With the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup still a few years away, U.S. women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes has ample time to experiment and test her lineup with different solutions to various scenarios. One scenario she’ll undoubtedly want to find solutions to is breaking down low- to mid-block defenses.
The tried-and-tested trio of Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson has been successful against most opposition sides but from what we saw in the Olympics, there were still games where the three struggled and were marked out of the game. Japan and Germany in particular exploited these deficiencies in the U.S. team’s system by ensuring they held their positions defensively and blocking the counter-attack.
Hayes has tried a few variations of attacking lineups — with Yazmeen Ryan, Lynn Williams, Emma Sears, and Alyssa Thompson all featuring — but one individual that has stood out from the bunch is Jaedyn Shaw. The San Diego Wave player is primarily an attacking…