It’s the end of the calendar year for the U.S. women’s national team, with 2022 performances all wrapped up in a bow. Naturally, that also means it’s time for end-of-year report cards to evaluate how each player did in the run-up to the 2023 World Cup.

Again, a quick set of criteria: Despite the team’s first three-game losing streak in decades, the U.S. lost only three games total in 2022. A failing grade would indicate a player is wildly unprepared for the game at this level, which is not something we saw from the group playing the lion’s share of minutes this year. Likewise, an A+ indicates a player with all-star, team-on-their-back, best-in-the-world status.

Throughout this series, which will grade players by position, I’m going to avoid those who didn’t get minutes in 2022 and those who have missed significant time due to injury.

So far, we’ve graded the goalkeepers, outside backs and center-backs. Now, let’s take a look at the defensive midfield position.

Lindsey Horan – B+

Even your average USWNT fan will tell you that Lindsey Horan is not a No. 6, a fact that makes her 2022 all the more impressive. Horan carried extra responsibilities this year, stretching herself positionally and stepping into a leadership role in the midfield. At times, Horan sat deeper to assist in the defensive midfield while also connecting lines with the attack.

Horan is still one of the best players in the world when it comes to reading space and putting opposing defenses under pressure. Her grade comes from doing an admirable job with a difficult task. Horan does not typically play as the lone defensive midfielder: She’s had a No. 6 partner with Olympique Lyon and a No. 8 partner with Portland. For the U.S., she’s a little bit of both, and it can take her out of games at times. Still, she remains a locked-in starter for the foreseeable future, as long as her lingering knee issue doesn’t flare up at the wrong moment.

Andi Sullivan – B

Whether Sullivan is the answer for the USWNT’s pure defensive midfield position is one of the team’s biggest questions going into 2023. She took on heavy responsibility this year, trailing only Alana Cook and Sophia Smith in minutes. Grading Sullivan requires evaluating how the U.S. uses the defensive midfield role itself, as she would sometimes find herself taken out of the game in possession and struggling to know when to step defensively.

I don’t think Sullivan is the inherent issue, but rather the way she is deployed. Sullivan’s ceiling at the club level is in the A range, but it’s still unclear whether that excellence can carry over to the international stage. Instead of being asked to move the ball quickly in transition, if Sullivan can become part of the possession triangle with the two center-backs, she could be an infinitely more dangerous weapon.

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Sam Coffey made a splash at the club and international level in 2022. (Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Sam Coffey – B

A true rookie in a new position, Coffey has been slowly working her way into the USWNT system and hasn’t gotten enough experience to be clearly evaluated at the international level. Coffey had an excellent season with the 2022 NWSL champion Portland Thorns, but she played in only four international matches. Three of those matches were losses to England, Spain and Germany, during which she was a favored 60th-minute substitute. Neither Sullivan nor Coffey has the ability to solve the U.S. midfield on their own, and their like-for-like substitutions have disrupted the possibility of the two playing together in a double-pivot formation.

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Jaelin Howell has seemed to fall out of favor with the U.S. after a standout college career. (Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)

Jaelin Howell – Incomplete

Coffey’s ascension appears to have put Howell’s development on the back-burner. The 2022 No. 2 draft pick failed to make her way back into USWNT camp late in the year despite multiple injuries. Howell had a Julie Ertz-like physical profile while playing for Florida State and needed to cover a large cross-section of space in her rookie season with Racing Louisville. Louisville’s on-field struggles seemed to have an adverse effect on Howell’s place on the U.S. depth chart. She has the style that seems to fit Vlatko Andonovski’s vision for the No. 6 position, but she has not had the chance to show she can execute it at the international level.

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

The U.S. women’s national team was staring down a possible four-game losing streak when they faced Germany on Sunday for the second time in four days. With second-half goals from Sophia Smith and Mallory Pugh, the USWNT won 2-1, snapping their first three-game losing streak since 1993 and salvaging a historically bad skid.

A game-winning goal from Pugh was nothing new, but the reason the team was able to build up to that goal in the first place certainly was.

