Vlatko Andonovski will be hoping that over the next three months before the World Cup, some of his attacking players find their sharpness, because over two matches with Ireland, the U.S. women’s national team looked well short of its best.
Granted, the USWNT won both matches, 1-0 on Tuesday in St. Louis that had followed last Saturday’s 2-0 victory in Austin, Texas. But the only goal to come from an attacking player was Lindsey Horan’s penalty late in the first encounter. The other two came from defenders — Emily Fox and Alana Cook — with the latter goal providing the best possible birthday gift to Cook thanks to a goalkeeping blunder from Ireland’s Courtney Brosnan.
🎂 Birthday goals >>>>>>> pic.twitter.com/dAyEyG2CnZ
— U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (@USWNT) April 12, 2023
The good news was that the U.S. — as it so often does — found a way. If it requires defenders getting the goals, so be it. Pre-World Cup friendlies aren’t always the best barometer for how a team will fare either. (Does anyone remember the 0-0 tie with South Korea prior to the 2015 tournament?)
But Brosnan’s mistake aside, it was Ireland — not the U.S. — that improved the most over the course of two matches, and that is enough to give one pause. While the home team’s offensive struggles in…
