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Tag: us women's national team

  • Emma Hayes struck balance between USWNT celebration and evaluation, winning the October window

    Emma Hayes struck balance between USWNT celebration and evaluation, winning the October window

    Center back Naomi Girma stole the show in Louisville as the U.S. women’s national team wrapped up the international window with its third win. But the real story of that October camp is the sheer amount of evaluation head coach Emma Hayes managed in addition to the celebratory nature of the team’s Olympics gold medal victory tour.

    “I got out of it what I wanted to get out of it,” Hayes said Wednesday. “A ton of debutants, managed minutes for everyone that’s still in NWSL play, (and) a chance to develop some things that, for us, we set as targets for ourselves on the training pitch.”

    Hayes has backed up everything she has said since taking over the job in May, going back to her first media appearances in New York City this spring — specifically: club form matters. While her hands were tied slightly in this window as Olympics celebrations meant she had to call up every healthy member of the squad that went to the Games in France in the summer, she used her remaining roster spots to the fullest. She also maximized rotation, not just in the starting line-ups and her substitute choices, but the 23-player game-day rosters.

    All seven uncapped players on the roster, including a mid-camp addition, earned their first USWNT minutes.

    Orlando Pride defender Emily Sams and Washington Spirit midfielder Hal Hershfelt were in France as alternates but did not see the field. Racing Louisville forward Emma Sears immediately impressed in her debut as only the fourth player in program history to record a goal and assist in her first cap. Bay FC defender Alyssa Malonson nabbed her first assist in her debut Wednesday against Argentina, playing provider to Girma. Paris Saint-Germain’s Eva Gaetino, Utah Royals’ Mandy Haught and Gotham FC’s Yazmeen Ryan rounded out the new kids.

    There were important returns too. Alyssa Thompson finally scored her first international goal in her return to the national team after missing out on the Olympic roster, and Ashley Sanchez and Hailie Mace picked up minutes against Argentina.

    It’s hard to disagree with Hayes’ approach to club form after a successful window because she achieved all of her objectives and captured three multi-goal wins. As a bonus, she also finally saw the team down a goal, forced into mounting a comeback against Iceland in Nashville on Sunday. It was the first time the USWNT had fallen behind in a game managed by Hayes.

    The challenge now is figuring out how much these matches actually matter in the long run. While the friendlies were fun to watch — no one will complain about a Girma brace either — with so much focus on rotation and evaluation, it feels more like one of the first pieces to the larger puzzle. One that won’t be completed for a few more years.

    The back half of 2024 has generally felt like a period for recovery and big-picture thinking at the senior team level.

    While the next and final window of the year in late November and early December involves two high-profile European opponents on the road, the friendlies against England and the Netherlands will likely be an outlier from this period. Higher-profile opponents mean higher stakes, but it’s fair to expect Hayes to again use the full depth of her roster with an eye on evaluation and development.

    Hayes has already shown she’s not afraid of big moments and prioritized using the depth of her roster to bring Jaedyn Shaw, Croix Bethune and others to their first major tournament this summer. While the starting XI against England on November 30 is sure to be the strongest possible, Hayes has another chance to ensure that players who will be crucial to the team’s success two or three years down the line experience an environment like Wembley Stadium as well.

    The true sign of things to come will be January’s Futures Camp, which Hayes promised to run concurrently with the full senior team camp in Los Angeles. The USWNT hasn’t run a talent and identification camp since 2019, shortly after Vlatko Andonovski took over the team, but it was the only one to occur during his four-year tenure.

    Hayes has promised to cast a wide net, especially following semifinal appearances from the under-20 and under-17 teams in their respective World Cups this year. But for all the angst over the past few years about generational change, the runway has finally been fully cleared.

    The Olympics were the most obvious symbolic gesture of the end of one USWNT era, with Alex Morgan not named to the roster. It was a surprise sunsetting of a generational player but was also a testament to the team she helped build.

    GO DEEPER

    Alex Morgan has designed her own USWNT exit by setting the next generation up for success

    There are more options than ever before in every position. Making the U.S. roster seems harder than it’s been in the past, but doing so is also more clearly tied to form and thus more transparent than ever. Hayes has finally truly buried that “emergency surgery” line she came in with and led the team to Olympic gold, and as promised, the larger work is now underway.

    These three games provided a good start, but were just a start nonetheless.

    The first 270 minutes of the cycle leading to the 2027 World Cup in Brazil and home-turf Los Angeles-hosted Olympics a year later are in the bag. There’s still so much more to come.

    (Top photo: Scott Wachter / Imagn Images)

    The New York Times

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  • Olympics drove interest in women’s sports cards, Snoop Dogg pins and more

    Olympics drove interest in women’s sports cards, Snoop Dogg pins and more

    The Olympics are an event that can fuel growth in interest and popularity, not just for a given sport or individual athlete, but for an array of collectibles, as well. The global nature of the Olympics, the way they cross-pollinate fans of different sports and draw in very casual or even non-sports fans — it’s something that can supercharge demand.

    Take basketball for example — the men’s gold-medal game between the U.S. and France averaged 19.5 million viewers in the U.S. alone, whereas the most recent NBA Finals averaged 11.3 million viewers. The women’s gold-medal game drew 7.8 million viewers in the U.S. (at 9:30 a.m. ET), and last year’s WNBA Finals averaged 728,000. While that sudden influx of new eyeballs can produce a brief and immediate surge of interest that just as quickly evaporates, it can also be the foundation for longer-term growth in some cases. It can be an introduction that creates new fans and collectors.

    With that in mind, let’s look back on the 2024 Olympics using insights from eBay:

    Athletes (and rappers) who saw a surge of collector interest

    The most searched Team USA men’s basketball players within eBay during the Olympics were LeBron James, Anthony Edwards and Steph Curry. James and Curry’s places there shouldn’t be surprising, given their status as legends of the game and how they came through in big moments for Team USA, but Edwards being searched at that level within a marketplace (rather than just on a more general interest platform like Google) is noteworthy.

    The day Team USA beat Serbia in the semifinals, Edwards’ ungraded 202o Panini Prizm silver card (a popular parallel in the most popular NBA set that has a bit more favorable supply/demand balance than his plentiful Prizm base rookie card) returned to the price level it reached at the start of the NBA Western Conference finals in May (around $320), when he was one of the postseason’s top performers to that point, up from the sub-$200 level it dropped to in late June/early July. Edwards didn’t produce a standout performance in the semifinal or final of the Olympic tournament, so there has been another decline, but the card remains higher than the lows it hit after his NBA playoff elimination. He’ll need to take another leap forward this season and have better showings in key moments in order to further grow the level of collector interest in him, though.


    Steph Curry (left) and Anthony Edwards after receiving their gold medals. (Photo: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP via Getty Images)

    On the women’s side, the most searched Team USA players on eBay were Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi, and Kelsey Plum.  Taurasi didn’t play in the gold-medal game and averaged just 1 ppg for the tournament, but she won her sixth gold medal — a new record for the sport. Noticeably absent from that group is A’ja Wilson, who was named MVP of the tournament and is also the clear favorite to claim a third WNBA MVP trophy this season. There have always been players who far outperform the level of collector interest in them, but this looks like a generational talent/all-time great being seriously undervalued.

    The Olympics provided a boost to women’s sports collectibles though. Katie Ledecky sales grew throughout the Olympics, peaking with a new all-time high of $4,037 for her 2024 Topps Chrome Ledecky Legacy autographed superfractor (a one-of-a-kind parallel, pictured below). Two Simone Biles cards sold for more than $2,000 each. But perhaps most impressive was that two superfractors, one autograph and one patch, from the 2024 Topps Chrome Olympic set of Ilona Maher, star of the USA rugby bronze-winning team, sold for $1,743 and $1,500, respectively — not too far off from those sales for Biles, a more established star in a sport that’s more popular in the U.S.

    Assessing long-term value of Olympic athletes in sports that don’t hold annual mainstream interest in the U.S. is always difficult. Ledecky and Biles could hold strong since the former is tied for the most career Olympic gold medals among female athletes (nine) and the latter isn’t far behind (seven) and both have more of a cultural presence. Their legacies are set. But unless rugby undergoes a dramatic rise in popularity, it seems difficult for Maher to have the same staying power. (That said, monetary value often isn’t the primary concern for collectors — particularly if they never intend to sell a given item — and waiting for more buyer-friendly conditions when one-of-a-kind items become available often isn’t possible.)

