Lloyd has never made any sense
Carli Lloyd has always been a strange soccer player.
She’s never been a great passer, or even very technical. She doesn’t defend very well. She’s tough to play tactically because she’s not really a midfielder, and not really a striker, and not really a winger.
To watch her play week in and week out is an exercise in frustration — she turns the ball over a lot, shoots from ridiculous distances. She dribbles the ball into four defenders while ignoring open passes. She does stuff that makes fans yell at their televisions.
She also has a knack for scoring huge goals in the biggest games imaginable.
And I have no idea what U.S. women’s national team head coach Jill Ellis is going to do with her at this World Cup. Here’s what we do know:
❚ Lloyd is coming off a terrible 2018 club season in which she scored four goals in 18 games. (One of the goals was a free kick.)
❚ Lloyd has scored five goals in the last four games for the USWNT.
❚ Lloyd is 36.
❚ Lloyd, as you might remember, dropped a hat trick in the last World Cup in just 16 minutes.
❚ Lloyd will not be starting in this World Cup, and she’s not happy.
That last part has been what is interesting in the run-up to this World Cup. Lloyd has given interview after interview with various outlets in which she talks about how angry she is not to be in the starting lineup. That she feels no one on the team is better than her.
The stories are eating it up too. They seize on how she has the tenacity of a winner. How she’s there to prove everyone wrong.
They all seem to gloss over the fact that Lloyd hasn’t been, well, in some time.
And honestly, that’s all fine and well. Lloyd has long subscribed to the Mamba Mentality and carries an endorsement from Kobe Bryant. She should want to be on the field.
Again, Lloyd will not be in the starting lineup to begin this World Cup. What will be interesting is what Ellis does if the USWNT stumbles at any point. For many fans, especially those who haven’t watched the team play since the last World Cup final, Lloyd is a legend, a must start hero who can create goals out of nothing. There will be pressure from those fans on Ellis to get her on the field.
It’s tempting for me, the Guy Who Watches Too Many Soccer Games, to scoff at these fans and say that Lloyd has no business in a team with as much talent as the USWNT, and tell Ellis she should stick with her actually good players.
But honestly, it’s not that simple.
Even now, I have no idea what the USWNT should do with Lloyd. I was ready for her not to even make the World Cup team and was a bit surprised by her inclusion. I thought she was done. Time comes for us all, and when you always relied on athleticism and tenacity, as Lloyd had done throughout her career, it can fall apart quickly. When it’s over, it’s over.
Lloyd was never going to transition into a playmaking midfielder or revamp her game in any meaningful way. She has always had one line of thinking: Go. Shoot. Score. That was her method. That was her game. For the last few years, it wasn’t working.
Then she went and scored five goals in four games for the USWNT in the friendlies leading up to the World Cup and nabbed two goals in the first three games of the NWSL season. She was in a terrible place last year with her club team, Sky Blue FC, who were going through a nightmarish ownership situation. The more I think about it, the less I have any idea what to do. Maybe Ellis should play her? Maybe Lloyd should start?
Lloyd’s career has never made any sense, and I guess it shouldn’t start making sense now. I could see her not playing a minute in this World Cup. I could see her making one sub appearance and giving the ball away eight times in 10 minutes.
I could also see her breaking her way into the starting lineup, dropping a hat trick in the final, and winning the Golden Boot.
It’s all in play.