So, it looks like I’m going to do match notes for each of the 5 games the US U-17s played last year in their failed attempt to qualify for the 2010 Under-17 Women’s World Cup. Why would I do that?
Because they were good. It might be history, but these players are still in the US youth system, and deserve to be. Many will play on the next U-20 team, to compete for another World Cup in 2012. Some will (hopefully) make it to the senior team one day. And this is where they started.
The 2010 Cycle Starts
The 2010 Women’s Under-17 cycle started in January of 2009, when US Soccer held a joint U15/U17 supercamp, bringing together many of the players who had come up with the U-15s in 2007 and 2008, along with a new crop of players to form the core of the next U-15s (who would, in turn, be expected to graduate to the U-17s for the 2012 U-17 World Cup). Since the 2010 U-17 Women’s World Cup qualifiers were to be held in March, that would allow only 14 months to bring the team together.
The US U-17s did not start off their cycle very well. In 2009, they played three games in February against the German U-17s, and would come away with two losses and a draw. The good news was they were only shut out once, albeit in an 0-3 loss; the bad news – on top of not winning a single game – was that they gave up 6 goals in 3 games.
They would play two games in March and April; one game against Ajax of Los Angeles, a semi-pro club team, and one against the US U-18s. The team did better here: a 1-0 win against Ajax (their first of the cycle), and a 1-1 draw with the U-18s.
Also of note: up to this point, the four goals the U-17s scored came from four different players, only one of which – Isabel Farell – would make the final CONCACAF roster in 2010.
The U-17s would have two camps in June and July, and would then not come together again until December, when they traveled to Argentina to compete in four games against the Argentine U-17s and U-20s, and two combined U-17/U-20 teams from Chile and Uruguay. Some good came out of the summer camps, because the team would sweep the tournament; 16 goals scored, only one goal allowed. Five of the goals were scored by Morgan Brian, who had been on the roster of the 2008 U-17 World Cup team as a 15-year-old, and would be the captain for the 2010 U-17 CONCACAF qualifiers.
They would have two more camps in early 2010, in January and February, and then it would be the big moment: March 2010, Costa Rica: CONCACAF qualifying for the FIFA U-17 Women’s Worlds Cup.
Costa Rica
At the U-17 level, CONCACAF sends 3 teams to the Cup; however, the World Cup this year would be held in Trinidad & Tobago, who would automatically qualify as host, so this tournament would decide only the other two teams to go.
Historically, the US has been dominant in CONCACAF play, at all age levels. Never lost a match in qualifiers, never lost a game under any circumstances to any CONCACAF opponent but Canada. In fact, most opponents the US have faced in the region have never even scored against them.
But 2010 would turn out to be a watershed year, and while cracks had already appeared in the US U-20s, who played their own qualifiers just 6 weeks before, it was the U-17s who showed that the US could no longer assume it would compete in every World Cup, much less hope to win it.
The tournament consisted of eight teams, two groups of four each. Canada and Mexico would be in Group A; they would both expect to advance, but their most important test would be against each other, to determine who had to play the winner of the other group – an all-but-guaranteed United States.
With it’s two regional rivals in the other group, the US would face three ‘lighter’ opponents: Haiti, Cayman Islands, and Costa Rica. There was some question whether Haiti would even compete: they had just experienced a devastating earthquake in mid January, leaving many of the players on the roster orphaned and/or homeless. But in the end, they, too, came to Costa Rica.
There were 20 players named to the US roster:
GOALKEEPERS (3): Bryane Heaberlin (Clearwater Chargers; St. Petersburg, Fla.), Abby Smith (Dallas Texans; Dallas, Texas), Caroline Stanley (KCFC Alliance; Kansas City, Mo.)
DEFENDERS (5): Olivia Brannon (Michigan Jags; Troy, Mich.), Abby Dahlkemper (MVLA Avalanche; Menlo Park, Calif.), Jaelene Hinkle (Real Colorado; Denver, Colo.), Laura Liedle (San Diego Surf; San Diego, Calif.), Cari Roccaro (Albertson Fury; East Islip, N.Y.)
