Five Questions with Savannah McCaskill

For this week's Five Questions, AngelCity.com sat down with midfielder Savannah McCaskill to talk about the World Cup. McCaskill gave a deep dive on what's made Japan so successful, ACFC forward Jun Endo's contributions, and some predictions for the quarterfinal round.

So, Japan. They've been the most consistent team in the tournament. What are your thoughts on their run?

I think last World Cup, they were in a weird space where they were kind of cycling out the few veterans they had left, and then their young players were really, really young. So they were still kind of making chemistry, figuring out what style they were going to play. Japan's always played a free-flowing style, super technical, super good on the ball, and I think now that they've had four years to play together, it's obvious that that chemistry is there.

What's really been surprising and really cool to watch is how efficient they've been on the counter-attack—like, one pass and they're in. The third goal in the last game, it was one pass, and the [scorer] didn't even have to take a touch, and she finished it. It's textbook. So that's been really dangerous for them and really fun to watch.

And they've done that to a lot of teams—it's not just a one-off. I think teams have to start playing more compact against Japan and make them go wide, make them try to put crosses in the box. Because if you allow them to go through the middle of you, they're going to score goals. Their through balls have been on point, their finishing has been on point, their movement has been great. You have to take away the middle in order to try to defend against them, which is a lot easier said than done.

Let's look at the second goal from that game. What are you seeing here, both from an attacking perspective and from Norway's defending?

You have to look at where [Hinata Miyazawa] starts. She checks off the backline, and realistically, one of [Norway's] defenders should be coming with her, because there's no threat to the line. But that's the space teams want to exploit, any team. Especially in and around the box, if you can get someone free in seam two [the space between the midfield and the back line] facing forward, that's super dangerous.

The textbook would say the defender needs to come with [Miyazawa], but that's a weird gray area where you don't know if [Miyazawa] is going to come as far as [Norway midfielder Vilde Bøe Risa] and that's [Risa's] responsibility, or if the defender is supposed to step in and defend. So if you don't have really good early communication, or the defender just makes the decision that she's going, that [pass from Jun] is going to get completed and then she can go anywhere she wants.

Talk to me about Jun.

It's been really cool to see Jun come off injury, see the work she put in while she was here to get back for the World Cup. I think Japan's style just suits her. Being able to move off the ball, being able to combine, her early crosses have been on point the entire World Cup. Playing off that left side in a wingback role has suited her really well. I think she's been really good, tremendous for Japan. So yeah, we wish her all the best. I'm cheering for her. She's the last Angel City player of the tournament, so I wouldn't mind seeing Japan win.

Let's break down some of the quarterfinal round games.

Sweden historically has been really hard to break down. I think an area where you could probably hurt Japan would be putting numbers in their box and putting crosses in consistently. I think [Japan] drop really well together, but they gave up a goal where the cross came in, [Norway midfielder Guro Reiten] wasn't picked up and it was a header. So that could be an area that Sweden could exploit. They're going to have to stay compact against Japan. I think it'll be a really good game. I don't think it'll be a high-scoring game. It will probably be pretty tight and will just depend on who can break who down.

England vs Colombia will be interesting. You never know what you're going to get against a country like Colombia. They've shown that they're gritty, they're tough, they're resilient. And with England, it's not a matter of talent, it's a matter of if that talent shows up on the day, so that will be interesting.

Australia vs France, I have no idea. My gut's saying France, but if Sam Kerr's back, you can't count her out. And Australia's looked good without Sam for the entire tournament But France looks good. Le Sommer and Diani have had incredible link-up play. They play so well off each other, it'll be hard to stop.

Any other highlights from the tournament?

I think the coolest part is this is the first World Cup I've seen that there hasn't been a team that's really far off the pace. I think all of the smaller countries that have come in to their first World Cup, those are incredible stories, but it also shows that the entire world is investing in women's soccer and that's pushing the standard and pushing the top countries. It's no longer easy for the top ten teams to go into a World Cup and know, 'we're going to make it this far' or 'we're going to win.' You have to show up every single day and get results. And that's where we want the sport to go. It's really encouraging and really helps promote investment in women's soccer to take the global sport to the next level.