Few surprises as U.S. women's World Cup roster is revealed
United States women’s national team head coach Jill Ellis has announced her Women’s World Cup squad for the 2015 edition up in Canada this summer, doing so a full six weeks before the May 28 deadline. On Tuesday, she announced her 23-woman squad, which is a favorite to claim its third title and its first since 1999.
Drawn into the difficult Group D, the USA will begin its tournament against Australia on June 8, followed by June 12 and June 16 contests against Sweden and Nigeria, respectively. From there on, the rest of the tournament takes on a single-elimination format from the round of 16 through the July 5 final in Vancouver.
There were few surprises in the team, which is listed in full below. Defenders Rachel van Hollebeke (neé Buehler) and Crystal Dunn had been strong candidates to make the team but were hampered by injury. And veteran midfielder Shannon Boxx had seemed like a longshot for a while, following a year missed to pregnancy and injury, but she had reasserted herself lately.
The only real twist, then, was that Ellis announced her squad as early as she did. “I feel like we’ve vetted the process well,” she said on a conference call following the announcement. “I felt very comfortable with the players selected.”
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“The other part of it is having the league in the month of April,” Ellis added, referring to the new National Women’s Soccer League season, which has just begun and in which all her players are active except for Abby Wambach. “[I wanted] to put the players in a good place before the season starts, to let them know. Certainly going into the send-off games [in May] I wanted to have 23. It made sense to do it now.”
Ellis, who was installed as interim head coach in April of last year after the firing of Tom Sermanni and made full-time the following month, has had a series of extended camps, friendlies and tournaments to assess her players. Clearly, she values stability and focus on the World Cup over a continued competition for roster spots. This makes a certain amount of sense, given the depth of the team. The competition will now simply shift to getting onto the field and preserving the intensity in camp.
In one recent camp Hope Solo, the team’s controversial superstar goalkeeper, got herself in yet more trouble. Her husband, Jerramy Stephens, was arrested for DUI while driving a team van with Solo in the passenger seat. Solo didn’t inform U.S. Soccer about the incident and was suspended for a month. Not much earlier, a domestic violence case brought against her by her half-sister and nephew had been dismissed in Washington.
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There were questions about Solo’s reinstatement, considering her long history of misbehavior. But she made the team anyway, having convinced Ellis that she’ll comply with team rules. “She’s been fantastic, been a great teammate,” the head coach said. “And things are moving forward very, very well.”
In 55 days, the Americans kick off their World Cup. As of Tuesday, they know the names they’ll be doing it with.
Full squad:
Goalkeepers: Hope Solo, Ashlyn Harris, Alyssa Naeher
Defenders: Christie Rampone, Becky Sauerbrunn, Meghan Klingenberg, Ali Krieger, Julie Johnston, Lori Chalupny, Whitney Engen, Kelley O’Hara
Midfielders: Lauren Holiday, Carli Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe, Shannon Boxx, Morgan Brian, Tobin Heath, Heather O’Reilly
Attackers: Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan, Sydney Leroux, Christen Press, Amy Rodriguez
