Is It Staying Home?

When it comes to WoSo the conversation starts and finishes with the USWNT

Photo by Chris Leipelt on Unsplash

It’s the same story for every World Cup. You just need to swap out the predicted usurper.

Pundits, tired of the status quo and looking to stand out, will select a likely winner of the tournament. Instead of choosing the obvious, they get cute.

Four years ago it was the Netherlands. They were coming off an impressive Euro and played a delightful style of football. Before that teams like Germany or Japan were favoured.

However, for the last decade (the launch of the NWSL is when the current, professional era of WoSo began. You kind of have to look at pre-NWSL as a totally different playing field), the results on the pitch have consistently suggested that those teams, however fancied as they were, weren’t all that close to the now two time defending world champions, the United States.

When it comes to women’s soccer, every conversation needs to start and finish with the United States. They won’t win every time — the nature of sport tells us that — but they will be the favourites to win for the foreseeable future.

Backed by incredible depth and unmatched athleticism, they are simply the best team. In many ways I’m being unfair when I describe them as athletic because that implies that they aren’t among the best technical teams as well. They are, but I’ll stick with the description because the athletic difference is so profound that it makes them especially difficult to stop in a month-long tournament.

They can roll over smaller teams in ways that other countries can’t. They also can lean into their depth in a way that, when combined, makes them get better as these tournaments go deeper.

The way to beat the US in a tournament is to hit them early. The longer the event is the less chance they get eliminated by a bounce or bad day out.

Getting past them in a semi-final or final of a World Cup would require a performance that few other teams are capable of.

In this World Cup, it’s difficult to see who that would be.

If they are to be beaten, most assume it would be by a European team. The defending Euro champions, England, are the bookmakers pick from Europe (although on form, Germany is a better bet).

Is football coming home?

I suspect not. We’ve been waiting for a while for the European breakthrough in WoSo. Make no mistake, the quality is great across Europe and the Champions League is starting to be as big a competition at the NWSL is, but the European teams are kind of at the show-me-don’t-tell-me-stage.

Unlike the men’s game, the heart of WoSo is in the United States. In fact, it is the home of women’s soccer.

So, in 2023, the question isn’t whether it’s coming home because it’s already there.

The United States are champions-in-waiting until some proves otherwise.

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