“I don’t think we should read into (the roster) at all,” U.S. women’s national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski said on Monday, discussing his 23-player roster for this month’s SheBelieves Cup.
That was the first thing Andonovski said, and it feels antithetical to the approach of every single roster for this team. It especially feels strange to say this about a SheBelieves Cup roster ahead of a major international tournament, but everything has been strange about the national team’s preparations through the pandemic.
“It’s still experimental,” he continued. “If we had 2020, the whole year to prepare for the Olympics, then it would be a little bit different.”
Rather than pointing to foregone conclusions, the roster is another data point for Andonovski. There are players he considers known quantities — for this particular roster, that means goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris and defender Ali…
