A few thoughts on the mother of all Worlds battles.
September 11, 2024 by Edward Stephens in Analysis with 0 comments
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The hubbub has died down. The field lines are fading or gone. The players, coaches, game advisors, and media have virtually all boarded planes bound for home, wherever that happens to be. The week’s Deep Look episode has already chewed on the game. By now, the collective ultimate frisbee ecosphere has had time to process the amazing matchup between Colombia and the United States in the women’s division final.
A True Defensive Classic
The 14-12 US victory was an absolute joy to watch the way it played out. It would have been a joy to watch if Colombia had been the side to pull away at the end, too. Part of the reason the spectacle worked so well was the years-long narrative building that preceded it. And another chunk of the satisfaction derived – as it so often does – simply from the fact that the score was close the whole way through.
You can watch for yourself if you haven’t already.
As far as the actual action on the field was concerned on a play-by-play basis, though, both teams treated their audience to a defensive display at a level rarely ever reached. USAU club fans will surely recall some stand-out defensive games over the years: PoNY over Revolver in the 2018 Men’s Division final and Brute Squad over Scandal in last October’s women’s final come immediately to mind. But those defensive showcases, while excellent, were largely one-sided. USA vs. Colombia in the Worlds final was an entirely different beast.
Sarah Meckstroth and Caroline Tornquist making spectacular catch blocks; Manu Cárdenas and Yessica Grajales making huge plays to deny deep throws to Meckstroth and Claire Trop; Dawn Culton notching a handblock on Yina Cartagena; Cartagena deciding in the heat of the moment to employ a 360 degree mark against Abby Cheng to force a bad throw; perfect poaches from Angela Zhu and Natalia Gomez. To say nothing of the bids that came up just short.
And the players sprinkled in even more goodies for the hold-your-ground-matchup afficionados. Valeria Cárdenas and Claire Trop both made foul calls against defenders (Tornquist and Manu Cárdenas, respectively) who had already established position and prepared themselves to absorb the contact. Ximena Montaña going shoulder-to-shoulder with Meckstroth as Mecks tried to find an inside line on an under. This is premier-level stuff, and, with the exception of one split-second decision to bid from Zhu late in the game that, in hindsight, was a dangerous play, it was clean, appropriately physical play all the way through.
Is it too much to ask that all late-bracket games are played with this level of defensive intensity?
United States’ Line Refinement Paid Off
There’s a sort of unspoken tradition for US National Teams to approach roles and lines with non-chalance. Whether employing a pod system, like the US Women’s division team did for much of WUC, or cycling through a set of three lines with roughly equal field time, the emphasis of the personnel decisions has often been on participation rather than optimization. There’s a kind of cockiness in that approach: why bother with an optimal approach when we are going to beat everybody anyway? Cocky, perhaps, but not wrong, generally speaking.
The Colombia match demanded something different. Colombia had proven they could win in the marginal moments: a huck just out of reach of a defender, a layout block on a pass thrown a hair too late, an extra few inches of window on a late stall reset. Being generally excellent had been enough to keep every other challenger at arm’s length, but it hadn’t been enough at TEP, it hadn’t been enough in the power pool matchup, and it was unlikely to be enough in the final.
Credit to the US coaches for fine-tuning the line calls. More focused strategies such as building the offense around Claire Trop and Kami Groom’s cutting, planting Angela Zhu and Sarah Meckstroth on top defensive matchups, entrusting distinctly different handling responsibilities to Julianna Werffeli, Anna Nazarov, and Qxhna Titcomb may not have automatically won them the game, but it allowed the US to be in the right place to win more of those moments at the margins than Colombia.
And credit to the US players for buying in to changed roles – whether smaller, larger, or simply more specialized. It could have backfired: it’s not unheard of for the egos of athletes to stand in the way of team success. They chose trust in one another and mutual strength.
Manu: The Best Player in the World
One of the undercurrents of the WUC discourse had been the very sports-fan-esque question: who is the best player in the world? It’s not an easy question to answer definitively or objectively, and perhaps it isn’t even important. It is, though, from the evidence of our Discord chatter, undeniably captivating to think about. Pundits and fans of all stripes weighed in with options before the tournament: Levke Walczak, Claire Trop, Anna Gerner, Kaede Yoshida, Britt Dos Santos, Cat Phillips, Valeria Cárdenas, and Manu Cárdenas were all seriously mooted.
But let’s be real. After everything we’ve seen at WUC, it has to be Manu. With apologies to all of the candidates above, Manu Cárdenas is the most complete player in the division. She’s a top 1% thrower – and that’s her biggest weakness. As a cutter, she makes the world’s best defenders look like they’re stepping on marbles. As a defender, no one is smarter or more determined. She is as explosive a playmaker as anyone in any division at any time. Her hands are as quick as flies. Manu is her.
A Veteran Steps Up in a Big Way
Sometimes the young guns win the day. But sometimes it’s the hardened vets who pave the path to victory. Enter Anna Nazarov, the long-time US National Team star1 who won the Callahan award all the way back in 2007.2 ‘Mad Dog’ is known for her assertive handler play and fearless throwing, but she had played a relatively quiet tournament: she averaged just under an assist per game heading into the final.
And then it all changed. From the jump, Nazarov was the most important player on the American offense.3 She responded to a smothering Colombian defense by launching a barrage of tightly threaded, zero-hesitation throws. Her expert field reads and command over tricky throws netted the US four holds in the first half. And while it was a slightly lower degree of difficulty, the shot to Sam Rodenberg to end the game proved that Mad Dog remained sharp throughout the contest. She recorded the highest EDGE score for the US by a fairly wide margin.
While she was far from the only US player to answer the call (Rodenberg, Titcomb, and Sadie Jezierski all showed off brilliant moments) she had an enormous impact. It’s hard to see how the US could have pulled out the victory without the way she raised her game to the demands of the moment.
The Best Rivalry in Ultimate
This should go without saying. Nevertheless, we’ll say it: there is no better rivalry in the sport than the one between US and Colombia Women’s division national programs. Between the Revolution’s forays into club, TEP, the last two World Games cycles4, and last week’s Worlds battles, the two sides have been pushing each other to the limit of competition for years.
One can only hope it isn’t over yet. We’ll take at least one more helping at next year’s World Games if we can get it – because we, the fans, can’t get enough of these classic battles.
Nazarov was an alternate on the 2013 World Games team, a full member the 2017 World Games team, an alternate for the 2022 World Games team, and might still be in serious consideration for 2025. ↩
Shout-out to anyone from the class of ‘07 still playing in non-Masters divisions. ↩
With apologies to Claire Trop and Kami Groom, who were also excellent throughout the tournament. ↩
Technically Mixed Division, but featuring enough of this cast of players from both sides to count here. ↩
