In our breakdown of what went wrong for the United States against Sweden, a lot of things weighed out on the “Jill Ellis’ fault” side of the scale.
Rostering Megan Rapinoe, bad subbing decisions, switching players around too much - you can lay all of those solidly at Ellis’ feet. Other things weren’t, like players unable to execute well, and to some extent, lack of adaptation on the field. If Alex Morgan or Carli Lloyd has a slightly better day, if just one player is a foot over in the box, things are different. This game was won and lost in the margins, although the fact that Sweden pushed the U.