Christen Press has been one of the USWNT's best players in the team's latest competitions. (Photo by Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

The world of sports has turned topsy-turvy with the coronavirus putting just about everything on hold indefinitely, and U.S. Soccer is in a state of crisis after the abrupt resignation of president Carlos Cordeiro.

Buried in all that, however, is that the U.S. women’s national team won the SheBelieves Cup on Wednesday, sweeping the four-team friendly tournament and putting the Olympic field on notice.

The USWNT had its April friendlies canceled, and we can only speculate whether the Olympics will start on time, if at all. But for now, the SheBelieves Cup remains the best opportunity to assess where the USWNT is at ahead of a major tournament.

And the out-of-season USWNT looked good, comfortably beating England and Japan. Spain offered the toughest challenge, similar to the 2019 Women’s World Cup, but the Americans as usual found a way to win.

Now, despite uncertainty about how COVID-19 changes the months ahead, the focus shifts entirely to the Olympics in Tokyo this summer, where the USWNT will try to become the first team to win a Women’s World Cup and an Olympics in back-to-back years.

Here are the takeaways from the USWNT’s dominant SheBelieves Cup and the past week of craziness:

Christen Press needs to be on the field

Coach Vlatko Andonovski is in an unenviable position. With a roster brimming with talent, he has to pare it to 18 players for the Olympics and then choose a starting 11 from that group.

But if anything became apparent over the SheBelieves Cup, it’s that Christen Press absolutely must play a significant role on the field. She can play as a winger, she play up top as a center striker, but no matter where Andonovski puts her, she will make an impact.

In all three games of the SheBelieves Cup, Press added to the USWNT’s goal tally, either by scoring herself or with an assist. She’s been sensational, not just in her ability to score impressive goals, but also her ability to read the plays and help her team in possession.

Although Press has been in good form for about two years, she’s gone to another level since Andonovski took over, scoring nine goals in 10 games. That’s probably not a coincidence.

There’s more “gray area” in his tactical approach than under former coach Jill Ellis and former assistant coach Tony Gustavsson. That allows more freedom, more creativity and more instinctual playing.

“With Tony and Jill, we were in a very regimented system, which provided a lot of clarity for players but didn’t necessarily allow everyone’s individual talents to shine. Some people, absolutely, but others less,” Press said after the Spain game. “There’s bit more freedom now with less thinking about what you should be doing and doing what you want.”

Vlatko’s style fits this USWNT

It doesn’t seem like a Herculean task to get good performances out of the USWNT. Player for player, it may be the best team in the world.

But since Andonovski took over, to Press’s point, the attack has looked especially free-flowing and dynamic.

Andonovski’s coaching style in the NWSL has been possession-oriented, and he’s taken that to the USWNT, where they want the ball at all times. That means counter-pressing to win the ball back, using an aggressive set of pressing triggers to unsettle teams, and playing with the audacious fearlessness that has been a hallmark of the USWNT.

That’s not exactly a stark departure from Ellis, who also coached the team to be aggressive, albeit with more regimented demands on players. But one major difference is the consistency in Andonovski’s lineups and tactics.

Sure, Andonovski has given bubble players chances to play, but unlike Ellis, we haven’t yet seen any players thrown into unfamiliar roles or abrupt formation shifts. If Ellis was a bit of a tinkerer, Andonovski seems more set in what he wants to do.

Andonovski is letting the players get comfortable together and, so far, it shows.

View photos USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski looks on during a SheBelieves Cup game against England on March 5, 2020. (Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) More