Australia beat the United States women’s national team for the very first time in Seattle last night, taking it 1-0 off a Tameka Butt goal. It was an inauspicious start to the Tournament of Nations for the USWNT; to unpack the result of this game means reconciling that it both means something that the US lost, and also that it doesn’t mean that much that we lost. Let’s jump into that dichotomy.
In a press conference before this game, Jill Ellis said that she wants to continue experimenting through September. That takes the team through the rest of the Tournament of Nations and two friendlies with New Zealand.