If the old adage goes that defense wins championships, U.S. women’s national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski might be taking his faith in the statement a little too far.

The U.S. has given up only one goal so far in the 2023 World Cup, on a single shot on goal. But they’ve also looked disjointed in possession and frantic in the attack en route to a second-place finish in their group.

Despite the legacy of the USWNT’s “Department of Defense,” fans weren’t expecting a defensive lockdown of this magnitude going into the World Cup. As different players with varying strengths rotated in and out of the backline in the lead-up to the tournament, the odd mistake in the defense became a regular occurrence and, to Andonovski, a risk worth taking.

There was a feeling that the team was willing to live or die by their defensive mistakes in the pursuit of strengthening the attack. But what Andonovski has actually prioritized under the glare of the spotlight is shoring up the team’s backline issues at the steep cost of freedom in front of the defense.

A hyper-conservative game plan to limit shots on goal is both a problem the U.S. is having trouble solving and their current lifeline. It doesn’t appear to be a mistake as much as an intentional gamble. But it’s a gamble the USWNT players are not accustomed to executing, even under Andonovski’s management.

The loss of reliable contributors

Injuries to USWNT forwards have rightly gotten a fair amount of attention, but the team’s group stage suggests that Andonovski’s current approach is a way to offset absences in the defense.

What the U.S. defense is missing, as compared to 2019 or even 2021, is the result of incremental loss. While Abby Dahlkemper wasn’t available for selection due to her ongoing recovery from back surgery, other players have been in and out of match fitness. Tierna Davidson returned from her ACL injury in 2023, but was unable to claim her spot as the heir apparent to a USWNT center-back role. Captain Becky Sauerbrunn played sporadically to begin the 2023 NWSL season, and the variable nature of her recovery kept her off the roster entirely.

Other members of the defense are clearly important to team chemistry but cannot get on the field consistently. Kelley O’Hara’s influence on the USWNT is clear, with her leading the huddle after the team’s disappointing draw with Portugal to close out the group stage. But her return to soccer fitness has not been linear in 2023 — before departing for the World Cup, she even played in an attacking role for Gotham FC because she was not getting minutes on their backline.

So Dahlkemper, Davidson and Sauerbrunn are not in camp, and O’Hara’s role is tied more to off-field contributions. O’Hara and Sauerbrunn’s limitations are a consequence of the passing of time and the USWNT’s inability to develop heirs to match their skill sets. Dahlkemper and Davidson’s absences are the result of the twists of fate that saw other notable teammates miss out on a World Cup opportunity.

A lack of confidence in new faces

Two players who rounded out the top five in minutes played for the USWNT in 2022 were center-back Alana Cook and outside-back Sofia Huerta. Both made the 2023 World Cup roster but have yet to make an impact on the field: Huerta played seven minutes against Vietnam, and Cook hasn’t seen the field at all.

Based on their 2022 contributions, their very limited roles at the World Cup might surprise, but the writing has quietly been on the wall in recent months. At the end of 2022, Andonovski began pairing Naomi Girma and Sauerbrunn together consistently, after previously rotating them at left center-back and giving Cook heavy minutes on the right.

The sample size was small enough to register as experimentation, but it could now be read as a coach sensing that Cook’s reaction times in key moments weren’t going to be reliable enough against top competition. In Sauerbrunn’s absence, Andonovski has now seemingly replaced Cook with Julie Ertz, making a conscious decision to prioritize the defense over the midfield and trusting the two-time World Cup champion in partnership with Girma.

Huerta is on the team as a crossing specialist, a player who makes up in attacking generation what she gives up in 1v1 defending. Signs in the early stages of the tournament are that Andonovski feels more comfortable with Emily Fox out of position on the right side of the field than getting Huerta settled in games that make sense for her abilities. Emily Sonnett also appears to be a player Andonovski brought to see games out in their final stages, and not as a reliable starter.

The benefit of a conservative approach

There have been clear positives to the way the U.S. has locked down its defensive roles. The USWNT has given up just the one goal, their xG against ranks fourth among the entire World Cup field, and goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher has not had to register a single save so far in the tournament.

That last point is probably a statistic Andonovski has taken very seriously, based on Naeher’s struggles with the Chicago Red Stars this season. The USWNT goalkeeper player pool is more wide open than ever, but the best-performing American keepers statistically (outside of third keeper Aubrey Kingsbury) are not with the team right now. Again, experience and leadership have taken priority over clearing the way for a brand-new goalkeeping core based on current shot-stopping ability.

Naeher is the player Andonovski wants organizing his defense, and she has progressed year after year with distribution with the ball at her feet. But the USWNT’s hopes for clean sheets seem to rely on her seeing as few shots on goal as possible, which the team so far has been achieving (the one shot on target they did face, against the Netherlands, went in for a goal).

Ertz actually recorded the most impressive save of the group stage, putting in a crucial block against the Netherlands that saved a point for the team and a place in the knockout rounds.

