If you asked Jill Ellis a year ago where the U.S. women’s national team would be today, she probably would’ve said she’d have her core group set, getting reps together, and starting to build the sort of chemistry that sometimes looks like telepathy on the field.



But that hasn’t happened—at least not yet. A rash of injuries to players over the past year has meant less consistency and more new faces, well past the informal cut-off Ellis set for herself to switch gears from expanding the player pool to honing her lineup.



“Has the timeline gone exactly how I planned? No, but that’s part of dealing with injuries,” says Ellis, the national team coach. “As much as the injuries are frustrating, it also makes us build in the flexibility that, as a team, you need. What we’ve now got is a really good group of players to tap into and draw upon.”



With October’s World Cup qualifiers inching closer,...