Following the wins over Haiti and Cayman Islands, the final group match the US Under-17 Women’s National Team would face in 2010 CONCACAF Women’s World Cup qualifying would be against the host team, Costa Rica.
This was the match-up the US was looking forward to, against their toughest opponent in the group. The first two matches shouldn’t have been in much doubt (and weren’t), but this one would determine the group winner.
The full match is archived at concacaf.com, or you can watch just the highlights on YouTube.
A True Away Game
This game would be different. Not only would the US be facing the home team, but that home team would have fans in the stands – a reported 1,700 of them (compared to the estimated – and probably generous – 250 for other matches), which, in a rather small stadium, would make for a hostile environment.
On top of the regional rivalry, this would be a pivotal group match – the winner would be on top of Group B, and would face the second-place team in Group A. Since the final Group A match – between the USA’s regional rivals Canada and Mexico – would not be played until the following day, the assumption at the time would be that the winner would face Mexico, seen as an easier opponent than Canada. The thinking, I imagine, is that if you have trouble with Costa Rica, you are in deep trouble against Mexico or Canada.
Costa Rica holds the distinction of being the only team that the US faced in all three World Cup qualifying tournaments in 2010: the U-20s in Guatemala at the end of January, just 6 weeks before these matches; the U-17s here in Costa Rica; and the senior teams, in Cancún, Mexico in November, qualifying for the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany. At the U-20 level, the Canadians lost their semifinal, and so didn’t meet the US in the final. At the senior level, the US lost their semifinal, and so didn’t meet Canada in the final. And here, the US would lose to Canada in the semifinal while Mexico would win the other semi, so USA and Mexico never faced each other.
In fact, because of the upsets in the various semifinals, Costa Rica would actually face the US five times in just three tournaments; in an odd parallel between the senior team and these U-17s, both would face Costa Rica in the first round to determine group winner, then again in the 3rd place match. In those four games, Costa Rica would never manage to score a single goal against the US. But in the one match with the U-20s in the semifinals, the result would be 2-1… a close call for the US, and a foreshadowing of what would happen with that team in their World Cup.
In addition to that distinction, Costa Rica women’s soccer program had one player who played for all three teams in 2010: Raquel Rodriguez Cedeño. She also played for the U-17s in 2008, and represented her country at both the 2008 U-17 and 2010 U-20 Women’s World Cups.
And the player who scored that single goal for Costa Rica in five matches against the USA? Raquel Rodriguez Cedeño, with the U-20s (you can see it at 1:35 here; it’s a good one).
As it would turn out, in another parallel with the senior team, Cedeño would not play in the group match (she drew two yellows in her first two matches, and would have to sit this one out), although she would play against the US later, in the 3rd place match.
Starters And A Blackout
The starters and subs would be identical to the squad that faced Haiti, with one exception in a second half substitute. Heaberlin in goal; Dahlkemper, Hinkle and Brannon (after sitting out the previous game) in back; Wedemeyer, Morgan and Clark up the middle of the field; Doll back at right midfield and Roccaro at left, both after sitting out against Cayman Islands; and Horan and Smith (who was a sub in the last game) up top.
Costa Rica, for their part, would field four players who had also played for their U-20s just weeks before, despite benching Cedeño: Maria Gamboa, Maria Moreira, the wonderfully-named Angelica De Los Angeles Fallas (just A. Fallas on the roster) and the fabulously-named Fabiola Maria Sanchez Jimenez (aka F. Sanchez). Watching these matches the first time, I recognized Sanchez from the U-20 tournament weeks before. A vocal and demonstrative captain, there was a point in the first half, down several goals, when she can be seen exasperatedly gesturing to her gathered teammates.
Starting the match, the USA was again a little rough (this seems to be a national affliction). But in fairness, Costa Rica was a different class of opponent, quicker to react and smarter on the ball. And they pressured; instead of standing off and trying to block passes and runs, they tackled directly, and with some success. Unlike the first two games, US players were finding themselves on the ground, and the ball suddenly going the other way.
However, the Ticas couldn’t possess for very long themselves, as much as they tried. So within a few minutes, the two teams fell into a rhythm: US with a few passes, then tackled away or the ball knocked out. Repeat.
This match also showcased something that had come up several times before: bad throw-ins. Around 6′, the US had a throw-in that was whistled; the throw-in for Costa Rica the other way was then also whistled. The third attempt, by the US again, was finally deemed acceptable, and play resumed. The US would get called for bad throw-ins six times in this match alone. If there’s anything this group needed to work on, it would be that. By the end of the tournament, US players were almost miming throw-ins in slow-motion: both feet on the ground – check, both hands on the ball – check, ball directly over head - check. I’m surprised some of them weren’t called for excessive sarcasm – the throw-in equivalent of a slow clap.
