JILL'S FINAL HILL
Ellis will ultimately be judged by title game
THE NARRATIVE coming into this Women’s World Cup was that U.S. coach Jill Ellis was just a caretaker, or a steward; that this roster was so loaded all she had to do was roll the ball out on the field and get out of the way. But when the tournament started, she got squarely in the way, her illadvised tactics holding the team back.
Of course, that’s premature. You don’t judge a marathoner at the halfway mark, but at the finish. You don’t judge a World Cup team in the group stage, but on the winners podium. But even if that caretaker narrative wasn’t fair, the criticism Ellis took certainly was. She can turn it around in Sunday’s final versus Japan.
Ellis doesn’t have Twitter, and isn’t into the whole social media thing. She steadfastly insists she has no idea what’s being said or written about her, that she stays within the “bubble” her players often reference. Think Ellis Island.
“In terms of what’s out there, yeah, I don’t know what’s out there,” Ellis said Monday, which was just as well, because what was out there wasn’t complimentary. To that point Ellis was having a poor tournament.
Sure, the United States survived the Group of Death, but even the U.S. players admitted they were underachieving. And worse, they were underwhelming, missing the swagger and flavor and chutzpah for which U.S. teams had been known. Watching the 1999 Women’s World Cup winning squad with Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy got little girls such as Sydney Leroux and Carli Lloyd dreaming of following in their footsteps.
But now that they finally were there, Ellis curiously insisted on keeping a static Route 1 style, long ball after long ball to aging Abby Wambach. That is, until Ellis benched the world’s alltime top scorer and instituted a more fluid, dynamic style — until Ellis made the moves that might have saved their World Cup.
Maybe it was an epiphany, or maybe it was just dumb luck. With midfielders Megan Rapinoe and Morgan Holiday suspended for the quarterfinal, El lis rolled the dice. She benched Wambach, brought on Amy Rodriguez and Kelley O’Hara for pace, inserted attackminded Morgan Brian as a holding midfielder and told Lloyd to attack. The result was the U.S.’s best offensive outing to that point.
“We were so focused on coming out of this group, and it was a tough group. I do think in order for us to do well and secure that, defensively we needed a good shape. We played with essentially two 6s, weren’t really pressing teams,’’ Lloyd told Fox. “But I think it’s been an executed game plan, the timing of it to give me the freedom to roam around and attack has really come at a good time.’’
A great time. Lloyd didn’t have a goal or assist in the three group games, but the former Rutgers star has scored or set up all five U.S. goals in the three knockout games since Ellis tinkered with the lineup and gave Lloyd the keys to the attack.
To everyone outside the U.S. camp, it had seemed so obvious, but it’s a nervy thing to bench the world’s alltime leading scorer. Ellis pulled an other gutsy move in the semifinals, using a 4231 formation she had kept mostly hidden. The result — with Alex Morgan up top, Lloyd underneath, twin holding mids and Wambach on the bench — was a 20 win over world No. 1 Germany.
“You live and die by these decisions as coaches,” Wambach said afterward.
Sure enough. They are calls that can stick for a long time. Anybody that noticed Landon Donovan subtly taking Twitter shots at Jugen Klinsmann a year after being left off last summer’s World Cup team can see that.
But in the end, this Women’s World Cup won’t be measured by a few tweaks in the quarterfinal, any more than it will be summed up by some offensive struggles in the group stage. This is a twotime champ that has been waiting 16 years to claim a record third title. It will be measured by Sunday’s clash with alltoofamiliar Japan.
Yes, they beat Japan in the 2012 London Olympics final. But in soccer, the medal that matters is the World Cup, and they’re still stinging from getting upset by Japan in the last Women’s World Cup final. Ellis wasn’t a fool in the group stage, any more than she was a genius in the knockout stages. But she can be a champion after the final, which is all the matters.