Under head coach Vlatko Andonovski, the U.S. has implemented a 4-3-3 formation in which Andi Sullivan plays as the lone six and Lindsey Horan and Rose Lavelle push higher up in the midfield. The structure has left the USWNT vulnerable to breakdowns in defending and controlling the play while they await the return of Julie Ertz, the team’s longtime staple at holding midfield.

On Sunday, however, Horan dropped lower into the midfield in the second half, allowing Sullivan to be more involved in the play and try for more tackles.

“At that point, we started taking the game over,” head coach Vlatko Andonovski said of the change.

Pugh’s goal was a direct result of that adjustment. A minute after Smith scored in the 54th minute, Sullivan controlled the ball in the midfield while Horan covered the space to her left. Sullivan then sent a long ball to the top of Germany’s 18-yard box, where Pugh ran onto it, blasted by two players and put the U.S. up 2-1.

The play before that, Sullivan had missed a tackle and Pugh didn’t hesitate to let her know.

“That woke me up, and I was like, ‘I need to do better, I need to make the tackle,’” Sullivan said.

The team had talked at halftime about needing to force more turnovers as a unit.

“I think we did a good job at looking at each other and demanding more from each other,” Sullivan added.

The USWNT came alive in the second half, and the midfield began to play more consistently than it had in recent losses to England, Spain and Germany on Thursday.

Despite a head-on collision in the 21st minute that kept Sullivan down for nearly four minutes and resulted in a bloody nose, the 26-year-old served as the defensive anchor through all 83 minutes she played.

“I think what’s been building for us is a little bit more fluidity and being able to rotate and me feeling more confident in stepping out, whether that’s to get on the ball, or defensively trusting that they’re going to fill in behind me, or vice versa,” Sullivan said. “I think we have a really good relationship.”

Andonovski wouldn’t say whether he would experiment with playing two midfielders defensively in future games, but he recognized the immediate return they saw from the change.

“Obviously we are going to do our analysis and see why that worked and what was the response on the opponent,” the coach said.

The USWNT won’t return to the field until January, when they travel to New Zealand for a pair of friendlies and expect several reinforcements to work their way back into the lineup.

Jessa Braun is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering the NWSL and USWNT. Follow her on Twitter @jessabraun.

The U.S. Women’s National Team came out of the locker room energized Monday, dictating the tempo early against Canada to clinch a 1-0 victory and the Concacaf W Championship trophy.

Following the win, Andi Sullivan credited the way the team gelled throughout the tournament final to the culture that materialized during the Monterrey, Mexico camp.

“I almost get emotional because the vibes with the team are really incredible,” USWNT midfielder Andi Sullivan said. “The blend between the senior leaders and the young players — for some, it’s their first tournament, or for some players, this is their umpteenth tournament — and I think that blend is incredible.”

While the Concacaf roster featured plenty of new faces, it also included veterans like Alex Morgan, who notched the USWNT’s lone goal against Canada, earning the tournament’s Golden Boot award.

“That energy today was almost like, after a long trip, a long tournament, one of the most joyous days that we had was today,” Sullivan added. “And I think that speaks a lot about this group, and I think we got to celebrate that a lot on the field and after the game.”

Much has been made about the environment cultivated by the USWNT in the past, with Carli Lloyd opening up to Hope Solo on the veteran goalkeeper’s podcast in March about the team’s ethos.

“Even within our squad, the culture has changed,” Lloyd said. “It was really tough and challenging to play these last several years. To be quite honest, I hated it. It wasn’t fun going in.”

The postmortem analysis of the team’s underperformance at the Tokyo Olympics revealed a potential internal struggle as well.

“I feel like we haven’t had our joy, a little bit,” Megan Rapinoe said. “I think football always needs joy. I think that’s when the game is really played at its best, is when we have that. And yeah, I feel like we haven’t been able to do that. Everything’s just been a little bit of a struggle.”

Despite missing a series of chances, in the final third, the USWNT looked joyous during its title matchup with Canada, playing with vitality and urgency.

“We were able to maintain a superb environment and really positive environment, lots of energy and enthusiasm,” head coach Vlatko Andonovski told reporters after the match. “We came out in the last game of the tournament after being in a hotel for a month with the best energy they have had.”

The USWNT’s Concacaf trophy secures the team a 2024 Olympic berth, with the squad qualifying for the 2023 World Cup earlier in the tournament.

