U.S.A. shakes up lineup vs. Sweden, Emily Sonnett get veryfirst start of World Cup

MELBOURNE, Australia — United States coach Vlatko Andonovski made 2 modifications to his lineup for the Americans’ do-or-die World Cup videogame versus Sweden on Sunday (coverage starts at 4 a.m. ET, with kickoff at 5 a.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app) at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium.

With midfielder Rose Lavelle suspended since of yellow card build-up, Emily Sonnett makes her first-ever World Cup start. Winger Trinity Rodman returns to Andonovski’s 11 for the round of 16 after coming off the bench in the USWNT’s group-stage ending versus Portugal; Rodman began the veryfirst 2 matches, versus Vietnam and the Netherlands.

Sonnett has began every match at defensive midfield for her NWSL club, OL Reign, throughout the 2023 season. She got the nod over Savannah DeMelo, who began in location of Lavelle — Lavelle was coming off of an injury ahead of the World Cup — in the Americans’ initially 2 group matches.

Sonnett has played simply 15 overall minutes throughout 2 World Cup projects — 9 minutes as a late sub versus Chile in the 2019 group phase, and 6 minutes versus Portugal last week.

“Getting in Sonnett for Rose Lavelle, you may be losing some assaulting imagination,” FOX soccer expert Heather O’Reilly stated on the pre-match broadcast. “But you have a destructor in there now, an enforcer in there, and that’s going to enable Lindsey Horan to go up the pitch and pull the strings herself.”

The backline appears to stay thesame, with Julie Ertz and Naomi Girma in main defense, Crystal Dunn at left back and Emily Fox on the . There hadactually been speculation pregame that Andonovski may relocation up either Dunn or Ertz, both flexible gamers with experience playing in the midfield. But it appears that the coach chose to stick with the verysame four-player rearguard.

The U.S. backline hasactually been strong, permitting simply 11 shots and one on objective through 3 videogames. Sweden guarantees to be the mostdifficult test so far, . It won all 3 of its videogames in Group G with 43 shots, 16 on target and 9 objectives, 4 of which came off set pieces.

Doug McIntyre is a soccer author for FOX Sports. Before signingupwith FOX Sports in 2021, he was a personnel author with ESPN and Yahoo Sports and he hasactually covered United States guys’s and females’s nationwide groups at numerous FIFA World Cups. Follow him on Twitter @ByDougMcIntyre.

Laken Litman covers college football, college basketball and soccer for FOX Sports. She formerly composed for Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Indianapolis Star. She is the author of “Strong Like a Woman,” released in spring 2022 to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Follow her on Twitter @LakenLitman.