On paper, this version of the U.S. women's national team attack is perhaps the best in the world. In practice, though? It had never quite come to fruition. The front line let this team down last summer and, despite some highs in the lead-up to the Olympics, the lows led to concerns about how this group would perform under the bright lights.
Those concerns lasted just two games. As it turns out, the paper was right: this attack is special.
You don't know who it will be on a given day. In the Olympic opener, it was Mallory Swanson with two goals in a win over Zambia. On Sunday, it was Sophia Smith, who scored a huge brace of her own in a dominant 4-1 group stage victory over Germany. And don't write off Trinity Rodman, as she was an absolute nightmare to deal with all day long for the Germans.
That trio was at its best on Sunday. From the opening whistle, all were dangerous, and it didn't take long for them to strike. Smith cashed in first, crashing home a Rodman cross to the back post to give the U.S. the lead. Even after giving one back - the first goal conceded in the first 472 minutes of the Emma Hayes era with the U.S- heads didn't drop. Instead, Swanson just jumped on a rebound to make it 2-1 and immediately send a message back to Germany.
Smith scored the third: a lucky deflection that effectively put the game away. Lynn Williams, who came on to replace a tiring Smith, then added one for good measure. Through two games, that's seven goals for the USWNT, and each of them has been scored by attacking stars.
That's an intimidating proposition for opponents for the rest of these Olympics, and a welcome sight for USWNT fans. The attack is firing on all cylinders and, in this sort of form, can they fire all the way to a gold medal?
With the win, the U.S. joined Spain as the first teams to secure a spot in the quarterfinals. The USWNT has now made it out of the group in all eight trips to the Olympics and has medaled in six of its seven previous Olympic appearances.
Hayes was level-headed after the win, saying "We haven’t done anything, let’s be frank. We’ve got three points against a really good German team. That’s is all it is, nothing more.”
GOAL rates the USWNT's players from Stade de Marseille.