MIDFIELDERS (7): Morgan Brian (Ponte Vedra Storm; St. Simons Island, Ga.), Kaysie Clark (KC Select Scream; Liberty, Mo.), Alexandra Doll (Bethesda SC; Bethesda, Md.), Isabel Farrell (Crossfire; Bellevue, Wash.), Cassandra Pecht (Baltimore Bays; Mechanicsburg, Pa.), Kaili Torres (Ponte Vedra Storm; Orange Park, Fla.), Clarissa Wedemeyer (Dallas Texans; Colleyville, Texas)
FORWARDS (5): Jennifer Gonzalez (Arsenal FC; Alta Loma, Calif.), Lindsey Horan (Colorado Rush; Golden, Colo.), Havana Solaun (KYX Kicks Elite; Gainesville, Fla.), Taylor Smith (Solar Red; Ft. Worth, Texas), Ashley Spivey (Baltimore Soccer Bays; Baltimore, Md.)
In the two years of this cycle leading up to the tournament, there had been 9 rosters named, from the U15/U17 supercamp in January 2009, through various camps throughout 2009 and the trip to Argentina in December, to the CONCACAF tournament itself. Of the 20 players sent to Costa Rica, only 5 had been in each one of those rosters. 13 had been in the original supercamp – the start of the cycle, when the core of the team was determined. There’s a rough correlation between how often a player trained with the team, and how often they played in the qualifiers; those who played 4 or 5 games generally had been on at least 7 rosters.
There was a very notable set of exceptions to this rule: the forwards. The two forwards with the most experience with the team, Ashley Spivey (6 rosters), and Jennifer Gonzalez (5 rosters, and the only one of the five forwards in Costa Rica to go to Argentina), played the least: Spivey played in 2 games, Gonzalez just one. The other three forwards all saw action in each of the 5 games, but only one, Taylor Smith, had trained with the team before 2010 (in fact, Smith was the only forward of the nine at the January 2009 supercamp to make it to Costa Rica). The other two forwards, Lindsey Horan and Havana Solaun, had not been with the U-17s before the January 2010 camp; Horan had trained with the U-15 team in 2009 before being called up to the older team, while Solaun had never been in the US youth system before. And even more curiously, both Horan and Solaun had been listed as midfielders in their two prior camps with the U-17 team, while Spivey had been a midfielder through 2009.
In short: the US U-17s went to Costa Rica with an almost-new forward line, and one relying heavily on converted midfielders. This would have an obvious effect on how the team played, especially in the “big games” (all two of them). In stark contrast to the senior team and U-20s in 2010, the U-17s did not have a strong target forward, someone they could boot the ball up to when things weren’t going well. Instead, they would have to play their way out of trouble.
In another break with the usual US form, the U-17s played with just 3 defenders, packing the midfield and pushing possession further up towards the opposing goal. In fact, the US would pressure their opponent all over the field, and it was not unusual for there to be just 3 US players in their own end, and 2 of those 3 standing near the center line. It would have been very interesting to see the US carry this formation to the World Cup, and use it against such teams as Brazil, Japan and Germany, but… that was not to be.
By the end of the tournament, everyone on the roster has played in at least one game, but there was a core who started nearly every game:
- keeper Bryanne Heaberlin played in the two most important games, against Costa Rica and Canada, as well as the opener against Haiti
- central defender Abby Dahlkemper played every minute of the tournament – the only US player to do so
- defensive midfielder Clarissa Wedemeyer would play every minute before being subbed out for the second half of the final game; she would take nearly every free kick in the opposing end
- central midfielder and team captain Brian Morgan would play every minute except for the second half of the Cayman Islands game
- attacking midfielder Kaysie Clark would start every game, and would only be subbed out late in the first two group games
- the outside defenders (Brannon, Liedle, Hinkle) rotated games and halves, with Cari Roccaro filling in for either leftback or left mid
- left midfielder Torres saw action in every game, alternating halves with Cari Roccaro in most games
- right midfielder Doll missed just the Cayman Islands game, and the second half of the final game
First Game: Haiti
There are many things to not like about a soccer match between a team of privileged mostly-white American girls playing against a team of recently-orphaned Haitians half their size, and by no stretch of the imagination could it be called a ‘good’ match, but it still had to be played, and the US didn’t come to lose. I’m not going to go into too much detail on this game; you can see the full game archived at concacaf.com, or if you don’t have 90 minutes, there are game highlights (or the same highlights on YouTube).