    The USA women’s soccer team won gold thanks in part to the trio of Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson (or “Triple Espresso,” as they’ve nicknamed themselves), who all scored big goals and all saw big eBay search spikes when they did. Searches for Swanson jumped 580 percent on eBay (compared to the previous week) after she scored the gold medal clinching goal against Brazil. Cards from the 2024 Topps Chrome Olympic set that bear autographs from both Smith and Swanson (pictured below) have drawn particular interest, with peak sales prices of $628 and $700 on August 18, a week after the tournament closed.

    A couple of non-USA athletes who also had big search spikes were the men’s tennis finalists. After he won the gold medal, searches for Novak Djokovic rose 450 percent compared to the week prior and searches for silver-medalist Carlos Alcaraz rose 80 percent. These are two of the biggest names in an already popular sport, so the fact that Olympic success could provide a surge in marketplace searches is a testament to the new wider audience the event brings. With the U.S. Open now underway and a newly released Topps Chrome tennis set, there will be an opportunity to retain some of that interest.

    The Olympics can also blur the already sometimes fuzzy lines between sports and non-sports collectibles. Snoop Dogg’s custom Olympic pins went viral, resulting in global eBay users to search “Snoop Dogg pin” almost 140 times per hour on July 30 and 31. And since the 2028 Olympics will be in his hometown of Los Angeles, this may not be the last we hear of Snoop Dogg Olympic pins.

    Industry views

    As The Athletic continue to grow its collectibles coverage, we’ll include perspectives and observations from around the hobby. Since this is our first time diving into eBay insights, we begin with the executive who oversees their collectibles operation.  

    Interest in the Snoop pin and Olympic pins in general points to the variety of collectibles that have gained in popularity in recent years.

    “Obviously trading cards is a huge, huge piece of it, but the thing that’s fun is you see new categories that emerge and sometimes those things disappear again and sometimes they stick around,” eBay vice president and general manager of global collectibles Adam Ireland told The Athletic during the National Sports Collectors Convention last month. He cited sealed vintage electronics and Type 1 photographs as examples. 

    “Someone once told me that it’s sort of that 25-year window when you start hitting nostalgia and that’s the point where people have got the money now and are spending on things that tie them back to those happy childhood days,” he added, saying that they’re seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles merchandise take off as it now fits that window for older generations, while the franchise’s new movies and shows draw in a younger audience as well. 


    Chad Ochocinco draws a crowd to an eBay Live broadcast at The National. (Photo courtesy of eBay)

    Trading card games, which can hit on that nostalgia appeal, are also driving a lot of interest. Ireland says he is “super bullish” on them. “Obviously (Disney) Lorcana has been another big boost to that area, but you’ve still got Pokemon going strong, some of the recent Magic: The Gathering releases have been really, really successful. … (Lorcana) and Disney collectible pins, a lot of historical artifacts, toys, vinyl – there’s just so many categories (in the collectibles space), but you do find that sports as a single thing becomes the largest piece.” 

    “King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch,” the Netflix series about Goldin Auctions, which eBay recently acquired, is something Ireland sees as helping to broaden interest in collectibles. 

    “It’s easy to think about collectibles as a niche area, but they hit number four on the Netflix charts and that’s just going to bring more and more people into the hobby,” he said. “It’s amazing how many people I’ve spoke to about and they’ve been like, ‘Oh my wife watched the show and now she understands why I get excited about this stuff.’ And so from that point of view I think it’s just going to open it up, it’s going to democratize it more.” 

    The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.

    (Top photo: Harry Langer/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)

    The New York Times

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  • Why Alex Morgan missed the USWNT Olympic roster

    Why Alex Morgan missed the USWNT Olympic roster

    For the first time in 16 years, forward Alex Morgan will not feature on a major tournament roster for the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

    On Wednesday, coach Emma Hayes left Morgan off the 18-player roster for the Olympics this summer in Paris. In her absence, the U.S. will be without a previous gold medal winner, with the team’s last win from the London Games in 2012.

    “It was a tough decision, of course, especially considering Alex’s history and record with this team,” Hayes said, “but I felt that I wanted to go in another direction and selected other players.”

    Morgan’s absence can be considered in several ways. It is the end of an era for the USWNT. Some will see it as an overdue move to balance younger players alongside veterans. Others will argue that Hayes made a simple soccer decision. Above all, Wednesday’s move reminded us that no spot on any U.S. roster is guaranteed.

    “Today, I’m disappointed about not having the opportunity to represent our country on the Olympic stage,” Morgan posted on social media following the announcement. “This will always be a tournament that is close to my heart and I take immense pride any time I put on the crest.”

    Hayes declined to get into her reasons for leaving Morgan off the roster and a list of four alternates, which included Gotham FC forward Lynn Williams. Instead, she highlighted “what an amazing player and human that Alex Morgan has been” through her brief window of working with her at this month’s camp for two friendlies against South Korea.

    “I saw firsthand not just her qualities, but her professionalism. Her record speaks for itself,” Hayes said. At the same time, she acknowledged the constraints of the 18-player roster, with spots for only 16 field players.

    Morgan has leadership, having captained the Americans on the biggest stage at the World Cup. Her experience outranks every other player on the roster in terms of appearances and goals. So what kept her off the Olympic team?

    It had been clear since the South Korea friendlies that the best forward starting line involved Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson, yet Morgan was still in contention for a roster spot. But her club performance may have hurt her campaign for a role.

    “I’ve come from a club level and what I have learned is the best development is done at club level,” Hayes said at her first media availability last month in New York City, essentially directly addressing players through the media. “So go back to your clubs, play, compete, get healthy, and put yourself in the best possible place.”

    Hayes has been consistent since taking over the job that performance and form matter in her assessment, particularly on the club side.

    “There are players on the roster that are performing well, and the decision to take those players was one that we certainly deliberated over, but I think it’s a balanced roster,” Hayes said. “I’ve considered all the factors that we’re going to need throughout the Olympics, and (this roster is) one that I’m really happy with.”

    After a few years with limited club involvement — she only played 10 league games across the Orlando Pride and Tottenham from 2019-2021, including a break while she was pregnant with daughter Charlie — Morgan had a resurgent 2022 season for the newly launched San Diego Wave. She won the Golden Boot by leading the NWSL with 15 goals, including 11 from the run of play. It was Morgan at her best — consistently setting up shots on her left foot while finding plenty of space inside the six-yard box to convert dangerous chances.

    Morgan, who turns 35 on Tuesday, has also missed time due to a lingering ankle injury.

    Her form wasn’t quite as robust at the start of 2023, but her place on Vlatko Andonovski’s World Cup roster was assured. She was a fixture in his lineups throughout the run-up to the tournament, and the hope was that she could do some thankless line-leading work even if her scoring touch wasn’t quite in vintage form.

    Since the USWNT’s elimination in the World Cup round of 16, however, Morgan has struggled to score for club and country alike. San Diego has not hit form this season and dismissed head coach Casey Stoney this week. Still, a player of Morgan’s pedigree is expected to score even when the going gets rough. Instead, she has yet to find the back of the net in 2024, midway through the season.

    Given the Wave’s struggles to advance possession this year, Morgan has had to drop deeper than usual to get on the ball. That’s illustrated by how much more frequently she’s having to direct her passes upfield — 16.2% of her distribution advances at least 5 yards toward goal, a rate more commonly seen from a midfielder than a striker and well above her 12.1% in 2022. She has looked less inclined to take an opponent on with her dribble, making just three take-ons in 542 minutes this season after logging 35 in 1,630 minutes last year.

    Even more concerning is the 0 in her goals scored column this season despite logging nearly 600 minutes.

    Morgan’s lack of versatility could have also factored into Hayes’ decision. Morgan has long been an expert striker, scoring 123 goals as the USWNT’s fifth-all-time leading goalscorer. But with that specialization comes a lack of experience at other positions, like some of the players called up for the tournament.

    Hindered in part by her club team’s stagnating approach in possession, Morgan hasn’t been able to enjoy a similarly bountiful amount of service in the box. She has yet to take a single shot inside the six-yard box in the 2024 season, leading to a steep regression in her expected goals per shot, and only six of her 20 shot attempts this season have been taken on her stronger left foot.

    Wave teammate Jaedyn Shaw was able to do just enough despite the team’s floundering form to remain in Hayes’ plans for the Olympics. Unfortunately, Morgan didn’t have the same bulk of strong USWNT performances that helped anchor Shaw’s case for inclusion, with Hayes calling her national team goal involvements “significant” on Wednesday.

    Morgan’s greatest case for making another Olympic appearance had more to do with the intangibles, whether that was her presence as a veteran leader alongside captain Lindsey Horan, or the kind of presence she could offer at the late stages of a knockout match considering her major tournament track record. With an 18-player roster, it’s clear Hayes could not justify those intangibles over more basic roster needs.

