On Monday, the United States Women’s National Team suffered a pretty shocking loss at the hands of Concacaf rival Mexico, falling 2-0 in what was their first loss to Mexico since 2010 and only their second loss to the team in the history of the rivalry. And after the game, USWNT interim head coach Twila Kilgore explained what went wrong.
As Kilgore explained during her postgame press conference, both Mexico goals in the game came from restart moments. And Kilgore said those are areas where the team must improve going forward.
“First goal came from a goal kick and [we] probably should have taken care of the first ball, should have taken care of the second ball, had an opportunity to end play and then didn’t, and then in the second goal it came from a throw-in,” Kilgore said.
But more than that, Kilgore thinks that Mexico simply had a better plan heading into the game in addition to better execution.
“I think they had a good game plan, I think we had a good game plan. Simply, they just executed theirs better than ours,” Kilgore said. “Part of that does have to do with intensity but generally can be measured by things like tempo with the ball, but also defensive things like winning first tackles and winning second balls.”
Heading into the match, the USWNT had a 40-1-1 record over Mexico. Now, they can add another loss to that record.
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