Since being named coach of the United States women’s soccer team last November, Pia Sundhage’s spoken goal is obvious — guide the Americans to a second consecutive Olympic gold medal.
An unofficial objective may be to get her players’ passports stamped on every page.
Before they played their first game state-side this year, the team played tournaments in China, Portugal and Mexico. Tonight’s exhibition game against Canada at RFK Stadium concludes a three-game domestic trip.
“It’s a little more travel than we’re accustomed to,” forward Heather O’Reilly said. “The travel is a grind, but we’re getting good games out of it.”
Before the Beijing Olympics, Team USA will play the Peace Queen Cup in Korea and also play tune-up matches in Sweden.
“The more teams you play against with different personnel and different formations, the more prepared you are when it comes to the Olympics to play against everyone,” veteran defender Kate Markgraf said after a training session earlier this week at Georgetown. “It gives us a chance to play against teams that wonderful in the attack and can defend.”
Sundhage figured the way for players to get acclimated to her style of play (which focuses on ball possession) and their new roles (like captain Christie Rampona moving from outside to central defense) was to face other teams.
Since opening the year in January, Team USA has played 10 national teams.
“Previously in residency camps, we trained more against ourselves and obviously it’s very tough competition knowing this group, but games are very important and Pia emphasizes that by having two more international trips before the big one,” O’Reilly said.
The Big One is the 12-team Olympic tournament. Team USA will begin competition Aug. 6 against Norway in Qinhuangdao, China. The top two teams in each of the four pools advance to the quarterfinals.
The transition to Sundhage’s coaching style has been a success — the Americans are 12-0-1 this year and won three tournaments: The Four Nations in China, the Algarve Cup in Portugal and the Olympic qualifying tournament in Mexico.
In the first two games of this mini-tour, Team USA beat Australia 3-2 in Cary, N.C., and 5-4 in Birmingham, Ala. This year, Abby Wambach (a former Washington Freedom star) leads the team with nine goals. Lindsay Tarpley has seven and Natasha Kai six.
Canada, which will be making its first Olympic appearance in women’s soccer, hasn’t played since April 12, a shootout loss to the United States. The Americans won the teams’ first matchup 4-0 on Jan. 16.
“Anytime you’ve already played a team and then face them again, you’re looking to improve on some of the weaknesses from the last game,” Markgraf said. “We’re going to work on keeping possession more, winning more of the air balls in the back and not dropping off so much when they do play a more direct style.”
Although the team will get some time at home after tonight’s game, their bags will be packed soon enough — the Peace Cup event in Korea is a month away.
“We’re on this journey right now under new leadership,” O’Reilly said. “We’re playing a bit of a new style and every game, we’re looking for progress and to add some new pieces. We’ve faced Canada a lot, but they might be a team we play in the Olympics, so any opportunity we get to play them and see what works and what doesn’t work is good.”
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