    “There’s no denying the history of this program has been hugely successful, but the reality is that it’s going to take a lot of work for us to get to that top level again,” Hayes said.

    Youth is part of that process. Hayes has named the youngest Olympic roster for the USWNT since 2008, when the team won gold in Beijing. The current roster has an average age of 26.8, four years younger than the team that went to Tokyo in 2021 and settled for a bronze medal. But even more stark is the difference in the number of appearances from the last Olympics. The average caps per player in 2021 was 111; for this team the average is only 58.

    “Looking through the cap accumulation of the team, there’s been a lack of development, of putting some of the less experienced players in positions where they can develop that experience,” Hayes said. “I think it’s important that we have to do that to take the next step. So I’m not looking backwards.”


    Morgan’s 224 appearances for the U.S. far surpasses any player on the Olympic squad. (Photo by Brad Smith, Getty Images for USSF)

    Hayes pointed to Shaw’s inclusion on the roster to support this idea, focusing on younger players and their development at major tournaments to gain experience that would benefit the USWNT immediately and in the longer term. Hayes avoided questions about where the team might finish or what its goals would be for the Olympics, stressing that her mission was getting the team as close as possible to its best level and best version.

    Morgan, for all the history and legacy she will leave in her absence, might have provided a short-term boost. She also might not have. It’s impossible to predict what an individual player might contribute in the run of a major tournament. Ultimately, Hayes is focusing on something larger, building on the changes that have already been made following the early exit from last summer’s World Cup.

    “For us, this is an opportunity to show those learnings will take us much further than it did last time,” she said. “But there is no guarantee in anything in life.”

    (Top photo: Getty Images; Design: Dan Goldfarb)

    The New York Times

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  • How USWNT’s interim coach period affects Olympic ambitions

    How USWNT’s interim coach period affects Olympic ambitions

    In November, U.S. Soccer gambled that it was worth sacrificing a year of continuous preparation under a permanent manager to hire Emma Hayes. For eight months following the 2023 World Cup, interim management has overseen the U.S. women’s national team. To her credit, Twila Kilgore’s tenure as placeholder helped turn over the player pool and saw her team win a pair of tune-up competitions this spring.

    Still, it’s been a lost year for the program at a time when it was in sore need of a clear new vision. Hayes’ first games as USWNT manager in June are still two months away, bringing the post-World Cup interlude to 10 months — and a full seven months from her appointment in November.

    With the CONCACAF W Gold Cup and SheBelieves Cup in the rearview, it’s time to take stock. Is the program any better prepared to contend at the Paris Olympics than it was when Sweden knocked it out of the World Cup?

    The 2023 World Cup cycle (and, by association, the Vlatko Andonovski era) stands out as the low point for the USWNT on the field.

    The belated 2020 Olympics was a warning sign, as an aging core entered with varying levels of fitness amidst the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The team played every game in empty stadia, a far cry from the raucous support it so often enjoys in major tournaments, and the team was ultimately eliminated by Canada in the semifinal.

    Rather than heeding lessons from that tournament, Andonovski largely ran it back for the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The team’s style of play often looked languid as it failed to breach the final third. Multiple players failed to see the field for a single minute as the U.S. advanced from its group thanks in part to a friendly goalpost against Portugal. The relief was short-lived as the U.S. fell to another longtime rival, Sweden, in a round of 16 penalty shootout.

    Advanced metrics show that the U.S. did do some good things in its four games at the tournament. No team allowed fewer shots per 90 than the squad’s 4.6, and its average xG per 90 advantage of 2.14-0.32 certainly screams “contender” in isolation. However, the issues with build-up and chance creation were clear.

    The team progressed up the field quickly enough, ranking 11th in the tournament field with a direct speed of 1.71 meters advanced upfield per second of possession.

    Speed isn’t everything. Tournaments are notorious for eliciting small sample size judgments, and the trendline is far from definitive. Nevertheless, none of the 10 teams that ranked higher in direct speed advanced any further in the tournament than the round of 16.

    Progressing the ball upfield with pace is a helpful tool in transition, but the USWNT seemed devoid of ideas once it met the opposing defense in the final third. All four teams that had a more rapid direct speed also bowed out in the round of 16. Unsurprisingly, all five teams that averaged fewer goals per 90 than the U.S. also failed to reach the quarterfinal or further.

    Playing direct and sharp final third decision-making shouldn’t be treated as a mutually exclusive proposition, mind you. Given the talent at the USWNT’s disposal, there’s the potential to create a near unstoppable balance in attack. With the benefit of hindsight, the federation wanted to ensure the team was better equipped to make smart decisions to score with dependability.

    ​​“There was definitely a sense that we need to be better with the ball and have more solutions,” U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker said in September. The federation polled players during the coaching search and much of the focus from the tactical feedback involved building the attack, playing through the midfield and having “creative solutions in tight spaces, having the players and the tactics to beat the low block.”

    After spending an entire cycle moving the ball despite its midfield — the Prayer Circle Formation, as Kim McCauley so brilliantly branded it — they wanted to make use of their engine room.

    Enter Hayes, a tactical chameleon who’s well-versed in the art of breaking down low blocks at the helm of her Chelsea juggernaut. She plans for the opponent rather than coaching from dogmatic principles. Each game’s instructions are curated with one aim in mind: winning, above all else.

    You can see the appeal at surface level, hiring a coach who habitually works to overcome the type of cynical tactics that sunk the team last summer. The catch: the team would have to wait while Hayes admitted her “full focus and attention is on what I do for Chelsea” until that season’s end.

    If there’s a highlight performance over the last 10 months, it came in the Gold Cup quarterfinal against Colombia. In the preceding group stage, the USWNT was frustrated by opponents like Argentina and Mexico sitting in a low block as Kilgore maintained a possession-oriented structure perhaps too closely akin to Andonovski’s. Patterns of ball circulation slowed the team’s build-up, giving all too much time for defensive-minded opponents to get into their ideal placements.

    Colombia was a World Cup quarterfinalist last summer, blessed with one of the world’s great young attackers, Linda Caicedo, and a team that suited her skillset on the break. Kilgore strove to exploit those tendencies by letting her team play direct. It achieved two things: greater attacking intensity going forward, and fewer turnovers in the defensive half that would cater to Colombia’s strengths. A 3-0 win was a statement that the USWNT was back with a point to prove.

    go-deeper

    GO DEEPER

    Direct again: How USWNT’s new old approach lends flexibility going forward

    Taking a similar scoring initiative was impossible in a rain-soaked semifinal slog against Canada, and the team opted for a more controlled style of play in the final against Brazil, winning 1-0. It got results, ensuring the team won the inaugural Gold Cup.

    Still, the team wasn’t showcasing the type of consistent goalscoring necessary to be better prepared for the Olympics than it was in the World Cup. Fortunately, SheBelieves was right around the corner, providing another pair of games against high-level opponents to showcase Crocker’s desired “creative solutions in tight spaces.”

    Japan had other ideas. Kiko Seike became the first player to score against the USWNT in a game’s opening minute since 2003, putting the hosts at an early 1-0 deficit. With some savvy high-pressing the U.S. equalized 20 minutes later before a 77th-minute penalty kick sealed a 2-1 win for the U.S. It was a professional result, but not a showcase of the principles U.S. Soccer strove to install.

    Up next came Canada, which saw Kilgore drop one of her usual four attacking players for a second pivot at the base of midfield. Intentional or otherwise, this saw the team revert to their Prayer Circle tendencies.

    “Our attack is not built around one individual player and that is by design,” Kilgore said ahead of the final. “It’s important that we have the ability to score goals from a variety of different ways. And even though we have these predictable moments for us that we’re looking for, it’s important that different people are filling different roles and able to recognize when they’re the one that needs to maybe make an early run or get out ahead of the opponent for a cross.”

    Just over five minutes into the final against Canada, the USWNT seemed to look through its variety of chance-creation methods after a Lindsey Horan tackle sprung Sophia Smith on the counter.

    Huh, that’s a let-off for Canada. Time to set up for another wave of attack.

    Oh no, not the Prayer Circle.

    No, no, no , no, no, no —

    Over half an hour later, Canada opened the scoring after a miscommunication between goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher and her defense. Once again, the United States was forced to react to the game after allowing the opponent to establish its terms.

    Ultimately, a fresh batch of Naeher shootout heroics saw the USWNT become SheBelieves champions again. The two conceded goals could be chalked up to individual errors.