This match would set the template for US starters: Bryane Heaberlin in net; Olivia Brannon, Abby Dahlkemper, and Jaelene Hinkle in back; Cari Roccaro at left mid and Alex Doll at right mid; Clarissa Wedemeyer, Morgan Brian, Kaysie Clark in the middle; and up top, Taylor Smith and Lindsey Horan.
From the opening kickoff against Haiti, the US followed the familiar pattern of not starting games well, and in particular, not starting tournaments well (see US WNT draw in 2007 Women’s World Cup, and loss in 2008 Olympics); they quickly lost the ball on an errant pass, and Haiti was in the US end. However, this would last less than a minute. US defensive mid Clarissa Wedemeyer tracked back to regain position, and while the team was still shaky for a minute or so, they put their first goal in at the 1:30 mark: forward Lindsey Horan picked up a bad clearance and pushed it through the Haitian back line, holding off her defender before crossing to an open Alexandra Doll, who one-touched it into the net.
The US was not playing well quite yet, but they were on the board. Having gotten that out of the way, they would settle down and start to work the ball around, focusing more on passing and controlling.
Haiti, like all of the teams the US faced aside from Canada, had a defender take all their goal kicks. This pushed the offside line all the way back into the 18 yard box, which meant that the US midfield could set up camp well past the center circle and run the game from there. Which they largely did. In contrast, the US U-20s, who had played their own CONCACAF qualifiers just 6 weeks before, and had faced the same situation, for the most part did not seize the opportunity, instead conceding the opponent’s home third and waiting for the ball to come out before making a play for it. The U-20s, like the senior team, would be more reactionary. The U-17s wouldn’t wait; wherever the ball was, they would try to win it, and keep it.
At half time, Kaili Torres would replace Roccaro at left mid. Isabel Farrell would sub in for Clark at 72′ (and would get an assist in her 20 minutes), and finally Havana Solaun replaced Doll at 81′.
The US would go on to win the game 9-0. Five players would score, including two goals for Taylor Smith and four for Lindsey Horan, as well as one for Cari Roccaro, playing at left mid (her one goal of the tournament). Another four players would get assists, including central defender Abby Dahlkemper (one of two she would get in the tournament), and defensive mid Clarissa Wedemeyer (her only assist).
Haiti was held to a single shot on goal, a free kick that sailed directly to the US keeper, Bryanne Heaberlin.
Not a good match, and not really an entertaining match, except that it showed that the US U-17s could play. They didn’t play down to the opponent (another problem the senior has been known to have). But more memorable than the game itself, and maybe even the reason you the reader have come here, is what happened after the game – Bryane Heaberlin sees fellow keeper Alexandra Coby being helped by her coach, and comes over with the rest of the US team to comfort her. The resulting group hug made a number of news outlets over the next few days; I actually heard about it before I could even check to see what the results of the match were.
ESPN E60 did a story on the Haitians, interviewing them in their hometowns, where many of them lived in the ruins of buildings, having lost their homes and families. At the end of the piece, they showed clips of the game against the US, and it’s like something from a ’80′s teen sports movie: towering blond white girls pushing plucky little ethnic girls around, scoring with impunity and practically sneering in celebration. But these Aryan uberfrauen redeem themselves in the last reel, when they come to comfort the distraught orphans. (This can be found on YouTube, and includes some post-game footage the concacaf.com archives do not.)
One win in the books, the US would turn next to Cayman Islands….
