Trinity Rodman was nothing but smiles in the mixed zone following the USWNT’s 3-0 opening victory in the 2024 Olympics’ group stage against Zambia on Thursday night.
One of the final players off the field at the Stade de Nice, there were immediate questions about her 17th-minute goal that kicked off a spate of first-half scoring — and was Rodman’s first of the calendar year for her country.
“Trin Spin, baby!” she replied, flashing another bright smile. “I’ve claimed that.”
It wasn’t surprising that most of her answers reflected how happy she was with the goal, something she called instinctual, receiving the ball from Lindsey Horan with the inside of her right foot, neatly splitting the two defenders converging on her, before touching it one more time with that same foot for her finish.
Rodman said she hadn’t trained that particular move, but that she understood if she tried to push it forward she would have lost her shooting opportunity and instead she needed to put the defenders off balance. She had just about a second from the ball leaving Horan’s foot to when she received it, another two to get the shot off.
“Yeah,” Rodman said. “Worked out perfectly.”
The Trin Spin on the world’s stage 🌪️
🎥 » @NBCOlympics
pic.twitter.com/k7G20WGHK7— U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (@USWNT) July 25, 2024
Considering the goal, considering the mood after the match, considering that she finished with seven shots (two on target and betrayed by the crossbar), to hear Rodman admit she felt some nerves ahead of her first Olympic match was surprising. The goal certainly helped to relieve some of that pressure of a major tournament opener, even as the USWNT forwards also managed to ignore the narratives around their lack of finishing in the team’s send-off games back home earlier this month.
“That goal was amazing. To get it on that big of a stage was great,” Rodman said, before stepping back for a look at the bigger picture. “Our team started off on the front foot, created a lot of chances, moved off each other. I’m really happy about our performance.”
(Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Head coach Emma Hayes agreed, for the most part, especially about the first 20 minutes or so of the match, where the USWNT created chance after chance, finally breaking through via Rodman, then adding back-to-back goals 66 seconds apart by Mal Swanson.
“To come out the way we did: the intention, the intensity, the decision-making, the execution. Should have been at least five at halftime, but the crossbar and two goal-line clearances helped them,” Hayes said, before briefly nitpicking about some unspecified things about the team’s structure which she deemed easy to fix.
Germany, she noted, won’t be the same type of challenge as Zambia come the second group match in Marseille on Sunday but her team had done their part with a first win of the tournament on gameday one.
There have been plenty of external narratives and pressures on this version of the women’s national team, especially in the long hangover after their early exit from last summer’s World Cup in the round of 16.
The USWNT got off to a similar start then, with a 3-0 win against Vietnam, before their group-stage collapse in slow motion against the Netherlands (1-1 draw) and then Portugal (goalless draw). For a new version of the USWNT looking to write a new story, that particular first-phase path must not just be ignored in the next week, but overwritten.
Whether it’s for 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 aren’t new, though. Neither are the responses from the players.
“It’s our bubble,” Rodman said following Thursday’s match. “We honestly couldn’t care less what everybody thinks. We know what we can bring to the table so, for us, it’s (about) staying in the bubble and knowing that we have better performances ahead of us.”
There’s more than just the standard pressures to win with this specific team, especially because of the lingering questions over the standard of finishing against Mexico and Costa Rica in those send-off friendlies. Rodman said the mission is to prove something to themselves, rather than worrying about everyone else.
“We’re more than what everybody thinks and what has been described. We’re not just an athletic team with fast forwards. I think we’re so much more than that,” she said. “We need to believe that, deep down — that we can break down teams. If that’s passing it up and laying it off and moving off each other, there’s so much more depth that we can bring. Living that and breathing that on the field is going to help us improve.”
The strength of their connections, the growth under new coach Hayes, the joy of building something new — all of these have been themes leading into these Olympics. While this team has not yet struck upon a unified identity quite like the 2019 World Cup-winning squad did on French soil, players have emphasized these human interactions time and time again over the past few months.
“Our team’s been so positive, and we’ve been so together through this journey coming into the Olympics,” Rodman said after the Zambia game. Yes, the team — herself included — is feeling all of the emotions that a major tournament, especially the Olympic Games, brings from excitement to anxiousness.
And much like Hayes before her in the mixed zone last night, there were plenty of things she could list off that could use some work ahead of Sunday’s match against a Germany side coming off their own opening 3-0 win, against Australia. Rodman wanted more goals, as happy as she was. And if there’s one thing everyone knows about the nature of moving from the group stage into the knockouts at a tournament, it’s that chances will get harder to find. Ruthlessness is rewarded.
“We still have a lot to prove to ourselves,” Rodman said.
The question ahead remains: if the USWNT succeed here, if they answer all the doubts about this program ahead of schedule, will they prove themselves to everyone else?
(Top photo: John Todd/ISI/Getty Images)
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