    Then again, the same could be said for the USWNT’s showing last summer: a team largely in control of games, but not showing enough bite to convert ball retention into goals — all while being prone to gaffes.

    Is this team really better equipped to contend at these Olympics than it was last year?

    If we’re looking for evidence of progress since August, we’ll need to start by looking at individual players. Alex Morgan struggled in the World Cup, but her gritty line-leading work was vital to the proactive success against Colombia. Mallory Swanson and Catarina Macario returned from injuries that limited their 2023 involvement and largely kept pace with the game around them.

    The aftermath of the World Cup was always bound to see some program mainstays give way to the next generation. Julie Ertz and Megan Rapinoe both had send-off games, while captain Becky Sauerbrunn has faded from involvement. Horan has stepped up as a team leader, while Naomi Girma is already similarly impactful despite being just 23.

    Young players benefited from Kilgore’s call-ups. Jenna Nighswonger has been a breath of fresh air at left back, providing sorely needed width in the build-up in a role that was previously instructed to tuck into midfield under Andonovski. Jaedyn Shaw is the latest attacking revelation, showing precocious decision-making in transition while being a capable first-time finisher. Sam Coffey seems poised to be the team’s defensive midfielder of the future, and Korbin Albert’s all-around game makes her seem like a possible successor to Horan in midfield (pending the off-field issues that could impact her locker room standing).

    Having promising young players step up is essential to overcoming a bad four-year spell. But how many players like Nighswonger, Shaw and Coffey will need to reassert their readiness once Hayes comes in? It’s remained an open question just how closely Hayes is watching and assessing her upcoming pool of players. If that answer is less than “with a keen eye,” they’ll need to ace their second first impression to stay ahead of more veteran alternatives.

    Ultimately, no matter who makes the 18-player Olympic roster, we don’t know how they’ll look to play in Paris. The questions that hung over the program still don’t have definitive answers.

    go-deeper

    GO DEEPER

    USWNT Olympic roster prediction after the SheBelieves Cup

    In appointing a coach who couldn’t start her job for over half a year, the USSF gambled that her quality is so much more irresistible than any alternatives that it was worth spending half a year in purgatory.

    The summer’s trio of friendlies come against South Korea and Mexico, both of which won’t partake in the Olympics, but will no doubt want to claim a win over one of the world’s most celebrated teams of any sport. They’ll provide tests at a time when Hayes will still be studying for answers.

    Tuesday also saw the final member of the USWNT’s Olympic group qualify. Zambia joined the U.S., Germany and Australia in Group B. Australia was a semifinalist last summer. Germany has its point to prove after failing to advance from its group, while Zambia is riding high on the back of its first World Cup appearance. It won’t be a given that the U.S. will advance to the knockouts, to say nothing of its medal-winning ambitions.

    It will be easy to spin a poor showing in Paris as a short-term sacrifice with a focus on the 2027 World Cup, which could potentially be played on home soil. That said, this isn’t a program that has ever treated any major tournament as a developmental tool. When the United States competes in a women’s soccer tournament, it’s there to win. That’s the benchmark that has been established for generations of players and one that the fans hold to account.

    This summer, the players’ every performance will be scrutinized, and their future selections will hang in the balance more than Hayes’ job will (or should). If the program’s decision to spend so many months under interim leadership backfires, the blame will fall on them — and unfairly so.

    (Photo: Brad Smith/Getty Images for USSF)

    The New York Times

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  • Why did the USWNT-Canada match continue? Explaining the rules around postponing games

    Why did the USWNT-Canada match continue? Explaining the rules around postponing games

    American soccer has dealt with two high-profile instances of extreme weather disrupting professional games in the last week. In both cases, despite conditions making it impossible to play at anything close to normal, the games went on.

    The most recent of the two happened on Wednesday, when steady and heavy rains flooded the field at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, Caif. before the U.S. women’s national team’s Gold Cup semifinal match against Canada. Conditions meant the ball could not travel on the ground farther than a couple of feet in most parts of the field, which played a direct role in the United States’ opening goal.

    “It was honestly insane,” Shaw said. “We had such a good warmup … the ball was moving really fast, and we were excited to just play and have a really intense game, and then we came back out and we were like, ‘What’s happening?’”

    Asked if the game should have been played, USWNT interim head coach Twila Kilgore said, “Probably not.”

    The previous Saturday, an MLS match between Real Salt Lake and Los Angeles FC was similarly affected, but by a different form of precipitation. That game, which was held at America First Field in Sandy, Utah, was delayed first by high winds and then again shortly after kickoff by lightning. Once the game began in earnest, snow had started to fall, resulting in accumulation of up to four inches and whiteout conditions by the end of Salt Lake’s 3-0 win.

    “It was one of the worst professional sporting events I’ve ever seen in my life,” LAFC head coach Steve Cherundolo said after the match, comments for which he was fined $10,000 by the league this week for violating the league’s public criticism policy. “I feel terrible for the players that we put them through this. The game could have and should have been called (off). In my opinion, it was an absolute disgrace we had to play today.”

    Why were these games allowed to play on?

    In North America, soccer games are usually only called off or delayed when there is lightning within a certain radius of the field or any sort of weather that would impact the structural integrity of the stadium. While baseball and tennis (which saw a recent competition postponed due to rain) are at the more delicate end of the cancellation, soccer is generally about as likely to play through bad weather as American football.

    There are numerous examples of professional and international soccer games played through bad conditions, with perhaps the most prominent example being the U.S. men’s national team’s World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica in Commerce City, Colo., just outside of Denver (dubbed by many U.S. fans as the “SnowClásico”). In the 2022 World Cup qualifying cycle, the U.S. hosted Honduras in St. Paul in February, with the temperature at kickoff hovering around 2 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 Celsius). That game, too, was played as planned.


    Herculez Gomez takes a corner in 2013’s ‘SnowClásico’ (Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)

    The fact that Saturday’s game continued to be played came as a surprise to new RSL signing Matty Crooks, who has spent his whole professional career in the United Kingdom.

    “Back in England, I’d probably say after about 10 minutes it would’ve been called off,” Crooks said. “But to be fair, no one in the changing room even mentioned it being called off, so it was like, ‘Alright, we’re going to play through it.’”

    USWNT forward Alex Morgan pointed out how the conditions on Wednesday turned a game that is largely played on the ground into something else entirely.

    “It’s just hard to even call it a game of soccer tonight, especially the first half,” she told the media afterward. “Your instincts are to dribble, and then you can’t dribble, you’ll lose the ball. Your instincts are not to hit it long when you have shorter options but we saw from the goal that Jae scored … that it’s anyone’s game and just to put instincts aside and just really grind this win out.”


    Alex Morgan tackled by a Canadian defender (Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

    What are the rules for W Gold Cup matches? Is that different from NWSL?

    Many professional games throughout the world are generally overseen by a person whose job it is to make sure that all the logistical things required to play are in place. This includes but is not limited to ensuring on-time arrival of both teams and the officiating crew, inspecting the field of play, ensuring security arrangements are met, and acting as the organizers’ representative on the ground. In CONCACAF, that person is called the match commissioner and is usually stationed on the sideline between the benches.

    CONCACAF rules for the W Gold Cup state that the decision on whether or not to play a game in case of inclement weather is up to the match referee (except in cases of lightning), but in practice it is the match commissioner who has the final say.

    “Technically and practically by law it is always in the ultimate decision of the referee to make that decision,” professional referee and CBS rule analyst Christina Unkel said during the halftime broadcast. “That being said, practically speaking, there is a match commissioner at each of these CONCACAF matches. As we saw within the first minutes of this game, the referee went and demonstrated that the ball was not in fact rolling when she went over to near the fourth official station, which is where the match commissioner stands. It was very clear from her demonstrative showing that she does not necessarily think this is a safe condition, but is being told to continue this match by that match commissioner.”

    CONCACAF did not respond to questions from The Athletic about the decision-making process that led to Wednesday’s game playing on.

    In the NWSL, weather delay decisions are made by a weather delay committee, according to the league’s 2023 rules and regulations. The committee is comprised of the referee, representatives from each team (usually the head coaches), and stadium staff.


    The 2012 Eastern Conference semifinal at Red Bull Arena was postponed due to Superstorm Sandy, and was eventually played in a Nor’easter (Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

    What are the rules for MLS matches?

    According to MLS policy, “Matches may be delayed or postponed when circumstances exist such that the start or continuation of play would pose a threat to the safety and well-being of participants or spectators.”

    “The determination of whether a match is considered ‘delayed’ or ‘postponed’ shall be made by the League Office in its sole and absolute discretion,” the policy reads. The league generally makes that determination with input from meteorologists, staff at the venue and both competing teams.

