Trinity Rodman had nothing but smiles in the mixed zone after the USWNT’s 3-0 2024 Olympics group stage win over Zambia on Thursday night.
One of the last players to leave the pitch at the Stade de Nice, questions were immediately asked about her 17th-minute goal, which kicked off a run of first-half goals – and was Rodman’s first of the calendar year for her country.
“Trin Spin, baby!” she replied, flashing another bright smile. “I claimed it.”
It was no surprise that most of her responses reflected how happy she was with the goal, something she called instinctive, receiving the ball from Lindsey Horan with the inside of her right foot, neatly splitting the two defenders converging on her, before touching it once more with that same foot for her finish.
Rodman said she didn’t practice that particular move, but she understood that if she tried to push him forward, she would have lost her shot opportunity and instead needed to keep the defenders off balance. She had just one second between the time the ball left Horan’s foot and the time she received it, and two more to shoot.
“Yes,” Rodman said. “It worked perfectly.”
The Trin Spin on the world stage 🌪️
🎥 » @NBCOlympics
pic.twitter.com/k7G20WGHK7— United States Women’s National Soccer Team (@USWNT) July 25, 2024
Considering the goal, the mood after the game, considering she finished with seven shots (two on target and two off the crossbar), hearing Rodman admit she was feeling some nerves heading into her first Olympic match was surprising. The goal certainly helped relieve some of the pressure of a major tournament opener, though the USWNT forwards also managed to shrug off the narratives surrounding their lack of finishing in the team’s farewell games at home earlier this month.
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USWNT 3-0 Zambia: Rodman, Swanson score to help win Olympic opener
“That goal was unbelievable. To get it on such a big stage was awesome,” Rodman said, before stepping back to look at the bigger picture. “Our team started really well, created a lot of chances and pulled away from each other. I’m really happy with our performance.”
(Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Head coach Emma Hayes agreed, for the most part, especially in the first 20 minutes of the game, where the USWNT created chance after chance, finally breaking through Rodman and then adding back-to-back goals 66 seconds apart through Mal Swanson.
“To come out the way we did: the intent, the intensity, the decision-making, the execution. There should have been at least five at halftime but the crossbar and two goal-line clearances helped them,” Hayes said, before briefly dwelling on some unspecified aspects of the team’s structure that she felt were easy to fix.
Germany, she noted, will not face the same type of challenge as Zambia in the second group match in Marseille on Sunday, but her team did their part with a first win of the tournament on matchday one.
This version of the women’s national team has been subject to many external narratives and pressures, particularly after its long, premature elimination in the round of 16 of last summer’s World Cup.
The U.S. women’s national team had a similar start to the season, with a 3-0 win over Vietnam before collapsing in slow motion in the group stage against the Netherlands (1-1 draw) and then Portugal (0-0 draw). For a new version of the U.S. women’s team looking to make new history, that particular run in the first phase should not be simply ignored next week, but crushed.
Whether it’s club or country, the Trin Spin never fails 🤫
(via @uswnt) pic.twitter.com/VZyMyy5hXL
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) July 16, 2024
These pressures are not new, nor are the players’ responses.
“This is our bubble,” Rodman said after Thursday’s game. “Honestly, we don’t care what anybody else thinks. We know what we can bring to the table, so for us, it’s about staying in the bubble and knowing we have better performances ahead of us.”
With this team, there is more than just the pressure to win, especially with lingering doubts about how well they finished against Mexico and Costa Rica in those farewell friendlies. Rodman said the mission is to prove something to themselves, rather than worry about others.
“We are so much more than what everybody thinks and what has been portrayed. We are not just an athletic team with fast forwards. I think we are so much more than that,” she said. “We have to believe, deep down, that we can break teams down. If that means letting go, letting loose and getting away from each other, we can bring so much more depth. Living that and breathing that on the field is going to help us get better.”
The strength of bonds, the growth under new coach Hayes, the joy of building something new: These were all themes that ran through these Olympics. While this team has yet to find a unified identity the way the 2019 world champion team did on French soil, the players have emphasized those human interactions time and again in recent months.
“Our team has been very positive and we’ve been very tight-knit throughout this journey leading up to the Olympics,” Rodman said after the Zambia game. Yes, the team – himself included – is feeling all the emotions that a major tournament, especially the Olympics, brings, from excitement to anxiety.
And just like Hayes before her in the mixed zone last night, she had plenty to list that she could work on ahead of Sunday’s game against a Germany team coming off its first 3-0 win over Australia. Rodman wanted more goals, as happy as she was. And if there’s one thing everyone knows about the nature of the transition from the group stage to the knockout stages of a tournament, it’s that chances will be harder and harder to come by. Ruthlessness is rewarded.
“We still have a lot to prove,” Rodman said.
The question remains: If the USWNT succeeds here, if they answer all the doubts about this program before the scheduled date, will they be able to prove themselves to everyone?
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(Top photo: John Todd/ISI/Getty Images)