Lindsey Horan Scores and Roars: Lady Yanks Earn Draw With Dogged Dutch

WELLINGTON – The United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) were down-right lucky to get out of Wellington “Cake Tin” multi-purpose stadium with a tie yesterday afternoon. They needed every ounce of strength and fortitude to overcome an Oranje wave that almost wash the Lady Yanks out to sea.

Apparently, the Dutch took diligent notes on the USA-Vietnam game. Where the Vietnamese came after the United States with tooth and nail, the Dutch decided to added elbows, body blows and ankle bites for 95 minutes of world-class play before a spirited audience of only 27,312, that included United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, cheering from his well guarded VIP sky box.

The Netherlands scored first in the 17th minute of play. Jill Roord was unmarked at the top of the box. She received a perfect pass, then sent a rocket-of-a-shot past goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher. 

They went into the their changing room buoyed by a game plan that was working well. However, the United States came back onto the pitch with an attitude to content with.

They went on full attack and it wasn’t until Colorado’s Lindsey Horan had enough of being hard-challenged and blew a fuse, that she took matters into her own hands.  

In the 62nd minute of play, she leveled the game with a header heard around the world.

Rose Lavelle served up a corner kick that just missed Julie Ertz’s forehead, however, found Horan’s, who was stationed a yard behind Ertz.

“I don’t think you ever want to get me mad,” Horan said during here media conference. “Because I don’t react in a good way. Usually I just want something more. I want to win more; I want to score more; I want to do more for my team.”

Horan’s second goal of the tournament was preceded by a very deliberate tackle in front to the United States bench by of all players, her French club Olympique Lyonnais teammate Danielle van de Donk.

The spunky midfielder’s tackle brought out the medical staff to evaluate Horan. 

After a few minutes of pain management, Horan stood up and was boiling over like a stovetop tea kettle. She even gushed out several choice four-letter descriptives at van de Donk. 

“Dan is that type of player that, when she’s on my team, it’s incredible because she’s going to fight to the last second to win the game, and go into that last tackle, and that’s what she did,” Horan said. “Unfortunately, I did not take it in a good way, I got a little heated, and she got to hear it.”

Horan followed up with a healthy two-handed push during a set piece, and a tussle ensued.

Ultimately, referee Yoshimi Yamashita had to pull the two amped up foes to the side, and give them a good speaking too.

Horan didn’t take the lecture all to well. When asked about it during her press conference, she rolled her eyes and said she couldn’t remember much of it because it was just too long.

Knowing that Horan had earned a yellow, Julie Ertz quickly intervened. “She was like…. ‘Linds, don’t get another yellow card, just score this goal to shut everyone up,” Horan said. 

And shut up the Dutch Horan did. Her goal not only stunned the Oranje, but it brought a few thousand Red, White and Blue fans to their feet. And did they ever bang on there drums and do-si-do in the aisles.

The Yanks then doubled-up their attack and nearly took the lead when Alex Morgan slipped in a goal from within the box. However, the linesman raised her checkered flag and the pretty goal was called back for offsides.

Next in 82nd minute, Trinity Rodman uncorked a shot that had to much spin on it, and flew wide the far post. 

Next up was Sophia Smith. She scored twice against Vietnam, and in turn, was double and even triple defended by the Dutch throughout the game. She was able to get off of a high probability shot in the 87th minute, yet sailed just wide of the left post.

Prior to the postgame media assembly, many pundits were discussing why head coach Vlatko Andonovski did not deploy bench players, particularly in the second half when it became apparent that several starters were running on fumes. The lone change-out that he made was to send in Rose Lavelle in the second half.

When asked the question, he fired back with, “We were around the goal the whole time, and I just didn’t want to disrupt the rhythm at that point because sometimes a substitute comes in and it might take a minute or two to get into a rhythm…. We just didn’t want to jeopardize anything because I thought all three of our forwards were very good today, dangerous, created opportunities and were a handful.”

That is what is referred to as the coach’s prerogative.

Horan articulated her viewpoint of the game by saying, “The first half, we feel a little bit disappointed in how we played but I think we fixed things right away, the pressure that we got on, and the amount of chances and opportunities that came from it… I’m proud of the team and the response.”

Andonovski did say he expects that his team starts their game against Portugal where they left off with the Dutch.

“The baseline is the second half of this game,” he said. “And then as hopefully we move forward, we’re going to see a better and better U.S. team.”

Group E play will conclude Tuesday with the United States facing-off with Portugal back in Auckland. The Netherlands play Vietnam. 

The top two teams in the group will advance. The first-place finisher will gain preferable seeding in the Round of 16.

By the way, Horan and van de Donk made up after the final whistle. They embraced near middle field, laughed, then posted selfies on their social media accounts.

Now that is FIFA Women’s World Cup Soccer for you. Forgive and forget. Always a win-win proposition.

Photo Credit: John Babiak.

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