    MLS says it considers safety for players, officials, staff and fans first, followed by competition-related factors like the playability of the field. The league also takes logistical factors into consideration, like availability of the venue and match officials if the game is played the following day. Broadcast implications and other commercial aspects are considered after the aforementioned factors.

    When rain flooded the Los Angeles area last February around the start of the MLS season, the league rescheduled its highly touted El Trafico between LA Galaxy and LAFC due to “safety considerations resulting from inclement weather” – factors that included flooded parking lots around the stadium. The game was rescheduled to take place months later, on July 4. LA had recorded its fourth-highest average rain total (6 inches). This February, LA saw 12.6 inches of rainfall — an inch less than the 1988 record.

    What’s the reaction been like?

    After the Real Salt Lake vs. LAFC game, LAFC defender Ryan Hollingshead said that the MLS Players’ Association would be notified of the players’ complaints.

    “My lower back is killing me,” he said.. “It’s just like trying to run on an ice rink. You’re sliding and slipping the whole time. The whole goal is just to not fall over and hurt yourself. It will absolutely be taken to the players association. I know our rep will be having that conversation immediately.”

    Reached on Thursday, an MLSPA spokesperson told The Athletic: “We’re continuing to discuss things that need to be done better with the players and the league. At this time, we have no further statement.”

    Reaction on social media to the playing conditions was universally negative. Former USWNT player Julie Foudy posted, “This is so insane. STOP THE MATCH.” San Diego Wave head coach Casey Stoney, whose NWSL team plays at Snapdragon Stadium, was concerned for the players on the field — including multiple representatives from the Wave — writing, “So dangerous!! Make the right call for player safety!”

    “Why are the players being put in this situation? No chance these are safe playing conditions,” former USWNT player Sam Mewis posted.

    (Top photos: Getty Images)

    The New York Times

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  • Mallory Swanson returns to USWNT as training player ahead of W Gold Cup

    Mallory Swanson returns to USWNT as training player ahead of W Gold Cup


    U.S. women’s national team coach Twila Kilgore has named her 23-player roster for the upcoming CONCACAF W Gold Cup, with three additional training players that will participate in the pre-tournament camp, including forward Mallory Swanson. This will be Swanson’s official return to the national team environment following her recovery from a torn patellar tendon last April.

    “Mal will come in and be Mal. We’re thrilled to have her back in the camp environment,” Kilgore said. “We know that in anything that Mal’s doing, she brings a really high level of professionalism, a high level of execution. We believe she’s absolutely ready for the step, and she’s just a really important leader in this team.”

    The roster is largely unchanged from the team’s final friendlies of 2023 against China in December, with the notable returns of goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher (who could earn her 100th cap during the Gold Cup) and defender Crystal Dunn. Veterans Becky Sauerbrunn and Alex Morgan, who were not on the December roster, are notable absences this camp.

    “We have quite a few players that are not in camp that we’re still looking at and evaluating in terms of leading up to the Olympics. Nobody is out of the mix. That goes for some of our bigger names. That goes for lesser names that we’ve been tracking. We want to get it right,” Kilgore said. “In terms of Alex — I guess this goes for really everybody that’s not here — everything that happens in the Gold Cup will matter in terms of the future and everything that is happening outside of the Gold Cup will matter in the future.”

    In a new twist following a busy NWSL offseason, NJ/NY Gotham FC now leads the way in NWSL representation with seven players: defenders Dunn, Tierna Davidson, and Jenna Nighswonger; midfielders Rose Lavelle and Emily Sonnett; and forwards Midge Purce and Lynn Williams. Since the last USWNT roster, six players have signed with new clubs.

    Midfielder Savannah DeMelo and defender Gisele Thompson are the two other non-rostered players who will train with the USWNT. Gisele Thompson, younger sister to forward Alyssa Thompson, recently signed with Angel City FC and has earned her first senior team call-up. While it’s limited to the training environment, the nod is another positive sign for Gisele Thompson building on her youth national team experience.

    “This is just a good opportunity for Gisele to get a firsthand look at what the environment is actually like,” Kilgore said. “Obviously, she’s starting her career in the NWSL, so she’s got a lot of firsts but I think this is an important piece for her to understand what she’s working towards.”

    Goalkeepers (3): Jane Campbell (Houston Dash), Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage), Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars)

    Defenders (8): Alana Cook (Seattle Reign FC), Abby Dahlkemper (San Diego Wave FC), Crystal Dunn ((NY/NJ Gotham FC) Tierna Davidson (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Emily Fox (Arsenal), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave FC), Casey Krueger (Washington Spirit), Jenna Nighswonger (NY/NJ Gotham FC)

    Midfielders (6): Korbin Albert (PSG), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns FC), Lindsey Horan (Olympique Lyon), Rose Lavelle (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Olivia Moultrie (Portland Thorns FC), Emily Sonnett (NJ/NY Gotham FC)

    Forwards (6): Mia Fishel (Chelsea FC), Midge Purce (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), Jaedyn Shaw (San Diego Wave FC), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns FC), Lynn Williams (NJ/NY Gotham FC)

    How to watch the Gold Cup

    The inaugural W Gold Cup features 12 teams, eight from CONCACAF and four guest nations: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. In the U.S., CBS holds the rights to the tournament, with every match available on Paramount+.

    The USWNT will play all three group stage matches at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif. All games kick off at 7:15 p.m. PT/10:15 p.m. ET:

    • vs. Guyana/Dominican Republic (winner of prelim. match), Tuesday, Feb. 20
    • vs. Argentina, Friday, Feb. 23
    • vs. Mexico, Monday, Feb. 26

    The 12 teams are split into three groups of four. The top two finishers of each group, plus the two best third-place teams (that’s eight teams total) advance to the quarterfinals at BMO Stadium in LA. The quarterfinals will be seeded based on results, with 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, etc.

    The four winners will head to San Diego and Snapdragon Stadium for the semifinals and final, with the tournament wrapping up on March 10.

    “Not only is there a trophy on the line, but this is a great opportunity to capitalize on meaningful match opportunities and experience the short turnarounds between games, which is a rhythm that closely mirrors the Olympic format,” Kilgore said in the press release.

    The games are meaningful, but they’re also the first of the year. The team will likely treat this as an extended preseason and that should be the biggest takeaway; if they go through to the final, that’s a lot of time together on training fields and earning game minutes. They probably won’t be the prettiest games, but it’s still going to be a lot of data for everyone — including incoming head coach Emma Hayes. The tricky balance that Kilgore and the squad are going to have to hit is acknowledging the pressure of that looming Olympics roster while trying out new tactics and combinations.

    Forward momentum


    Fishel and Shaw scored their first USWNT senior team goals last year. (Photo by Brad Smith, Getty Images for USSF)

    Everyone (including me) was rightfully excited about the rosters for the December friendlies. Seeing the continuity between the two camps isn’t that surprising, but what’s most exciting is the chance to see players like Jaedyn Shaw and Mia Fishel become expected names on a USWNT roster — and candidates to get some starts too.

    If there’s one thing that’s going to unite everyone in excitement, it’s seeing Swanson inch closer to a full national team return. Before her injury last April, Swanson was in electric form. Despite her extended absence, Swanson led the team in goals (7) last year. There’s no need to push her back ahead of the Olympics since anyone involved with the USWNT already knows exactly what she brings to the mix, so allowing her to get back into form via the NWSL is the right thing to do.

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    I wrote after the December friendlies that the team had acquired the wins not “in perfect fashion, but in a way that told us something about the direction and immediate future of the project ahead of the Olympics.” Those games were also relatively quiet, with smaller attendance numbers and limited press coverage.

    We’re in an Olympic year now, though. It’s not quite the same as a World Cup year, and the players still have a few months yet to build out of the spotlight. When Emma Hayes gets here, all bets are off. For now, the Gold Cup could be important in getting the small stuff in order.

    (Photo: Sam Hodde/Getty Images)





    The New York Times

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  • Lindsey Horan just wants to talk soccer

    Lindsey Horan just wants to talk soccer


    It’s USWNT captain Lindsey Horan’s final morning in the States before a flight back to France to rejoin Lyon, her club team. She’s spending it in a hotel lobby, tucked away at a table, talking to The Athletic for an hour about her time leading a team in the spotlight, how she sees her role during this time of transition, and one thing above all:

    “Can we think about the football?”

    Horan was speaking almost exactly five months since being named by then-USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski as captain of the national team alongside Alex Morgan (Horan has been getting the armband when both are on the field at the same time). The role is the fulfillment of a life goal, but also seems like a natural outcome, given how often, and how intensely, she thinks about the game.