There were a few real chances for the US early on. In the first minute, a short corner kick played to Wedemeyer, who sent it across the box where Dahlkemper (in her usual role as set-piece goal-crasher) just got a glancing touch with her head at the far post. A better touch and it would be USA 1-0 in the second minute again.
The next highlight (0:30) shows the game for the first few minutes pretty well; good ball movement from the US, a scramble in the box, and a good save from the keeper. You can see that Costa Rica is gaining from this; while they’re chasing the ball and madly fending off attacks, they’re also succeeding at it. If one Tica missed it, or two, or even three, then there’s a fourth and fifth to fill in. They know if they can survive this for a while, the match will turn. And the push from the crowd must have been inspiring; a nearly full stadium, all for them, waving flags, booing calls against the Ticas, jeering every call against the US.
And so, for the first ten minutes, it looked like a game. But then the momentum was stopped cold: the highlights show this (0:40), but it’s been neatly edited out of the full match in the archive: around 9:15, several of the banks of floodlights went out, delaying the game for about 30 minutes (strangely, the same thing would happen when the US faced Costa Rica a second time, 6 days later).
Very shortly after the restart, the US would score its first goal. Roccaro would win the ball on the right side of midfield, pass it to Horan, who would evade two defenders with some nice footwork before getting the ball back to Roccaro, now running toward the corner; she would send a high cross to the far post, where Doll would touch it back to Smith in front of goal. A simple header into the open net, and the US is one goal up. The keeper was frozen covering the post, but there were two defenders standing in the box not covering Smith. This US team did a good job of spreading the ball around the field, one side to the other, into the box and back out again. If a player is left open or a single defender tries to cover them, that player will go to goal. If they’re double or triple teamed, there’s an open player on the other side. That’s a lot of chasing for a defense to have to do, and when they lose focus – ten minutes into the game – it leaves the net open.
The reaction to the goal by the US is very telling; this would be their biggest celebration. After the Cayman Islands game, Morgan Brian was interviewed and asked about who the US might meet in the semifinals, Canada or Mexico. She replied, curtly, that they weren’t looking that far ahead, and were focused only on Costa Rica. Here they were, and now the US were up a goal. Kudos to the editor who put the highlights together for including the celebration; the girls surely worked hard to come up with that.
So, a cold restart in the tenth minute produces the same result as the first two matches: the US a goal up before the defense can solidify. Now the Americans can settle into their possession, and their opponent would have to either chase the game more aggressively, leaving themselves even more open, or concede a loss and simply try to keep it from being too embarrassing.
To Costa Rica’s credit, they did not concede, not for a while anyway. One goal and they’d be tied up. And they had the entire stadium on their side.
The coverage of all these games from Costa Rica was pretty thorough – wide high shots, sideline and endline cameras, plenty of replays. In this case, they showed the US goal and celebration to such an extent that when they returned to live play, the ball was already being passed around by the US backs, with no Ticas in sight. The game of soccer gives the team down a chance to get back into it, but this wasn’t Costa Rica’s day.
The next goal, three minutes later, would be from Taylor Smith again, this time from her foot. After a long period of US possession, Costa Rica cleared out a cross which fell to Olivia Brannon – the right fullback, now standing well inside the opposing half – who sent it right into the box, where Taylor was able to settle it before either the keeper could come out or the defenders could track back, and a half-volley put it in. There was some question about Taylor being offside, but replays (not in the highlights) showed the Costa Rican left back was slow to come up after the earlier clearance. For Costa Rica to prevail, everyone would have to step up, figuratively and literally, and twice in 5 minutes they had been too slow.
Now down two goals, they got their first real chance a few minutes later, around 15:30. A long ball from the Tican defense – really, more clearance than deliberate direction – fell to US back Brannon, whose touch failed her; it fell right to a Costa Rican player, who sent another long ball to a forward now running to goal, center back Dahlkemper right with her. But it was too much, and US keeper Heaberlin easily scooped it up.
Possibly, if the field had not been artificial, this would have worked out better for the home team. It seemed, by the end of the tournament, that the field was tailor-made for the US. Or rather, that the US made it their own; they just seemed to adjust to the high bounces and the endless rolls, as well as the dimensions of the field, making fluke plays look like deliberate skill.
This is odd, as Costa Rica was the home team, and was understandably looking forward to the home-field advantage.
(This also makes the moment at 1:20 on the highlights even more alarming; that’s not grass and dirt that Brannon drops Smith onto!)
