Can a new-look USWNT team actually win the World Cup? We’re about to find out.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — When Vlatko Andonovski took the helm of the U.S. women’s soccer team in late 2019, he was the first manager in years with public backing to launch a generational overhaul of the team.

At the time, he and general manager Kate Markgraf knew what they wanted to do. But they couldn’t possibly have known then what it would take to get there: not just moving on from veterans beloved by fans, but dealing with a global pandemic that delayed the Olympics by a year.

Seeking to become the first reigning World Cup champion to win the following Olympic gold, the U.S. squad in Tokyo featured many veterans from 2019. But stuck in a COVID-forced bubble in Tokyo, they failed to find the spark that had carried them in the past. While they left with some respect along with their bronze medals, there was just as much sourness at losing to rival Canada in the semifinals.

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Though Carli Lloyd retired, other veterans such as Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn stuck around, hoping for one more chance to go out on a high. This left Andonovski in a quandary: Who would he pick to keep as leaders, from whom would he try to move on, and could he risk upending the team’s trademark chemistry by dropping too many of them?

If he couldn’t have predicted the pandemic, he could scarcely have predicted what came next, either. Over a brutal stretch that started last year, a pile of top players suffered major injuries: veterans Christen Press, Tobin Heath, Sam Mewis, Mallory Swanson, and Sauerbrunn and marquee young prospect Catarina Macario.

What was Andonovski to do now, with the World Cup drawing ever nearer? The answer, it turned out, was to go back to the future.

While it often was hard to see the bigger picture along the way, it became clear when the U.S. World Cup team was unveiled. Andonovski has achieved that generational overhaul, from Naomi Girma at the back to 18-year-old Alyssa Thompson up front — the first teenager to make an American women’s World Cup squad since 1995.

Including those two, 14 of the 23 players here are World Cup debutantes. This team really is different from its predecessors, finally. But can it match the past’s glories this time?

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We’ll start to find out when the U.S. faces Vietnam in its tournament opener (9 p.m. Friday in Philadelphia, Fox29, Telemundo 62, Peacock) at fabled Eden Park. New Zealand’s national stadium knows a few things about hosting sports superpowers, as the country’s world-famous (though less so in America) rugby and cricket teams play there, and the U.S. women paid a visit in January as a World Cup dress rehearsal.

It will be a 1 p.m. Saturday matinee here, 16 time zones ahead of the U.S. East Coast. And while millions of fans watch at home in prime time, thousands of American fans have made the long and expensive trip to watch the team in person.

“We’re very happy with the team that we have, with the players that we have, and the young players that we implemented on this squad,” Andonovski said in his game day eve news conference. “I think that we have a very good mix of young, energetic, enthusiastic players, and experienced players that have been through tough games, that have been in big tournaments, and they know how to win big tournaments.”

And he added: “Looking back now, I don’t know if I would change anything along the way, but I know that the players that we have are very good players and ready to compete on the big stage.”

Had he been asked privately, he might not have said it quite that way. Of course Andonovski would rather have everyone healthy and would rather not have had a pandemic upend daily life. And he certainly would rather have won gold in Tokyo, which would have allowed him to make an even bigger overhaul.

But things went how they did, and he can’t change history. Nor can he change the fact that he sits in what is always the hottest seat in the women’s soccer world.

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“Regardless of what happened in the past, it is important for us to win this tournament, to do well in this tournament,” Andonovski said. “When I took this job four years ago, it wasn’t unknown what the expectations are. I was very well aware of it, and I was aware of the pressure of this job, and I embraced it — and it helped me in the preparation, because the pressure turned into excitement.”

Will Andonovski’s new ingredients produce the kind of free-flowing, high-scoring soccer that U.S. fans are used to? They haven’t lately, with a lot of low scores in their nine-game unbeaten streak since a rare three-game losing run last fall.

But the question is based on a flawed premise — and perhaps on some naivete in the fan base. The Americans’ 2015 title run, which ended a 16-year World Cup drought, had a lot of ugly soccer in it before the blowout final. At the 2016 Olympics, the U.S. won its first two games narrowly, then was held to a 2-2 tie in the group finale before losing on penalty kicks in the round of 16.

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The notion that the U.S. should play Champagne soccer all the time really stems from 2019, when the Americans won every game they played. But that was the first time the U.S. had achieved the feat. Not even the vaunted 1999 juggernaut did so, technically — the final was a scoreless tie before the penalty-kick shootout.

The aura of the 13-0 rout of Thailand in the 2019 opener also clouds memories of the group stage finale vs. Sweden (a 2-0 U.S. win) and the 2-1 round-of-16 win over Spain. Those were far from works of art.

This doesn’t mean the current U.S. team is worse than its predecessors. Nor does it mean the Americans are anything less than a favorite to win this year’s tournament — though the use of a favorite instead of the favorite is intentional. Germany and England also are in the top tier, and Brazil leads the next rank.

It simply means this time is different. With 14 World Cup debutantes and that much-anticipated infusion of youth, the 2023 squad feels much more unknown than past ones, at least from the outside.

On the inside, though, there might be a different story. When veteran U.S. star Crystal Dunn was asked Thursday if she thinks Andonovski’s overhaul has been successful, she didn’t hesitate.

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“Easy answer is yes,” Dunn said. “What we’ve seen over the last couple of years is players stepping to their own and really developing and growing. What everyone’s going to see and witness is that we have such an incredible range of talent, veterans, young players, and you’re going to see people really own the opportunity and put on display the beautiful game that they play.”

So here comes a moment that now feels familiar, no matter where in the world the TV pictures come from. The United States’ turn has come to take the field at a women’s World Cup. And while there are new pilots at the helm, the moment before the rocket ship launches is still as electric as ever.

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