Andi Sullivan doesn’t believe the NWSL Challenge Cup should continue in its current format, adding her voice to the growing chorus of people with criticisms of the preseason tournament.

Sullivan, along with Emily Sonnett and Trinity Rodman, sat down with teammate Kelley O’Hara for a wide-ranging discussion on The Players’ Pod ahead of the Washington Spirit’s May 4 semifinal against OL Reign.

“I think the timing and the format is not the best,” Sullivan told O’Hara. “Obviously in 2020, it was kind of like what we had to do, and I think we are forcing it a little bit to keep it around. I think it needs to be updated to either be shorter or spaced out throughout the season.”

The inaugural Challenge Cup marked the NWSL’s return to competition amid the COVID-19 pandemic, hosted in a bubble in Utah during the summer of 2020. The tournament has since evolved into a preseason fixture, and the knockout rounds coincide with the start of the regular season.

“We’re calling it a preseason tournament, but it’s also a chance to win a trophy, and I think it’s unclear what it really is,” Sullivan said. “I think it’s been very frustrating to have three games in seven days starting off the season.

“I think it needs a lot of revision.”

O’Hara agreed with Sullivan’s assessment, calling the tournament’s rigorous schedule “quite dangerous.”

The scheduling of the Spirit’s semifinal game against OL Reign drew much of the backlash. The Reign, the No. 1 seed coming out of the group stage, were forced to host the game in Washington, D.C. because Lumen Field, their home stadium in Seattle, was occupied by the Seattle Sounders. The semifinal then only moved from the 5,000-seat Segra Field to Audi Field, a 20,000-capacity stadium, when the NWSL reached an agreement with the Aspen Institute, which was hosting an all-day summit at the field that day.

The Spirit won the game to advance to the Challenge Cup final, setting them up to play three games in one week and forcing them to postpone their regular season game originally scheduled for that day.

“Now we are playing Seattle on Sunday for the regular-season opener, play them on Wednesday for the Challenge Cup semi, and then we play them again in May at Seattle, so we will be done playing Seattle three times in one month and won’t see them again for the rest of the season. I just think that is poorly planned,” Sullivan said.

The Spirit lost to the North Carolina Courage 2-1 last Saturday in a physical Challenge Cup final.

With both sides appearing fatigued after a grueling start to the season, the game featured multiple sloppy tackles that went uncalled. Toward the end of the match, Jordan Baggett appeared to lose consciousness after a hard collision, and players had to frantically call for medical staff before helping them push the stretcher onto the field.

Listen to the latest episode of The Players’ Pod for more of the Spirit players’ insights on the league.

Washington Spirit midfielder Andi Sullivan is speaking out about the NWSL club’s ownership saga, which came to a dramatic conclusion this week.

Michele Kang acquired the Spirit from Bill Lynch and Steve Baldwin, the team announced Tuesday, after a months-long public battle for control of the club.

“It’s a huge relief just to know things are settled,” Sullivan told reporters during the USWNT’s SheBelieves media availability Friday, adding, “Very excited for the future under Michele Kang… Everyone feels similarly.”

The Washington Spirit players have been vocal in their support for Kang, penning a letter to former owner Baldwin in October demanding he sell the club to her.

“The person we trust is Michele,” the players wrote. “She continuously puts players’ needs and interests first. She listens. She believes that this can be a profitable business and you have always said you intended to hand the team over to female ownership. That moment is now.”

Despite the players’ wishes, the ownership dispute ensued for the remainder of the NWSL season and into the 2022 preseason.

“Once we wrote the public letter, we were excited and thought that would make things go faster,” said Sullivan.

The front-office power struggle began when former head coach Richie Burke was fired amid verbal and emotional abuse allegations. A subsequent NWSL investigation uncovered a toxic work culture for female employees at the club.

“That has been very stressful and tumultuous,” Sullivan said of the ownership saga, “It’s just a huge relief.”

The Washington Spirit will kick off their 2022 campaign on March 19, taking on the Orlando Pride in their Challenge Cup opener.

Washington Spirit captain Andi Sullivan has strong ties to Washington D.C., having grown up in the area after moving from Hawaii at two years old.