Minute 18: US 3-0. Kaysie Clark with the first of her four assists – after dribbling through the back line, a nice ball sent just between the defense and the keeper – and Alex Doll with her first goal – coming in far post to tap it in. Both would have great games that night.
Goal number 4 (27′) was unusual for the US in this tournament: directly off a free kick, earned by Lindsey Horan as she was tripped just outside the box, trying to dribble right through the defense. Morgan Brian would take this one; normally, most free kicks were taken by defensive mid Clarissa Wedemeyer, who would send it in to the box for taller US players like Horan and Brian to head it in. This being so close to goal, Brian took it direct, curving it over the right side of the wall and just inside the left post. The keeper got a hand on it, but not enough.
Returning now to the issue of bad throw-ins… At 33:05, during a stop in play (the Costa Rica keeper needed attention after the above-noted free kick), the US players were gathered near the centerline, and you can see Roccaro mime a throw-in to the others, then three players – Roccaro, Clark and I think Brannon, who had been called at least three times for this – walked over to the assistant referee on that side, I presume to ask about this issue. Play resumed very shortly after, and as did the bad throw-ins, so I guess they couldn’t get that resolved. But good to see them pro-active about it.
Around 35′, Costa Rica had a few more chances. A US hand ball gave them a free kick just on their side of the centerline. A long kick from there would be handled easily and cleared, but very shortly after another free kick, this time in the US half, would be more promising. This time into the box, it was cleared out by Dahlkemper, but with what looked like a handball. The crowd very noisily thought so, at least. But replays (really: good coverage) showed it was off her chest, not her arm. In any case, Costa Rica earned yet another free kick shortly after, but couldn’t make anything of it.
By 37:25, the ball was going back the other way: a clearance puts the ball with Taylor Smith at the centerline, and she’s off to the races across an empty field. Unfortunately for her, she would not get another goal this half.
The US midfield was working well, as always. Key to this – as always – was Morgan Brian. But during this match, her shooting was off. Everything else about her game was humming along – she controlled the ball well, made the right passes at the right time, and could dribble out of danger on her own. But she tried numerous long shots against Costa Rica, from 20 yards or more, and all would high. Her free kick at 18′ was brilliant. During the run of play, however, her shots were off, ever since the fifth goal against Haiti.
40′ would see another bad moment for the US, giving Costa Rica another chance. A couple bad touches in the US back line, Dahlkemper whiffed on a ball, and then Heaberlin shanked the clearance, giving Costa Rica a throw-in. Fortunately for the US, Costa Rica had lost some energy by this point, being down by four goals and chasing the entire time. US would regain possession shortly after.
The sequence leading up to the fifth goal, starting at 43′, is really nice; the highlights only give the final pass and goal. It started with the Costa Rican goal kick which bounced to right back Hinkle, who sends it up to where Doll is running up the left side, in to Clark at the top of the box, over to Taylor just to her left. A quick pass from there to Brian’s right foot, cuts is back to her left and shoots toward the right corner; the keeper dives and pushes it aside, but Horan chases it in to the right side of the 6-yard box, and half-volleys it almost back past her own left hip and into the net. The keeper’s momentum kept her going the wrong way, and it was too high for the defender standing on the line. A good sequence, and a very nice strike (1:55 on the highlights – recommended).
With Costa Rica attacking quite a bit more than their previous opponents, and in a more sophisticated way, the US defense had a bit more to do. In addition to Dahlkemper at center back, I was impressed by Clarissa Wedemeyer just in front of her, at defensive mid. Despite her size – listed as 5′-3″ – she went after every ball in her area, in the air or on the ground, and won nearly all of them, even against two players. Her role there, and how she filled it, would be highlighted more in the next two games, but almost more so by her absence (explanation in posts to follow). In any case, it’s clearer in this game, and reminds me that her position is entirely absent from the senior team, with foreseeable results.
But here, on this day, the first half was coming to a close, and Costa Rica would get one last chance before the whistle blew. Horan would earn a corner kick after some nice footwork in the box, getting a shot around a tight defender, which was pushed just outside the right post by the keeper. The resulting corner kick would be headed way out, with Brannon and a Costa Rican forward both vying for it about 35 yards from goal. As with all set plays, the US center-back Dahlkemper had come into the box, so when Brannon tripped over the feet of the forward, that left just right-back Hinkle, tracking back up the middle of the field, as the only person between the ball and the goal. Fortunately, the forward (I can’t tell who it is), wasn’t the fastest, and Brannon was able to catch up just as a Hinkle intercepted and took the ball away. A faster player – or one who wasn’t as tired – would have forced Heaberlin to deal with it in goal.