    Her first five months in that leadership role were full of notable exits: her team’s from the World Cup, Andonovski’s, and the retirements of Megan Rapinoe and Julie Ertz. It was capped with a big addition: U.S. Soccer’s announced hiring of Emma Hayes as head coach.

    Horan, now 29 years old and with 139 senior national team caps under her belt, is part of an in-between camp: too experienced to be a newcomer, and too new to be on the way out. It’s her generation – which also includes Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett and others – that must keep the team’s signature fire, that USWNT DNA, burning even as the team undergoes a serious re-think after its worst ever World Cup finish.

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    “We have to continue that,” she says of herself and fellow in-betweeners. “You have to be amongst this team for a while to know what the f— that takes… it’s one of the most competitive national teams to be a part of.”

    No one on the team is talking about starting from scratch. It’s just that they need more ways to win. More than mentality or fitness levels, more than a never-say-die approach. That’s what Horan said her early conversations with Hayes have been about. And that’s why she wants to talk about football, and how the USWNT can bounce back — not just by playing better, but by thinking more.

    “We’ve been so successful for so long in a certain way that we play, that attack and transition,” Horan says. “We’ve had individual brilliance. We’ve had soccer players on the field and real players that want to play and it all kind of meshed together or it would always work out, or our DNA would take us to this place where we come out on top because our mentality was so f—ing good.”

    The game is changing, and Horan recognizes this. She praises Portugal’s level of play at the World Cup, the investment into the game in Spain and other European countries, and the high level of up-and-coming U.S. talent (specifically citing 19-year-old San Diego Wave forward Jaedyn Shaw). If there was a theme for Horan and the rest of the USWNT in that final camp of the year, it was a repetitive one: no one actually knows the ceiling of this team.


    Horan cited Shaw as an exciting young player for the U.S. (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)

    “Even in these past few games, you see little glimpses of that, but it’s the final product, continuing to do that throughout the game, getting everyone on the same page, not just four or five players,” she says. “If you can develop that more, and it’s inherent in every single player on the team, you’re looking to play the combinations, all of these things? No idea what this team can do.

    “Then you have the mentality aspect on top of it, where if the football is not going well, we know that we can freakin’ go. We have players on the field that are faster, stronger, capable in behind, and we’re gonna gut it out, right? The world is going to be very fearful.”

    Those words could cause a stir. In 2019, Ali Krieger suggested the USWNT substitutes could take on and beat multiple other teams at the World Cup, and it was a massive point of contention for a team that got plenty more criticism from across American culture even as it was celebrated for its third consecutive title.

    “We have to be one of the most talked about teams,” Horan says. “We’re always in the magnifying glass on every single thing we do or anything we say.”

    Individual players can bear the brunt of that magnifying glass just as much as the team can. There’s a clear, though understandable, vein of frustration from Horan over how her own performances are understood, even from the USWNT’s own fanbase. To illustrate her point, Horan brings up that many viewers will take a television commentator’s analysis at face value.

    “American soccer fans, most of them aren’t smart,” she says. “They don’t know the game. They don’t understand. (But) it’s getting better and better.”

    She takes a brief pause, sensing that those words, too, will cause a stir.

    “I’m gonna piss off some people,” she continues, “but the game is growing in the U.S. People are more and more knowledgeable, but so much of the time people take what the commentators say, right? My mom does it!” She breaks into laughter. “My mom says, ‘Julie Foudy said you had such a good game!’ And I’m here, just going, ‘I was f—ing s— today.’”

    When playing with Lyon in France, Horan says, things are different.

    “From what I’ve heard, people understand my game a little bit more, a sense of my football and the way I play,” she says. “It is the French culture. Everyone watches football. People know football.”

    None of that, though, compares to Horan’s experience at the 2023 World Cup. The outside commentary, including from her own former teammate Carli Lloyd, the entrances into stadiums in their custom suits; the tone used in interviews; the body language. Everything was scrutinized. This time, though, the talk was accompanied by bad performances, and bad results.

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    Horan says she wasn’t bothered by the outside criticism, but noted no one else but the players could understand what it was like to be on that team. Ultimately, she says it felt “perfectly fine” that people would find something to talk about.

    “If you’re not backing it up on the field, people are gonna come and talk s— about what you’re doing, where your priorities are,” she says. “Like, ‘Are you getting ready for the game? Are you caring more about this s—?’”


    Horan has leaned on Lavelle (left) to help lead a team in transition (Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    Horan, again, comes back to a small, seemingly innocuous detail: The traditional pre-match starting XI photo. In the NWSL, more and more teams have started using the occasion for various hijinks; something that Horan’s European teammates bring up as an example of Americans not taking their business seriously. It’s clear that it gets under her skin, too.

    “I want professionalism,” she admits. “Those little things, they really irked me. I don’t think I could do it, and maybe I’m wrong in saying that, I don’t know. It just bothers me. We put so much into this game, and it’s just like a joke sometimes.”

    She’s quick to point out she’s not going to be the one who shuts it down if it works for others. That’s not what she’s trying to say. It’s just that, ultimately, for her, it’s about the football.

    “We need to get back to the football. The football is the most important thing” Horan says. “So maybe we should knock some of the s— out for now. We need to focus on the game, we need to focus on being the absolute best we can be.”

    As captain, Horan can help enact that. It’s a role she’s clearly grown into, even as she has struggled to understand it in the months between Andonovski’s exit and Hayes’ hiring.

    Hayes hasn’t officially started yet, and won’t coach in games until after her job as Chelsea’s head coach ends along with the European season in May. But Hayes’ December visit with Horan and the rest of the team helped clarify the process, Horan says. It also gave Horan a chance to open up the lines of communication, to admit that sometimes she didn’t feel like she had full control, that she hadn’t been handed the reins.

    “I always felt like I was someone that could really touch on every single player and get the best out of them and try to make them the best that they could be,” Horan says. “I’m not going to be like the rah-rah speeches, all that nonsense. Becky (Sauerbrunn) and me are probably a little similar in that. I’m probably a little more crazy on the field. I want to make sure I’m the leader that I want to be, and no one’s trying to make me something else.”

    Before Andonovski gave her the armband — a move made in part because longtime captain Sauerbrunn missed the World Cup due to a lingering foot injury — Horan told him that getting the armband wouldn’t change her, or how players could talk to her. What it would change, she told him, is the tone it would set. She wanted to be a role model.

    “I’m not going to be a coach’s captain, I’m going to be a players’ captain,” she told Andonovski. So if that wasn’t what he wanted, then he shouldn’t make her a captain.

    Horan has lived up to her word since interim head coach Twila Kilgore stepped in, leaning on Morgan, Lavelle and Sonnett to make them part of the transitional process. She has empowered the team’s relative newcomers, too. The normally-reticent 23-year-old center back Naomi Girma said Horan “encouraged me just to find my voice.”

    “A lot of these new young players are going to have big freaking roles, even in this Olympics,” Horan says. “How the hell do we get the best out of them to go put us on the podium? It’s been a crazy place, but this is a really exciting role for me because I’ve felt like this is what I’m meant to do.”

    The team has four months until Hayes takes over, and six until the Olympics. The sprint is very much on for this massive group project to re-establish the team at the top, before looking ahead to 2027 and a World Cup that could be hosted at home. Every voice matters to Horan, from Horan to Lavelle to Morgan to Girma to Shaw and beyond.

    “We need to be doing everything we possibly can to be improving, to make each other better, holding the standards,” Horan says. “We need to change every bit of culture that we had prior to the last World Cup and going into this Olympics because we need to win. And that starts now.”

    (Photo: James Gilbert/Getty Images)





    The New York Times

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  • How the USWNT lured Emma Hayes away from Chelsea: Inside the near $2 million deal

    How the USWNT lured Emma Hayes away from Chelsea: Inside the near $2 million deal

    Chelsea Women had created a frenzy. On Nov. 4, the English club released a statement saying their coach Emma Hayes was leaving at the end of the season to “pursue a new opportunity outside of the Women’s Super League and club football.” Hayes had just entered her second decade in charge of the club, and few knew where she would land next.

    That same day The Athletic, among others, reported that Hayes’ next job would be with the U.S. women’s national team, leading a four-time World Cup and Olympic gold medal-winning program into a new era. On Tuesday, U.S. Soccer made her appointment official.

    Hayes, who previously won six WSL titles in England, will become the 10th full-time coach of the U.S., but not until her final season with Chelsea is complete next May. Sporting director Matt Crocker made the final decision to hire Hayes after a search process that began in August, following the team’s surprising exit in the round of 16 at the World Cup and the subsequent departure of head coach Vlatko Andonovski.

