Saturday in her first start for the national team in 781 days. She pressed into high areas alongside Smith, the USWNT’s No. 9, as the USWNT built attacks with five players across the front line at times. Macario also frequently flared out to wide areas to find the game. Swanson would shift inside at times, too, and she moved into the No. 9 role late in the match after a series of substitutions. Trinity Rodman rounded out the front four for the USWNT with her usual persistent effort on both sides of the ball on the right wing. The interchange between those four players specifically is a welcomed sign for a team that was too rigid — a word Hayes used recently to describe what the team must avoid — at the 2023 World Cup, where the USWNT’s round of 16 exit marked the program’s worst finish at a major tournament.
Swanson and Macario were both absent from that squad due to injury. Swanson was arguably one of the best players in the world before tearing her left patella tendon last spring, and former USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski was developing Macario as the focal point of the attack in 2022 before Macario tore her left ACL.
