United States women's national team manager Vlatko Andonovski praised Sophia Smith as "special" after the forward scored a first-half brace against Nigeria in her team's 4-0 victory Saturday.
"First and foremost, this is the best team in the world and in order to play on this team, you have to be one of the best in the world," Andonovski said.
"She is a special player and she's certainly developing aspects of her game that she maybe wasn't special in: ability to pop in pockets or to recognize those pockets and then expose the defense. For us as coaches, we're happy to see that because it gives us another layer or gives us an opportunity to create strategy in a way that we believe we can expose teams.