    “She has tremendous energy and an insatiable will to win,” U.S. Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone said in a statement. “Her experience in the USA, her understanding of our soccer landscape and her appreciation of what it means to coach this team makes her a natural fit for this role and we could not be more pleased to have her leading our women’s national team forward.”

    Though Hayes is seen as one of the world’s top coaches in women’s soccer, the appointment still comes as something of a surprise. Here’s how the deal got done.

    Details of the deal

    At least part of the surprise surrounding Hayes’ hire – and the six-month runway before she officially takes charge – is down to U.S. Soccer’s own messaging. Crocker, in a September meeting with U.S. reporters along with Cone and U.S. Soccer CEO J.T. Batson, said he hoped to have a new head coach in place by December.

    But the initial contact with Hayes was made a couple of months ago, early into the search, with all three top-level executives from U.S. Soccer involved in those talks. The trio also described the interview process to journalists in that September meeting – a U.S. soccer statement describes it as involving “psychometrics and abstract reasoning tests, in-depth discussions of strategy, coaching philosophy and the current player pool, as well as evaluation on the reactions to pressure, culture-building and interactions with players and staff.” USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter went through a similar process, including an abstract reasoning test, when he was re-hired by Crocker earlier in 2023.

    The hiring process included multiple rounds of evaluation, with the list of candidates becoming smaller each time. The first pass was driven purely by data, which was then whittled down to a double-digit list Crocker was considering as of September, and then a final shortlist, which also included Tony Gustavsson, head coach of Australia. Multiple sources confirmed both Hayes and Gustavsson flew to the U.S. for interviews.

    One source who was briefed on the situation said the federation had also checked in on the availability of Sarina Wiegman, despite clear messaging from both the English FA and Wiegman herself in August. “I’m staying out of it. I’ve heard it (from the press officer) but no, I’m with England and I’m really happy with England, and I have a contract until 2025,” Wiegman said. A representative from her camp declined to comment for this story.

    Crocker said in September that the final interviews would include lengthy technical and tactical assessments, as well as questions to determine the candidates’ cultural fit. He and the federation stayed fairly consistent on their desired start date since the head coach role opened in August, but that became one of the major concessions made by U.S. Soccer in selecting Hayes.

    Hayes will remain exclusively with Chelsea through the end of their WSL campaign and the Champions League season. She will not work with the U.S. in international windows.

    “I’m here until the end,” she said in her press conference on Friday. “I haven’t died, I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m here, doing this job. My full focus and attention is on what I do for Chelsea.”

    Hayes could be tied up with Chelsea as late as May 25 if the London club makes the Champions League final; notably, an international window that would theoretically be Hayes’ first in charge begins just two days later, on May 27.

    However, there are ways in which the arrangement will benefit U.S. Soccer. The federation won’t owe any compensation to Chelsea, and Hayes will be fully committed to the program, with a move to Chicago in the works for next year following the completion of her time in London. Eventually, she’s expected to relocate to Atlanta thanks to U.S. Soccer’s planned combined headquarters and national training facility in Georgia. As of yet, there’s no targeted date set for the move.

    Hayes, too, will benefit in ways other than compensation and prestige. She spoke to reporters about looking forward to spending more time with her five-year-old son, Harry. She has never been to one of his sports days, picked him up from school or taken him to an after-school club and she wants to do that. 

    The main visible wrinkle in the process was Chelsea’s surprise move of announcing Hayes’ departure on Saturday, Nov. 4. With the contract not yet finalized and U.S. Soccer board approval still needed, Chelsea issued their statement at 11 a.m. ET in the U.S. in which it noted she would leave at the end of the season “to pursue a new opportunity outside of the WSL and club football.” The club feared that the news was starting to leak and wanted to share the news on its own. This began the race to confirm Hayes had been selected as the USWNT head coach.

    Talks between U.S. Soccer and Hayes’ representatives continued even after Chelsea’s press release. The federation’s board convened late on Saturday, Nov. 4 to approve the selection, even without the final details of the contract settled or signed.

    At the end of it all, the sides have agreed to a deal that will make Hayes the highest-paid women’s football coach in the world — though her salary is not tied to equal compensation with Berhalter. While her salary is in the same range as the USMNT head coach, it’s thought to be a reflection of the market value for Hayes. With reports that Chelsea was prepared to quadruple her salary to keep her, Hayes herself danced around the details in her first media availability with the club.

    “I believe in private conversations,” she said. “Of course, I’m disappointed to hear things being said in the press. I want to make sure I maintain my own professionalism in everything I do.”

    U.S Soccer’s annual financial reports reveal the salaries of their head coaches and other executives. While Berhalter received a new contract this year, his previous deal that ran from April 2021 to March 2022, earned him $1.6 million, including $300,000 in bonuses. During that same time, Andonovski earned $446,495, of which only $50,000 was bonus money. With Hayes expected to earn close to $2 million per year in her deal, this will likely create a knock-on effect for other international women’s coaches negotiating their next contracts.

    U.S. Soccer’s rollout of their new head coach has not been an easy one for the federation’s communications staff, considering that Hayes is essentially unavailable for any formal ceremonies or media appearances until her time with Chelsea is complete.

    “This is a huge honor to be given the opportunity to coach the most incredible team in world football history,” she said in a statement on Tuesday. “The feelings and connection I have for this team and for this country run deep. I’ve dreamed about coaching the USA for a long time so to get this opportunity is a dream come true. I know there is work to do to achieve our goals of winning consistently at the highest levels. To get there, it will require dedication, devotion and collaboration from the players, staff and everyone at the U.S. Soccer Federation.”

    Looking ahead for the USWNT

    Hayes’ appointment will have an immediate impact, even if she’s not immediately present. The particulars around timing and the plan moving forward have been one of the areas of discussion between Hayes and her representatives, Chelsea and U.S. Soccer that has continued through the start of November.

    Unless the situation changes drastically, Hayes will only have two camps, including four friendlies, with the USWNT ahead of the 2024 Olympics in Paris. She’ll miss three international windows between Tuesday’s announcement and her planned start date, including the 2024 CONCACAF Gold Cup in February and March.

    U.S. Soccer has a plan in place for the transition. Current interim head coach Twila Kilgore will continue in the role through May and will remain as a permanent assistant coach under Hayes after the swap is complete. U.S. Soccer said that Kilgore and the rest of the technical staff are working on a handoff plan for Hayes.

    “This is a unique situation, but the team is in safe hands with Twila,” Crocker said. “Her stewardship will be crucial during this period as we are focused on success at the Olympics. Emma has endorsed Twila, she will be a key part of Emma’s staff when she arrives and moving forward, and we are excited for what’s to come with our USWNT program.”

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    How Emma Hayes’ winning ways at Chelsea can benefit USWNT on the field

    It’s still an extremely tight turn for the Olympics, with 18 days for Hayes to get situated with the team ahead of the tournament, between the two international windows from May 27 to June 4, then July 8 to 16. The Olympic tournament will start on July 25.

    There are, of course, logistical questions about roster selection over the next few months. Some of those may be answered relatively soon, with the roster for the upcoming camp that begins at the end of the month imminent. The greater challenge will likely be ongoing player evaluation over the next six months, at a time of great transition within the squad. The specifics of how that will work without Hayes’ involvement remain a mystery. It would be understandable for players to feel like they are still auditioning for an absent director until May rolls around, while still knowing they must perform at the USWNT standard.

    Along these same lines, there is at least the suggestion that the federation could be willing to sacrifice coherent preparation for this upcoming Olympic tournament to focus more on the longer-term project of the 2027 World Cup. That itself represents a marked change from the expectations and pressure of constant performance and winning that the team is known for.

    Is that a good or a bad thing? Perhaps a little bit of both. The USWNT shouldn’t be ruled out of contention for the Olympics by any stretch, but this past summer’s World Cup did reveal that the problems facing the team are far more foundational than just poor coaching decisions or the strange midfield chemistry. Balancing realism with the pressure to win feels like a much more sustainable path forward for the USWNT.

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    What’s next for Chelsea?

    Questions surrounding Hayes’ future have cropped up previously in her tenure at Chelsea. She was linked to several jobs in the men’s English Football League in the past and has always been interested in managing Spain’s national team, although there was never an official conversation with Spain’s federation. So it was a question of when, not if, Hayes would leave. Still, news of her decision came as a shock to her staff and players.

