Sunday, June 06, 2021

U.S. Women's National Team 2021 spotlight: Defenders

By Jennifer Edwards
Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved 

HOUSTON, TEXAS (June 6, 2021) The United States Women’s National Team will host the Summer Series as a gear-up to the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan later this summer. National Team coach, Vlatko Andonovski, has named his 23-player roster and today we will spotlight the defenders. 

The United States defense is arguably the best in the world, this is largely in part to the defender line staying in-tact through the last four World Cup cycles. Andonovski gave the nod to the following players: Alana Cook of Paris Saint-Germain, Abby Dahlkemper of Manchester City, Tierna Davidson of the Chicago Red Stars, Crystal Dunn of the Portland Thorns, Kelley O’Hara of the Washington Spirit, Margaret Purce of NJ/NY Gotham FC, Becky Sauerbrunn of the Portland Thorns and Emily Sonnett of the Washington Spirit. Alana Cook is the newcomer to this veteran line. It will be interesting to see where Cook can fit into the National Team defense. 

Andonovski is quoted as saying, “During these games we’ll also focus on preparing for the Olympic group matches, so we to balance all of that…” It will be exciting to see what happens in the Summer Series The Series games are as follows: US vs Portugal at BBVA Stadium on June 10 and Jamaica on June 13, US vs. Nigeria on June 16 in Austin’s brand-new Q2 Stadium.