The overwhelming cost of limited freedom

The cost of Andonovski’s approach appears to be everything else that’s recognizable about the USWNT right now. They’ve ceded control of the midfield almost by design, with a resignation that Ertz will control tempo from a deep-lying position. It’s taken further control away from Andi Sullivan, who has lacked reliable passing outlets when she has the ball and struggled to execute a defensive press without it.

With the understanding that the midfield is not intended to hold the ball, Andonovski’s creative players have been tasked with melting into the attack. At times against Portugal, the U.S. lined up with four or five players on their opponent’s backline, waiting for deep-lying players to provide long-ball service without the creative runs necessary to create space.

Andonovski has also settled on playing both of his outside-backs out of position, which has appeared to limit Crystal Dunn and Emily Fox in their movement. Dunn, of course, is a creative midfielder for the Portland Thorns, and Fox plays most freely on the left for the North Carolina Courage. Both players have been mindful of their defensive assignments to a fault in the group stage, sitting back against Vietnam and staying wide rather than filling empty midfield spaces against the Netherlands and Portugal.

Tactics have also taken a toll on the USWNT’s vaunted mentality. As players process their positional assignments in real time, those split-second moments of doubt have disrupted the team’s defensive press and ball progression. Rather than being empowered to play to the team’s strengths, players seem preoccupied with the weaknesses. Those weaknesses are also on display in the team’s substitution patterns, with Andonovski lacking trust in those he brought with him and leaving the team’s depth unused.

Andonovski’s transformation of the U.S. into a team that grinds out results based on conservative tactics is both an indictment of his management of the team over the last four years, and an objective assessment of the team he has constructed. If the U.S. bows out in the Round of 16, he’ll have to answer for both his preparation and his approach.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

The Chicago Sky showed up in a big way on Tuesday night, taking down 2023 WNBA Finals runners-up New York Liberty by an impressively wide margin. 

The Sky walked away with a 101-53 win, boasting a 48 point swing that still looms large despite the fact that it's only preseason. Perhaps the team felt extra pressure to perform — not only did WNBA League Pass follow through on their promise to stream the game for free, but Chicago Bears rookies Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze also happened to be watching on from the stands.

“I’m gonna just say — it’s about time," said Sky guard Dana Evans in response to the star-studded turnout at Wintrust Arena. "Everybody wants to watch women’s basketball. I feel like we’ve been doing a really good job of doing stuff on the court and off the court. So just having them support us is great — but keep bringing them out."

Chicago's Marina Mabrey was lights out with four threes and 20 points on the night, while training camp addition Chennedy Carter racked up 11 points and two steals. 

Sky rookie Angel Reese proved that she can do it all, putting up 13 points, five rebounds, and two steals in 19 minutes — all less than 24 hours after she walked the Met Gala red carpet in New York. The 6-foot-3 top draft pick out of LSU even knocked down a layup over 2023 WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart in one of the night's many highlights.

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"So now yall can delete them drafts & tweets saying i shouldn’t have gone to the met gala & i can’t do both," she later wrote on social media. 

While some may chalk it up to preseason coaching choices and the fact that it was the Liberty’s first real game outside of training camp scrimmages, New York head coach Sandy Brondello still voiced disappointed in her team’s result.

"We just got our butts kicked, everywhere. I mean everything. It’s an embarrassing effort, I don’t care that it’s preseason," she said in a postgame press conference. "Our starters didn't get us off to a good start. We missed a lot of layups early, but they just took us out of everything."

On a lighter note, the third-year Liberty coach had some kind words for undrafted rookie Jaylyn Sherrod, who showed real effort on defense.

"She has speed," remarked Brondello. "She could guard Dana Evans. No one else could."

As the WNBA plans to implement league-wide charter flights, the NWSL is struggling with some travel issues of its own. 

Missed flights, inclement weather, and a stretch of midweek games have spurred workload and logistical concerns for a number of NWSL teams. Last week, three games were played Wednesday night, while another three games are set to be played tonight. 

"You can't play your best XI right now because of the amount of games you have," said Red Stars head coach Lorne Donaldson after last Wednesday's 4-2 loss to Washington. Donaldson emphasized the importance of rotating through the team’s depth so as to avoid injury.

"You have to get to about 16 deep where you can," he continued. "Or else your best XI is going to be injured or walk off the field and they can’t finish the season."

Kansas City has faced some of the league's most extreme turnaround times this season. On Sunday, the Current missed an evening flight to Seattle due to a multi-hour rain delay in Houston, throwing off their training schedule ahead of their midweek match against the Reign. The NWSL eventually gave them the green light to charter a plane, but not before frustration spread throughout the team.

"We lost the whole day of the opportunity to recover," said Current head coach Vlatko Andonovski after the Current's weekend draw against the Dash. "So the schedule, it's already challenging to begin with. We have by far the worst schedule in the league, and this just made it even worse.

