U.S. women’s national team coach Tony DiCicco announced his World Cup roster, with nine veterans from the 1991 World Championship team making the squad.
The wait is over for about 30 players who had hoped to make the U.S. women’s World Cup roster.
On May 2, still more than one month before the start of the World Cup, U.S. head coach Tony DiCicco announced the 20 players he will be taking to the championship this summer in Sweden.
“It was obviously very difficult,” DiCicco said. “All the players I think could have contributed in Sweden. Certainly, we probably have 12 players who are going to be on anyone’s team. It’s basically what we’re looking for for players to fit in.”
The roster includes nine players from the 1991 World Championship team —
Michelle Akers, Carin Gabarra, Mary Harvey, Linda Hamilton, Mia Hamm, Joy Fawcett, Julie Foudy, Kristine Lilly and Carla Overbeck — and two players who could have made the ’91 team — Tisha Venturini, who was busy winning her first college championship that year, and Amanda Cromwell, one of the last cuts.
There were perhaps two surprises.
After earlier saying he would take only two goalkeepers, DiCicco decided to bring three of the four who had been under consideration — Briana Scurry, who has been the regular starter for the U.S. since 1994; Saskia Webber, Scurry’s backup; and Harvey, whose leadership and experience from the 1991 tournament in China may have been her edge. Only Jen Mead was not on the list.
“We decided in the last couple of spots we needed leadership, we needed experience, we needed a special quality,” DiCicco said. “It came down to Mary Harvey; she gave us all of that…. She’s been in a World Championship. She’s been in a final in front of 65,000 people and handled it.”
He added that concerns about being shorthanded in goal helped him to make his decision.
“You come out and make a tackle on a player, you get red carded and you’re out two games,” DiCicco said. “Having said that, if it was an 18-player roster there’s no way you could bring three keepers. If you have a 22-player roster you have to bring three.”
There’s no guarantee Harvey or even Webber will see any playing time, however. In China, the U.S. coaches stuck with the starter, Harvey, through every game, and, DiCicco says, he would like to do the same this time.
To bolster the frontline, the coaching staff added Debbie Keller, a sophomore at North Carolina. Keller was one of the top college players in the country last year and perhaps the best at holding the ball with her back to goal.
The 5-4 forward scored 26 goals and dished out 27 assists in her two years at Chapel Hill, where she’s won two NCAA championships.
Along with Tiffeny Milbrett and Sarah Rafanelli — who recently resigned her assistant coaching position at Stanford– Keller will back up Akers, Hamm and Carin Gabarra.
Keller has yet to appear in a full international for the U.S. and didn’t travel with the team in its last three trips, but she has been training at the U.S. women’s Florida camp, where she impressed the U.S. coaches.
“Without question, she played herself onto the team,” DiCicco said. “She’s very tactical and kept doing things we just couldn’t ignore. She gives us a boost as far as holding the ball and making the right decisions with it.”
Thin in back
The midfield is strong with Venturini and ’91 veterans Foudy and Lilly. The most recent addition is Tiffany Roberts, the youngest member of the team who turned 18 May 5. With Foudy and Venturini in the middle and Lilly and Roberts on the flanks, the U.S. should dominate most teams in the middle of the field.
The midfield reserves are Cromwell, Santa Clara’s Jen Lalor and Notre Dame’s Holly Manthei.
The U.S. normally plays three in the back, which is good because only four defenders made the squad. Overbeck, Fawcett and Hamilton all return from the ’91 team, while N.C. State’s Thori Staples, who has been suffering from an injured ankle the last few months, will be going to her first World Cup.
Only bringing four defenders may leave the U.S. a little thin, especially considering the short turnaround between games. But one of the strengths of this team is its versatility. Roberts can play in the back and even Hamm — who played some as a defender in last year’s Algarve Cup — could be used in a pinch. Hamm and Fawcett, DiCicco says, could also be used at outside midfielder.
“With six games in 13 days, you have to look at all your options,” he added.
Staci Wilson, a speedy, tenacious man-marker, could have brought some depth to the backfield and even on the flanks, but hers was perhaps the only real surprise omission.
Other players who had been brought into the Florida camp but didn’t make the roster included defenders Jessica Fischer (Stanford) and Keri Sanchez (UNC), midfielders Danielle Egan (UNC) and Dina Padula (Virginia), and forwards Natalie Neaton (William & Mary) and Shannon MacMillan (Portland).
DiCicco says the players who didn’t make it handled the decision well.
“What a class group of kids,” he said. “I think some of them sort of saw it, because they didn’t go to Portugal or France. Other ones had questions and wanted to know the basis of our decisions. I’m comfortable with the decision I made.”
by Soccer America Associate Editor Dean Caparaz