Sullivan’s husband, D.C. United’s Drew Skundrich, is also from the D.C. area and likewise plays in front of his home crowd at Audi Field.

The two took D.C. United on a tour of their hometown, revealing how they met and discussing what it means to represent D.C. together.

Before moving back home, Sullivan and Skundrich met while playing soccer at Sandford, having been introduced by Skundrich’s teammates. Now married and living in D.C., Sullivan says, “It’s been cool for us because it’s the first place that we’re living together and we can see ourselves here for a long time.”

Sullivan and Skundrich also share a workplace, with United and the Spirit playing at the same facilities.

“It’s so funny to run into each other at Audi (Field), it kind of reminds me of when we first started dating in college,” says Sullivan.

When the two married, Sullivan said she didn’t want to change the name on the back of her jersey. Instead, the Spirit captain took the number 12, honoring Skundrich’s college jersey. Eventually, the number opened up on D.C. United as well, with Skundrich and Sullivan now sharing a number.

“This is special, this is pretty fun,” says Sullivan of the shared number.

Sullivan and the Spirit will play the North Carolina Courage on Sunday at Audi Field in the team’s quarterfinal match.

Andi Sullivan is taking advantage of the moment.

While her journey to the U.S. women’s national team has been riddled with injuries, Sullivan has kept pushing. Against Paraguay in September, she scored her first two international goals for the USWNT.

On Tuesday, Sullivan factored heavily into the team’s 6-0 win over Korea Republic. She anchored the midfield and helped secure an own goal off Korea in the 45th minute to give the USWNT a 2-0 lead.

The game was Carli Lloyd’s last with the USWNT, marking the start of a new era centered on the younger generation, including the 25-year-old Sullivan.

“It’s been an emotional couple of weeks, and has sparked a lot of reflection and a lot of memories, a lot of conversations, and a lot of talks about the future,” she said. “Right now, I feel like we’re really enjoying this moment.”

Andi Sullivan looks to be on the verge of becoming a mainstay on the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

In a 9-0 victory over Paraguay on Thursday, the midfielder scored her first two international goals for the USWNT, had an assist and was third in votes for the Woman of the Match.

The USWNT plays Paraguay again on Tuesday — an opportunity for Sullivan to put a period on the statement she made in Thursday’s game.

“I think this a great opportunity for me to try to weasel my way in here, and it’s tough, but I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Sullivan said. “I wouldn’t want it to be easy.”

The 25-year-old made the starting 11 in the first game as the lone central midfielder. U.S. head coach Vlatko Andonovski was satisfied with her performance and said she’ll have a similar role on Tuesday.

“The only difference is we’re going to ask her to be just a little bit more aggressive with her passing and look for more penetrating passes,” he said.

On Thursday, Sullivan was the USWNT’s second-best passer, connecting on 92 percent of her 54 passes. She was also the second-best shooter, hitting three of her four shots on target.

Sullivan is no rookie to international play. Getting her first cap with the senior team in 2016, she’s been on and off the rosters since. Injuries have been a problem, including a torn ACL in 2016, a torn meniscus in 2020 on the same knee and a quad injury in January 2021.

“It’s been quite a journey, but if you look around at every player here, every player has had injury struggles and good timing and bad timing and I think my story is no different, and it’s not over,” said Sullivan.

Andonovski made it clear, even before the first match against Paraguay, that Sullivan would get lots of playing time during the fall series, with both Julie Ertz and Lindsey Horan being sidelined by injuries. The USWNT coach says the level of skill and success he’s seen from his younger players in the NWSL this season is what inspired him call them into camp. Sullivan has three assists and a passing success rate of 82.9 per cent with the Washington Spirit.

The Spirit have had issues recently with the league’s COVID-19 protocols, that including four positive cases on the team. Washington was forced to forfeit their two latest games against Portland Thorns FC and OL Reign, and after Thursday’s game. Meanwhile, a power struggle between co-owners threatens to throw the club into further chaos.

“It’s rare that this environment is less stressful than my club environment, but that’s the case for me right now,” said Sullivan of the Spirit situation. “Just super excited to get into camp, great to have some great training, and get to play a game.”

Andonovski said he was “very well aware” of how the Washington situation might be affecting his players mentally, and said that coming to camp might have been the escape Sullivan and her Spirit teammates needed.

