Lavelle shows she’s USA’S star of future
LYON, France – The U.S. women have their newest star.
Rose Lavelle was a revelation in this World Cup, scoring three goals and befuddling opponents with her dazzling footwork and magician-like ability to get herself out of spaces. She was awarded the Bronze Ball, given to the third-best player in the tournament.
“She just does things casually that are out of this world,” Kelley O’hara said Sunday, after the U.S. women beat the Netherlands 2-0 to win their fourth World Cup title.
The Americans got their goals from Megan Rapinoe – because it’s now a FIFA rule that she score in every U.S. game – and Lavelle, two players whose status was uncertain because of hamstring injuries. Rapinoe missed the semifinal against England with a slight strain while Lavelle, who missed nearly a year because of a hamstring injury, left in the 65th minute.
But neither showed any sign of being limited. At all.
Rapinoe converted a penalty while Lavelle scored on a rocket that left her teammates, fans and everyone watching at home’s mouths agape. Samantha Mewis had played a ball to Lavelle, who said she saw space and took advantage of it.
As she crossed into the box, she put the ball on her left foot and let fly, the momentum lifting her clear off her feet. Netherlands goalkeeper Sari Van Veenendaal dove, but she had no chance at stopping the ball.
Some theorized Van Veenendaal might have been thrown because she didn’t realize Lavelle is left-footed, but Lavelle just laughed at the suggestion. “I like my left foot, man,” she said. And the U.S. women are happy to have it.
Four years ago, Lavelle was playing on a Seattle Sounders summer league team, and she and her teammates watched the World Cup final at a pizza parlor. Lavelle was going into her junior year at the University of Wisconsin, and the idea of playing on the national team seemed unfathomable to her. “I was just a young child,” she joked Friday.
But coach Jill Ellis had seen something in her, and called her into camp later that year. Though Lavelle wasn’t in the mix the following year for the Olympic team, the brief exposure gave Lavelle an idea of what it would take.
Lavelle can do things with the ball that don’t seem possible, looking like a cat with a ball of yarn as she darts around defenders. What should be turnovers are not because of her ability to navigate through traffic. She’s fast, she’s creative and she sees the game in a way that can’t be taught.
She is, as Ellis called her earlier, “special.” Or, as no less than Landon Donovan Tweeted, “Rose Lavelle is my favorite soccer player in the world.”
Lavelle’s value to the team will only grow over the next four years. She just turned 24 in May, and several of the team’s veterans are likely to move on after the Tokyo Olympics. It will be up to Lavelle – along with Sam Mewis, Lindsey Horan and Mallory Pugh – to keep the program at the pinnacle it’s occupied for the last 20-plus years.