"We don't have a hotel, we got to figure out a hotel. We don't have flights for tomorrow, we got to figure out flights. We had trainings for some players that we believe needed training time to be able to perform on Wednesday.”

While the team was given permission to charter a plane, navigating such approvals has proven difficult in the past. This past July, the NWSL fined Kansas City $55,000 over the unauthorized use of a charter flight.

Recently retired WNBA superstar Candace Parker has her next gig lined up: president of women’s basketball at Adidas.

Parker announced her retirement at the end of April, bringing a close to a 16-year professional career spanning three WNBA championship titles with three different teams. And now, she’s stepping into a slightly different role — this time off the court — with longtime sponsor Adidas.

"The brand and I have grown together, and we’ve done some amazing things," she told Fast Company in an exclusive interview published Wednesday morning. "I’m excited about what the future holds on this side of things, because I’m so passionate about growing the game of basketball."

Parker initially signed with Adidas at the end of her first professional season in 2008, going on to spend the vast majority of her illustrious WNBA career linked to the German athletic brand. In 2010, she became the first woman to receive a signature Adidas shoe: the ACE Commander.

Her most recent Adidas collaborations include basketball sneakers Exhibit B (2022) and Exhibit Select (2023) in a variety of different colorways, as well as limited edition off-court apparel.

In 2022, Parker led a mentorship program for the brand’s first class of NIL-sponsored college athletes, a stacked roster that involved the likes of rising star Hailey Van Lith, among others. In her new position, she’ll be "overseeing pretty much everything" when it comes to the brand’s women’s basketball operations.

That "everything" includes weighing in on shoe and clothing design, navigating new and existing athlete partnerships, and taking control of Adidas' grassroots growth strategies. She’ll also help with "how we actually speak to the women’s basketball consumer," Eric Wise, who leads the brand’s global basketball business, told Fast Company.

According to Parker, the decision to accept the offer hinged on her desire to be more than just "the face" of Adidas women’s basketball.

"I said to [Adidas], 'I don’t want to be a mascot,'" Parker said. "'I really want to be in the meetings, and I want to be a part of making decisions.'"

Charter flights are on the horizon for the WNBA, with commissioner Cathy Engelbert saying on Tuesday that the league will provide teams with full-time private travel services beginning as soon as this season. 

The move is set to address years of player safety concerns, among other issues. Engelbert told AP Sports Editors that the league aims to launch the program "as soon as we can logistically get planes in place."

The initiative is projected to cost around $25 million per year over the next two seasons.

The WNBA has previously provided charter flights on a limited basis, including during the postseason and when teams were scheduled to play back-to-back regular season games. Individual owners seeking to independently provide their teams with private travel — such as the New York Liberty’s Joe and Clara Wu Tsai back in 2022 — faced significant fines for using unauthorized charters.

While players and team staff have been calling for league-wide charters even before Caitlin Clark and other high profile rookies joined the league, Engelbert has routinely cited steep year-to-year costs as the reasoning behind sticking to commercial flights. 

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However, the WNBA's surging popularity means increased visibility, and a subsequent uptick in security concerns — especially when it comes to big name newcomers like Clark — has Englebert reconsidering her previous decision. 

WNBA Players Association president Nneka Ogwumike called the move "transformational," and credited the WNBPA as well as the league for its implementation. 

"Our league is growing, the demand for women's basketball is growing," Ogwumike told ESPN. "That means more eyes on us, which is what we want, but that means more protection from the organization that we play for, the whole W that we play for.

"Chartering flights not only is a safety measure, the biggest thing, and then obviously what it means to be able to play a game and go home and rest and recover and be the elite athletes that we try to be every single night when we step out onto this court."

Aces coach Becky Hammon called the immediate response to the charter announcement "great" but noted that there are still kinks to be worked out. 

"What it all looks like, we’re still gathering information, we don’t know," she said Tuesday.

Several players emphasized the importance of safety, highlighting how last season the Phoenix Mercury’s Brittney Griner was harassed in an airport while traveling commercial.

"All these players and these faces are becoming so popular that it really is about that as much as it as about recovery," Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said.

"Above everything else, I think it's the safety of our players," Mercury player Natasha Cloud added. "We have a prime example with BG on our team that needs to be safe. At airports, it's like a madhouse. You see Caitlin Clark walking through airports, people following her, people trying to touch her, get pictures with her. It's just a safety measure, through and through. You would never have an NBA team walk through an airport."

Prior to Tuesday's announcement, the league had said it would charter flights for the playoffs and back-to-back games via a program introduced last year. The latest news, however, promises that teams will also be provided charters to and from all regular season games.

"Our safety is being taken seriously now, finally. In no world should our security not be a priority," Griner told ESPN. "If we want to be the league that we want to be and have the respect that we have, it comes with some risks. Sometimes people want to get close to you and it's not people you want, so I'm just glad that we don't have to deal with that anymore."