Sophia Smith’s two goals lead USWNT to dominant 2023 World Cup opener win
The duality of a U.S. Women’s National Team victory over Vietnam, which was about as guaranteed as Alabama football beating up on the like of Mercer, could be summed up in the timing of the first goal scored.
When Sophia Smith converted off a back-heel feed from Alex Morgan at the 14-minute mark to put the United States ahead, it was the quickest goal scored so far in the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
It was also later than the USWNT scored its opening goal in every single game of its 2019 title run, except the final.
Whether the eventual 3-0 win on Saturday in Auckland, New Zealand, which never once looked in doubt but wasn’t so crushing as it might have been, ends up foreboding doom or being the first step in a historic month is a question that can’t be answered yet.
For now, one can look through the kaleidoscope of 90 minutes against an inferior opponent and see whatever one wants.
“It’s a good place to start in this tournament,” Smith, who made her World Cup debut with a pair of goals and an assist, said on Fox’s broadcast. “But we have so much more to give, too.”
There was the aforementioned back-heel pass from Morgan, who added another assist later in the first half.
There was the penalty kick miss from Morgan, the team’s most venerated starter, in the 45th minute.
Her strike didn’t get enough velocity or elevation to make it past the feet of Vietnam’s diving goalkeeper, Tran Thi Kim Thanh.
There was Smith scoring a pair of goals to put the U.S. ahead 2-0 by halftime.
And there were a whole lot of chances all night on which the final shot was just a little bit too weak.
Lindsey Horan in particular missed the target a few too many times throughout the night before she finally scored into an open net off Smith’s 77th-minute feed.
Vietnam had almost zero meaningful possessions of the ball and failed to record a shot, and yet the victory was not the sort of ass-kicking the world has become accustomed to seeing the USWNT dish out on a World Cup stage.
It was an emphatic win without an emphatic score.
“I know we had some [chances] that we didn’t finish,” Julie Ertz, who surprisingly started on defense, said during the broadcast. “I think those are the opportunities for us that we need to have going further in the tournament.”
That is the reality in which the USWNT finds itself mired: still good enough to be considered world class and the favorite to win its third consecutive World Cup, but not so dominant as to be immune from something going haywire.
The opening match against Vietnam, a minnow making its Women’s World Cup debut, was never going to provide much of an answer as to where things will land.
The game Wednesday night (Eastern time) against the Netherlands, a rematch of the 2019 final, will carry far more cachet, both in benchmarking this USWNT squad and in determining where it will ultimately finish in the group stage.
Vietnam acquitted itself well, keeping the final score respectable by using a low block that forced the USWNT to work for everything it got, as well as with sterling goalkeeping.
It was never going to be the 13-0 thrashing the U.S. put on Thailand four years ago, but some sportsbooks still had a six-goal spread, which Vietnam easily covered.
For all the hot takes about sportsmanship that day against Thailand four years ago, 13 goals did all but ensure the U.S. would be ahead if anything were to come down to goal differential.
Three goals, plainly, do not, which could end up being the way this first game most impacts the USWNT’s tournament.
The ease with which the USWNT kept possession and passed the ball checked an important box.
The struggle to find that decisive final ball, not so much.
The victory revealed a blueprint that should give the younger members of the team confidence, with second-half cameos from Megan Rapinoe and Rose Lavelle that could be a regular feature of this World Cup run.
But it wasn’t as crisp as it might have been, and it wasn’t as stressful as it will be at some point between now and the Aug. 20 final.
“It’s good to have a game under our belt and to get a feel for it and know what to expect,” Smith said. “But we know the next two games are going to be hard.”
