International tournaments typically bring more drama than quality. The well-established factors that prevent national teams from playing with the same intensity and harmony as club teams are only amplified with the Olympics' criminally condensed schedule. The problem is a compounding one. By the knockout rounds of the Olympics everyone left standing is too tired to bring their max effort to the games, so players try to save their legs to remain fresh for the decisive moments, which leads to fewer potentially decisive moments, which results in flat and even matches, which leads to more extra times, which leads to more tiredness. The stakes are still enormous, of course, so tournaments are always good for thrills and big emotions. Still, when the final whistle sounds during Saturday's women's soccer gold-medal match, and the players of both teams collapse to the ground in either joy or despair, it will also be the sheer exhaustion that will have knocked them on their asses.
Judging from the heavy-legged, uninspired play throughout almost all of the knockout matches so far, the mightiest foe anyone has faced in France over the past week is fatigue. Only two of the six quarter- and semifinals were decided within the 90 minutes of regulation time, and only one of the six had a winning margin of more than a single goal. Surprisingly, the giant-killers of Brazil are the ones responsible for both of the matches that didn't need extra time and also the one with a winning margin greater than one—the latter, a 4-2 win over Spain, being the most impressive performance of the tournament so far. For their efforts, the Brazilians will battle exhaustion and also the USWNT for the gold medal.
The USWNT's journey to the gold-medal match has, more than any of the four remaining medal hopefuls, been marked by fatigue and the team's approach to managing it. The defining aspect of both of the U.S.'s knockout matches—a 1-0 extra-time win over Japan in the quarterfinals and a 1-0 extra-time win over Germany in the semis—has been tiredness. The team has looked gassed. To deal with this fact, the Americans have sought to play a game of minimums, keeping possession primarily as a way to conserve energy, biding time for openings for their fearsome, tricephalic forward line to gallop into, and betting that their difference makers are better than yours and will eventually come out on top.
The bet has paid off. There wasn't all that much separating the U.S. and Japan in the quarterfinal until Crystal Dunn drove a gorgeous pass across the field, over the Japanese defense, and out to Trinity Rodman, who zipped into the box, cut inside, and from an obtuse angle slammed an wicked shot into the far top corner of Japan's goal, a strike so good it merits a medal of its own. Likewise, it took a pretty Mallory Swanson through ball, a speedy Sophia Smith run and chip that ended with a goal, and a flying foot save from Alyssa Naeher to give and then maintain the U.S.'s lead in an otherwise equal semifinal against Germany.
It's not that the Americans have been completely reliant on just a few pivotal moments to get here. Throughout the tournament the forward line of Rodman, Smith, and Swanson has lived up to its billing as the scariest trio in the world, and Naomi Girma (or "Girmadre" as I've regularly clacked into Slack whenever she stonewalls some superstar striker the way I stonewall my toddler son when he tries to kick the soccer ball down the hallway of our apartment) has been quite possibly the most outstanding player of these Olympics. Nor should the assessment of the U.S.'s "game of minimums" be taken as any kind of criticism. It's been immediately evident at this tournament that Hayes is as savvy a coach as advertised, and the team's terrorizing high press, the forwards' fluidity and potency in open spaces, and the defense's resistance to both fast counters and more elaborated attacks are all welcome sights in a team that had previously looked confused and clunky in tournaments. Like many, I too have been concerned by Hayes's hesitance to rotate players or even make substitutes within matches, especially in light of the Olympics' uniquely taxing fatigue factor, but it's hard to argue with the results. Hayes's USWNT tenure has gotten off to as good a start as anyone could've possibly hoped for, and along with getting the U.S. back where it belongs, contending for the biggest titles, I maybe most appreciate that Hayes's team is simply fun to watch play, something that hasn't really been true for ages.
The decline of the USWNT over the past few years exists on two different planes that I think are often confused for a single one. On one hand there's the senior team's underperformance at recent major tournaments, which has to do with things like a delayed generational changeover and coaching that didn't get the best out of the available players. This Olympics already shows that most of that could be solved with better management and a commitment to the national talent pool's younger players, which by themselves could at once return the team to contender status. On the other hand, there are the more fundamental, structural issues about how women's soccer is developed in the U.S. and around the world—things like pay-for-play at the youth ranks limiting the American talent pool, the further embedding of the successful professional league into the greater soccer pyramid, vestigial quirks with college game and its uncertain future, the kinds of players the American structure and culture do or don't produce, and, especially, the women's soccer awakening across Europe, which has finally started to open the gold standard of soccer development to girls and women.
The USWNT's underperformances of late could be addressed quickly, and the status quo of American women's soccer is and for the foreseeable future should be good enough to produce a senior national team worthy of being considered one of the favorites for any tournament it enters, even if the days of the USWNT's sole hegemony are gone. But for the U.S. to maintain its position as the best of the best, regardless of what a gold medal this summer might imply, it will take deep consideration of and changes to the country's soccer system to keep up with what's happening in Europe.
The good news is that Hayes totally understands all of this. As she herself conceives of it, her job is not only to lead the U.S. to victory at tournaments like the Olympics, but to help the growth and refinement of American women's soccer more generally. Hayes knows that you can win gold by holding the ball, sending Smith and Swanson and Rodman hurdling forward in search of a goal or three, and relying on Girma and Naeher to clean up whatever comes the other way. But she also knows that, to be the best USWNT possible—one that can continue to compete for golds and World Cups as the Spains and Englands and Brazils of the world only get better and better in the coming years—it'll require a richer talent pool that produces more true midfielders and defenders, and begets expressive, creative players adept at dribbling and passing into and out of tight spaces, and discovers talents across the entire socio-economic spectrum, and maximizes what the sport can be by diversifying who plays and how they play.
Though separate, the two levels of soccer—the senior team and the underlying structure—have a synergistic relationship. Success in one should lead to success in the other. For that reason, the USWNT's performance at the Olympics should engender nothing but optimism. No matter who wins, the gold-medal match is certain to bring lots more attention to the game, which will only bring more interest, investment, and commitment to the structural development the sport perpetually needs. By winning gold, Hayes and the team will be able to say that the U.S. is back. But the most exciting thing is the prospect that the USWNT of tomorrow could be better than ever before.
