MONTCLAIR, N.J. – Thursday’s United States women’s national team match falls smack in the middle of the inaugural National Women’s Soccer League season. It’s a friendly. It’s against the same team, Korea Republic, that the United States just handily defeated 4-1 on Saturday.
But its relevance is critical, particularly to Abby Wambach – and for more reasons than the obvious.
“People might say that these games are irrelevant and that they don’t matter, but it’s about putting ourselves in a position to learn more about each other every single match,” Wambach said after Tuesday’s training session, which lasted almost 2 ½ hot, humid hours.
“And if you do that consistently and if you commit yourself to learning about each other and how we are going to play this specific game, you give yourself a better chance of winning a World Cup, and for me that’s all I care about. That’s my focus and every single game does matter, no matter who we are playing, or how many times in a row we are playing them.”
Wambach is team-first — always. But the individual brilliance can’t be ignored. She is, of course, two goals away from tying Mia Hamm’s all-time international goal scoring record of 158. Wambach drew one closer on Saturday with a goal from the penalty spot in the final of 45-plus minutes. She’s likely to start on Thursday at Red Bull Arena (7:30 p.m. ET, on NBCSN and Live Extra), in no small part to help get on with the talk about her chase of the record.
“Of course I would love for it to be over and done with at some point. You never know what could happen – I’m an older player,” Wambach said, acknowledging, as always, that she has to earn time in the lineup first.
“I’ll be glad when it’s over so we can all stop talking about it and move on to 2015.”
U.S. coach Tom Sermanni agrees that it would be good to end the hype and hone in on putting together a “focused” 90-minute team effort.
“It would be nice to kind of get it out of the way, because it’s one of those constant things that’s now been talked about for six months – a long time,” Sermanni said. “So it would be good to get it out of the way, get it off the table and focus on going forward.”
If Wambach doesn’t tie or break the record – something very possible against a Korea Republic team that proved shaky in the back on Saturday – she’ll have to wait until September. The national team will take a break until the National Women’s Soccer League season ends on August 31.
She’ll certainly get her chances, though. Sermanni says that “if she feels up to 90 minutes,” then she’ll play.
For club and country
Sermanni will likely make several changes to the starting lineup that played against the same opponent six nights earlier. Part of that comes with managing a team based primarily on NWSL players. Sermanni is well aware of the full weekend ahead of league play, including the Portland Thorns FC-Sky Blue FC matchup. Both teams are tied for first with identical 8-2-1 records.
While Sky Blue coach Jim Gabarra said he has had dialogue with Sermanni to get an idea of how Thursday may play out, Thorns coach Cindy Parlow Cone says she hasn’t contacted the U.S. skipper, “and that’s by design.”
Combine Sermanni’s awareness of Saturday’s match just down the Garden State Parkway (which Thorns forward Alex Morgan could be available for) with his noting how Sydney Leroux has been “on fire” in training and Leroux could line up next to Wambach to start Thursday’s match.
Hope Solo is likely to start in net, but won’t play the full 90 minutes.
Thursday will also mark the first time Megan Rapinoe has played on U.S. soil professionally or internationally since Feb. 13, when she scored in a 3-1 win over Scotland.
