The U.S. women’s soccer team wrapped up its last gathering before the Olympic team is set with a 3-0 win over South Korea in St. Paul, Minn.

New U.S. manager Emma Hayes promised she’d make a lot of lineup changes from the group that started Saturday’s 4-0 win in suburban Denver, and she delivered. Nine new starters were rotated in: goalkeeper Casey Murphy, centerbacks Sam Staab and Emily Sonnett, right back Casey Krueger, midfielders Korbin Albert and Rose Lavelle, and forwards Jaedyn Shaw, Alex Morgan and Crystal Dunn.

It was Dunn’s first start as a forward for the U.S. since 2017, and her first time playing at the position for the national team since January 2021. She usually plays as a forward or midfielder at club level, but has been a left back for the U.S. for many years — to her annoyance, and to the even greater annoyance of many fans.

That annoyance got booted into South Korea’s net in the 13th minute, when Dunn scored her first national team goal since 2018. Lindsey Horan started the play with a steal in her own end and short pass to Dunn, who then fed Morgan and took off down nearly 3/4 of the field.

Morgan charged ahead too, eventually passed left to Jenna Nighswonger, and she swung a cross that Dunn got to first near the goal line. South Korea didn’t defend the cross well, but that wasn’t Dunn’s problem.

The problem is that Dunn has long been so good at left back, and there have been so few other candidates, that she has been stuck there. She has accepted it, and made sure fans have heard her say so often, but that doesn’t mean she has liked it.

Now that Nighswonger (coincidentally Dunn’s teammate at Gotham FC) has emerged as a starting-caliber left back, Hayes could take Dunn to the Olympics as a forward. That would have a big effect on the rest of the roster.

But it’s no certainty that Dunn has been freed from the back line for good. When Hayes made her six allotted substitutions midway through the second half, one of them moved Dunn to left back.

Nighswonger, Krueger, Shaw, Morgan, Albert and Horan were subbed out across the two substitution windows. Sophia Smith, Mallory Swanson, Trinity Rodman, Sam Coffey, Emily Fox and Lily Yohannes entered — the last making her much-anticipated U.S. debut at just 16 years old.

Yohannes became the youngest player to play for the senior U.S. team since Amy Steadman and Kristen Weiss in March 2001, and the eighth-youngest all time.

...continued

©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.