uswnt roster drop: the fun & the curious

The USWNT' as a three-match Olympic Victory Tour coming up so that means it was roster drop time. And roster drop time means opinions, thoughts, and reactions. The one caveat is the CBA stipulation that all players on the Olympic roster had to be invited to this camp, which explains most of it. But unlike the silly Olympic rule of just 18 players and 4 alternates, this squad is 26 players deep.

The new roster spots, combined with the pain caves that led to a gold medal but came with a cost, meant that there were quite a few more spots for Hayes to play around with. Trinity Rodman, Crystal Dunn, Tierna Davidson and Croix Bethune are out due to injury or excused absence. Hayes stated in her presser that she wants to play nice with NWSL teams to minimize the impact of national team duty, so we should see a decent amount of rotation.

Given a bit more wiggle room than expected, Hayes’ decisions on who to call up turned out to be quite fun, but with a dash of curious behavior as well. Let’s review.

The Fun

Ashley Sanchez

She was done so dirty by Vlatko, getting her back involved is the biggest no-brainer of all time. I once wrote that it’s so hard for defenses to cope with Ashley Sanchez because I’m not entirely sure she always knows what she’s going to do next. In North Carolina they’ve done a good job of allowing her to keep that unpredictability while developing passing patterns to take advantage of her movement and dribbling ability.

Of all players who have played 1,500 minutes, Sanchez is fifth in total expected goals assisted xGA. The only players above her are Trinity Rodman, Debinha, Croix Bethune and Racheal Kundananji. Sanchez had a rough period, but she is an outrageous talent and it will be extremely good to see her snatching ankles in a USWNT shirt again.