It wasn’t until 87 minutes had passed in the CONCACAF W Championship final between the United States women’s national team and Canada that any of the American reserves were instructed to enter the game. It felt like this was part of the statement the USWNT team wanted to make on a very caliente Monday night in Mexico.
With the temperatures in the 90s for most of the game, even though it kicked off at 9 p.m. local time, Canada had functioned for much of the evening as though it had trained for this game in the Yukon. There nearly were a half-dozen breaks for injured Canadian players who fell to the turf, all of whom were able to return to play after they’d had their 90 seconds or more of attention, rest and hydration.
So if the Americans weren’t able to crush the Canadians with goals — and their profligate finishing on an abundance of chances generated by exceptional technique and superior speed led to needing Alex Morgan’s late penalty to win 1-0 — they would crush their spirit with this universal display of stamina.
And, perhaps more important, they reminded a world in a hurry to disassemble their pedestal that they still are in charge of women’s soccer worldwide.
“It just always feels good to be called a champion,” Morgan told CBS Sports. And she would know, more than most.
MORE: How the USWNT overcame Canada to win W Championship
Morgan has been a part of teams that won two World Cups and an Olympic gold medal. And, now, three CONCACAF championships, with this most recent title also granting an automatic berth in the 2024 Olympic Games in addition to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup spot they’d attained by winning their group in this tournament.
This sport has belonged to the USWNT for the three decades since the first FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991, or at least since they finally held a world championship for women and retroactively decided to grant it that esteem. They have gathered four world championships and four Olympic gold medals and produced five of the top seven international goal scorers in the sport’s history.
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— Attacking Third (@AttackingThird) July 19, 2022
The @USWNT lift their NINTH @ConcacafW Championship and qualify for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/kdhmZFvcoa
When you’re that good for that long, those who have seen too much of the bottom of your cleats begin to long for change. And if they get impatient enough, they just might invent the reality they hope to realize.
Last month, ESPN presented its rankings of the top 50 women’s players in the world and had room for only six USWNT players on the list. At least that was twice as many as The Guardian, which included just three USWNT players among its top 50. For real. It’s only been three years since the Americans won the most recent World Cup, and not quite 12 months since even a substandard performance delivered an Olympic bronze medal, but it sure seemed like people elsewhere were trying to rush them off the stage.
The women’s game has grown enormously in Europe, where too many of the leading soccer nations once paid it cursory attention or outright discouraged it. This has been a wonderful thing to see, such places as England and Spain joining pioneers such as Germany and Sweden in pushing the sport forward.
That shouldn’t be taken to mean the USWNT. is over, though. And this game against the reigning Olympic champion and No. 6-ranked team in the world, showed why. The U.S. had an expected goals advantage of 3.14 to Canada’s 0.53, according to numbers compiled by TruMedia. There was a 55-45 percent edge in possession, 17-11 in shots and 7-1 in corner kicks. And that was with coach Vlatko Andonovski lacking access to at least a half-dozen players who would compete for starting jobs, if available.
Instead the U.S. relied on such players as 21-year-old Sophia Smith and 24-year-old Mallory Pugh to play on either side of Morgan. Their speed and talent completely dismantled a terrific Canada defense, though each was guilty of wasting opportunities that might have led to the preferred brand of control. The Americans did not allow a single goal in five games, with a defense that included young talents Alana Cook, Emily Fox and Naomi Girma.
MORE: Final CONCACAF W Championship tournament results & highlights
“As coaches, we’re celebrating a lot of things, because we think this is just the beginning of what we are to see in the next nine to 12 months,” Andonovski said.
"I was very happy with the gradual improvement. Not all the results seem as convincing ... but I thought the performance of the game and the situation of the game, we showed improvement from game one against Colombia. Those are the moments we're happy about ... that give us validation for what we do."
The World Cup in Australia is a year away, and Andonovski admits that once a spot in that tournament was secured, he became so focused on pondering preparation that he forgot the game against Canada conveyed Olympic qualification. He wasn’t reminded until the USWNT won this game and guaranteed their trip to Paris.
It has not helped the current squad to be missing such decorated players as Crystal Dunn, Julie Ertz, Sam Mewis, Tierna Davidson and Abby Dahlkemper, and especially supremely gifted young forward Catarina Macario, who injured her knee on the final day of the regular season for her French club.
Without them during the past month, the current members of the U.S. team labored through all but one of the six games that either prepared them for this tournament or were part of the drive to this final.
When the championship was at stake, though, the USWNT was dominant. They weren’t perfect, but they were overwhelming. This performance was not a work of art, but it was a thing of beauty.