“We find that all three of them – Kelley [O’Hara], Andi and [Emily] Sonnett – to be in very good spirits,” he said. “They’re excited to be in camp.”

The USWNT’s second match against Paraguay is Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. ET in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sullivan says the game is important for herself and the team in establishing good habits as they begin preparations for the 2023 FIFA World Cup, with qualifiers beginning later this year.

The USWNT’s 9-0 blowout against Paraguay may have lacked suspense, but there was plenty of off-field drama to make up for the lopsided scoreline.

The National Team’s Thursday matchup was the squad’s first since the Tokyo Olympics and came only a day after a Twitter spat broke out between U.S. Soccer and the USWNT Players Association.

The federation and players’ years-long battle over equal pay hit an inflection point this month after U.S. Soccer announced on Sept. 14 that it would be offering identical contract proposals to the Women’s and Men’s National Teams, encouraging the men and women to negotiate together on FIFA prize money.

The USWNT Players Association quickly responded, calling the move by U.S. Soccer a “PR Stunt.” U.S. Soccer then hit back on Wednesday, taking aim at the “LFG” documentary chronicling the team’s equal pay fight, Tweeting, “A publicity stunt is a 90-minute one-sided movie.”

The public disagreement between the federation and players was a topic of conversation after the USWNT’s international friendly, with The Athletic’s Steph Yang asking Andi Sullivan after the match about the CBA negotiations.

“I think there’s tremendous strength in this team’s ability to focus. This isn’t the first time we’ve had conflict. We just focus on business and obviously we did that tonight. That’s all I’ll say on that,” said Sullivan.

Alongside Spirit teammates Kelley O’Hara and Emily Sonnett, the midfielder is also contending with turmoil within her club team. Washington has been forced to forfeit two NWSL games, one against the Thorns and another against OL Reign, after violating league COIVD-19 protocols.

“It’s rare that I would say that this environment is less stressful than our club environment, but that’s the case for me right now, so I’m just super excited to get into camp,” said Sullivan in response to Jason Anderson’s question on the Spirit saga.

“Great to have some great training and to play a game. I was just joking with Kelley in the locker room, like ‘When was our last game?’… Hopefully we won’t have any of those issues going forward. So, happy to be here and to get to play,” Sullivan added.

Despite the off-field distractions, Sullivan notched her first two international goals, making a strong case for herself in the defensive midfield position.

After being left off of the Tokyo Olympic team roster, Andi Sullivan returned to the field for the United States women’s national team Thursday night and scored her first two international goals in a 9-0 win over Paraguay.

In the starting lineup for her first game back, the midfielder didn’t take long to find the back of the net.

In the 25th minute, Sullivan tapped one in off of a corner kick for the first goal of her USWNT career.

In the 49th minute, Sullivan scored her second goal of the night to secure the brace.

Andonovski had high praise for Sullivan, 25, entering the USWNT’s fall camp.

“I think she’s going to come in and have no problem adjusting to what we’re trying to do,” he said on Wednesday. “In these two games, I’m pretty sure we’re going to see Andi on the field and we’re going to see her getting a lot of minutes.”

Sullivan exceeded those expectations Thursday night as the only player to notch multiple goals besides Carli Lloyd, who had five.

After the game, Sullivan said it was a relief to rejoin the national team after a tumultuous season with the Washington Spirit. The club fired its head coach, Richie Burke, in August after a report detailed multiple allegations of verbal and emotional abuse toward players. Since then, the Spirit have had to forfeit two games following a COVID-19 outbreak within the team. The NWSL also fined the club $25,000 for violating COVID-19 protocols.

“It’s rare that I would say this environment (the USWNT) is less stressful than our club environment, but that’s the case for me right now,” Sullivan said. “I’m just super excited to get into camp.”

Lynn Williams and Tobin Heath also scored in the win. The USWNT made a statement on the field in the wake of social media controversy over U.S. Soccer’s equal contract proposals.

“I think there’s tremendous strength in this team’s ability to focus,” Sullivan said about the CBA tweets. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had conflict. We just focus on business, and obviously we did that tonight. That’s all I’ll say on that.”

The U.S. will play Paraguay again on Tuesday in Cincinnati.