This sounds churlish, probably because it is, but the United States defeating South Africa 3-0 yesterday was an average performance. Passing to feet and opening up spaces with movement were lacking and while South Africa rarely broke out of their own half, they also helped keep Alex Morgan and Tobin Heath out of the game, for which the USWNT didn’t particularly have any answers. Three goals is great! And there were good things about those goals, which we’ll get into below, but there were also things that you hope are simply the result of the team wanting to stay low-key and not go completely fast and furious in a pre-World Cup friendly.
4 takeaways from USA vs South Africa: let Ertz be Ertz?