Second Half, and Two More Firsts
The only change for the US to start the second half was to substitute Kaili Torres for Roccaro on the right side of midfield – the same pattern as the first game, while Torres had played the entire second game.
And the first ten minutes of this half looked a bit like the first ten of the first half: US with trouble possessing, including some bad giveaways in back. Costa Rica was pressuring well and cutting off passes, keeping the US from mounting any kind of attack.
Kaysie Clark would turn it around at 53′: she would win the ball in the middle of the field and turn to goal, passing it off to Taylor Smith, who slipped up and fumbled the return pass, but Clark – her momentum toward goal now lost – recovered and knocked it back to Smith again. The defenders had mostly tracked back by this point, so Smith simply took a shot from there, about 22 yards out, putting it over the surprised keeper for goal number six – her third and last goal for the night.
58′: Jennifer Gonzalez subs in for Taylor Smith. This would be the only game for Gonzalez – or J-Go, as she was nicknamed. With this substitution, every single field player for the US would have playing time, as well as two of the three goalkeepers.
By this point, Gonzalez would be the only field player without at least one goal or assist – Olivia Brannon had earned her assist on the 15′ goal in the first half. By the end of the match, this would no longer be the case.
The seventh goal (67′) , by Kaili Torres, came after a long sequence starting with a Costa Rica free kick, sent into the US box. Brannon settled it and sent it to Clark, who knocked it on to Horan; she turned toward goal from about 30 yards away and dribbled to the right side of the box, her defender staying right with her the whole way. Blocked there, she turned and played it way back to Brannon; the two worked it around before sending it back to Dahlkemper, who switched it over to the right side, where Hinkle found space and dribbled toward goal, passed it to Doll, on to Brian who slipped a pass in to Torres inside the box. Her shot from there was blocked by a defender, but it bounced off a second defender and right back to her; the ball popped up off her Torres’ foot, so she half-volleyed it from there – over the leaping keeper, glancing off the underside of the crossbar and down into the goal before spinning back out. (Replay of her strike at 2:26 of the highlights; very nice.)
Costa Rica probably felt by this point like they couldn’t catch a break; one unfortunate bounce after another, one small slip-up exploited (on top of the big slip-ups), one big chance wasted. This was reinforced just two minutes later, with the eighth goal: Brannon put a ball through the back line to a running Kaysie Clark, but it ran long and right to the rushing keeper, who unforunately bobbled it; Clark, having overrun her, ran back around the scrambling keeper and poked the ball right to a onrushing Horan, who knocked it over two defenders and in.
Disheartening, surely.
77′: Gonzalez gets her goal. Clark won a Costa Rican throw-in deep in the US half and booted it up to the center, where it bounced over a Tica’s head and fell to Gonzalez, who’s faster than her defender (or not as tired). It’s her and the keeper at that point, and she beats the keeper low. This would be Clark’s fourth assist for the night. US 9-0 CRC.
By this point, Costa Rica was at least more aggressive in defending throw-ins; Horan, who was winning most of them in the first half, could no longer count on that. Defenders finally figured the timing down, and would tackle as the ball was received.
At 82′, Horan was subbed out for Havana Solaun, the other very tall forward with good foot skill. Not something the Tica’s probably wanted to see.
And Solaun would have a part in the final goal. In fact, every player aside from the goalkeeper had a part in the sequence, working the ball from one side to the other, into the box and back out again before finally finishing it. That tenth goal (85′) would be one of the most impressive, from a team possession standpoint, if it wasn’t against an exhausted and demoralized opponent. Just the final seconds that make the highlights (2:55) are impressive; Gonzalez cuts inside a defender on the right side and crosses it in, Torres one-touches it to Brian, who settles it and puts it inside the left post. Bing bang boom.
And finally, game over. USA 10, Costa Rica 0.
By the final whistle, Costa Rica has registered one shot on goal: a free kick that sailed directly to Heaberlin. That, along with ten goals from the US, makes the highlights look necessarily lopsided. It was a closer game than it appeared to be, though, particularly in the first 20-25 minutes, before the US had really gotten up to speed. Not to take anything away from the US, who worked as hard as a U-17 team could, but they seemed to be able to do no wrong in this game - the US players took nearly opportunity they got and made good on it - while the Ticas struggled at every turn. What little luck they got kept it from being 15 goal game.
Luck – or fortune, or fate – would turn shortly for the US, however.
Next: a fateful semifinal meeting with a surprise opponent: Canada. Winner would go to the World Cup, loser would not.