    A few staff members were told on the morning of Nov. 4 before Chelsea’s away game at Aston Villa kicked off at 12.30 p.m. UK time. Most of the other staff members found out with the players in the post-match meeting minutes before the official club statement, which Hayes had no hand in writing and did not even see before publication, was released at 3 p.m.

    England and Chelsea captain Millie Bright was “devastated,” and most players were understandably sad — many of whom owe their career progression to Hayes — but know they still have a job to do this season.

    “It’s been a bit of a whirlwind. As a player and a person, I was devastated. I’ve been here nine years under Emma and the things I’ve learned,” Bright said. “She’s a mentor, a coach, a friend, a life coach. It’s more than just football playing under her.”


    Bright credits Hayes for her on and off-field guidance. (Photo by Marc Atkins, Getty Images)

    Hayes’ American assistant Denise Reddy, born in New Jersey, is likely to follow her across the pond. The former United States Under-20 coach has remained faithful to her friend of 20 years and voluntarily quit her job as assistant at Chicago Red Stars in 2010 when Hayes was fired as head coach. Chelsea’s general manager Paul Green will stay at the club. It is unclear whether any other members of Chelsea’s technical staff are expected to depart.  

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    The relentless nature of managing a club takes its toll and after what will be 12 years at Chelsea come the end of the season, Hayes, a single parent whose father died last month, decided that it was the right time for a change, professionally and personally.

    “The biggest factors are my son, leaving at the top and giving the club enough time to be able to transition without there being too much disruption,” she said in her press conference.

    The club has received several applications regarding Hayes’ replacement but has not yet started an official recruitment process. She will meet with Chelsea’s technical directors once a week to create a succession plan and will have a say in who takes the job after her.

    There is the possibility of Hayes retaining a connection to the club via some sort of ambassadorial role, but it’s likely contingent upon a lack of conflict with the USWNT role and responsibilities. Under American Todd Boehly’s co-ownership, expanding Chelsea’s profile and reach in the U.S. would make sense, especially with USWNT internationals Catarina Macario and Mia Fishel playing their club football there — and CBS Sports holding WSL rights.

    There is, for now, an immediate task for Hayes to focus on. Chelsea faces off against Real Madrid on Wednesday for their first match of the UWCL Champions League group stage. Her full American arrival will not come for another half a year after that.

    (Top photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)

    The New York Times

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  • Rapinoe after NWSL Championship: ‘I just rode it until the wheels came right off’

    Rapinoe after NWSL Championship: ‘I just rode it until the wheels came right off’

    All week, there was a constant refrain: the NWSL Championship was set up for a poetic finish between two of the game’s greatest players. Megan Rapinoe and Ali Krieger would play against each other for one more trophy in the final match of their respective careers. “You couldn’t write a better ending,” Gotham forward Lynn Williams said on Friday, with a smile. It was supposed to be one last chance to give two players their flowers in real-time, no matter who ended victorious.

    But only two minutes and 25 seconds into Saturday night’s showdown at Snapdragon Stadium in front of a rowdy, record 25,011 fans, Rapinoe’s chance to write her half of the story ended abruptly, and without warning. During an offensive run, Rapinoe slipped and fell to the pitch with an apparent non-contact injury. She grabbed at her lower right leg, first in disbelief and then with a typical wry smile.

    “It sucks,” Rapinoe said after the game, her right foot encased in a boot. “I don’t think there’s any good things to say about it or a silver lining.

    “I was feeling good. I was actually feeling some of my best I felt all season these last couple of weeks. I wasn’t feeling tight in my calf or Achilles or anything. So in classic form, I was like, ‘F—, who just kicked me?’ There’s nobody, I’m the one pressing, there’s nobody around me. So, I had that immediate thought and then just went to feel down (there), there’s nothing there. I don’t really think I need a scan (to know it was possibly a torn Achilles tendon).”

    While she received a boot and crutches during halftime, Rapinoe sent a few texts to her mother and her fiancée Sue Bird, allowing the rest of the team to talk through the plan for the second half. “I wasn’t overly emotional about it,” Rapinoe said. “I mean, f—ing yeeted my Achilles in the sixth minute in my last game ever in the literal championship game.”

    Before Rapinoe had exited the field for the final time, she limped over to Krieger and exchanged a hug, somehow still smiling that familiar smile. For her part, Krieger said that she had encouraged Rapinoe to wrap up her leg to get back out there, that she had never expected something like that to happen.

    “Football is such a risk, right? You never know if it’s gonna be your last game, your last moment, and to happen to such an incredible player, in that moment, when there was such a build-up,” Krieger said.

    It was hard, as Rapinoe gingerly stepped off the field, to not think of something Krieger had mentioned in a pre-match press conference, about why she still played despite all the wins and all the struggles she had gone through in her career. “I’m giving it everything I have and you don’t necessarily get all of it back in return. So you have to have that willingness and drive to want to do it for yourself because you love it,” she said.


    Ali Krieger and Megan Rapinoe end their careers together. (Photo by Ben Nichols/Getty Images)

    This year, Rapinoe hasn’t always gotten much back from the game. She missed her penalty during the USWNT’s World Cup loss to Sweden this summer. She had never missed a penalty before that moment. Like Saturday, that night in Melbourne ended with tears and laughter and that note of disbelief that such a trusted part of her game had let her down in such a major moment. But on Saturday, it felt like nothing more than a fluke, a bad step, something she never could have seen coming, or even attempted to avoid.

    The moment affected the match, for both teams. “When I saw her put her head back,” Gotham forward and the game’s MVP Midge Purce said, “I’ve seen her go down (before), and it was really sad. Then one of the girls on their team started crying, and I turned to (Yazmeen Ryan), and I said let’s go to her because she was clearly upset. It’s hard. I think that definitely affected them a lot.”

    Purce helped Gotham take the lead later that half, setting up Lynn Williams’ opening goal by running through three OL Reign defenders. Rose Lavelle equalized, but Purce again set up the go-ahead goal, giving her team the lead before halftime — one they would never relinquish.

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    Gotham FC earned the NWSL title, and Midge Purce owned the night

    After the match, when Lavelle walked through the mixed zone, clearly feeling several emotions from the loss, she had to pause for a moment to collect herself before answering a question about Rapinoe.

    “It seems like a sick joke that it has to end that way,” she said. “It’s just been such an honor to be able to share the field with her, so I wish we could have gotten it done today. She’s amazing; she doesn’t deserve that. I think with everything, she just takes it on the chin and was still our biggest fan out there.”

    During the postgame press conference, Lavelle sat next to Rapinoe as the former Ballon d’Or winner dealt with the adversity the only way she knows how, through humor.

    “I mean I don’t deserve this,” Rapinoe said with a laugh. “I’m a better person than this, maybe I was f—ing in a previous lifetime. … This one feels different than missing a (penalty) in New Zealand. I mean, again, it’s like that’s life. It’s part of the game.”

    Just over 24 hours earlier, Rapinoe had exhaled a laugh over a question about why she and her teammates hadn’t ever managed to actually win a NWSL Championship before, despite two previous appearances in 2014 and 2015 and a run of semifinal losses. “S—’s hard,” she’d said, a simple enough explanation. A true one.

    On Saturday night, it was more of the same.

    She got another question too, one she’s heard time and time again in the long run of games since announcing her retirement ahead of the World Cup, through her final game with the USWNT and her send-off ceremony with the Reign. What, exactly, is her legacy?

    And as always, she still hesitated to answer the way any reporter would truly like: some tidy summation of her career, her accomplishments off the field, her personality, her refusal to fit herself into a box.

    “Oh, that’s for you guys to write,” she replied. “I don’t—I don’t know. I always tried to play the game the right way. Always tried to enjoy it. At the end of the day, I feel like we are in the entertainment business, and especially in a growing sport and a growing league, I feel like that’s really important. Always try to make things better.

    “I just walk away so proud and so happy to have not only my contribution to the game but the era that I’ve played in and knowing that the game is in such a better place. That’s a testament to all the players that have played in this generation and played in this league,” she said, pointing to the league’s new media deal, the quality of the games. “I feel like I get to walk away smiling no matter what, really proud of my entire career.”

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    NWSL reveals TV deals with ESPN, CBS, more

    So maybe it was fitting that in one of her final quotes as a player, she gave a typical Megan Rapinoe answer to a question about the game she is now leaving behind, as a player at least.

    “This is what we have built, the players who played in my generation, this is part of our legacy and what we’ve left behind. What is now here for the kids to take and to do with what they want. But I feel like we’ve left a pretty solid blueprint for them to continue to not only grow the game, and make it the premier league in the world, but also affect change off the field and continue to couple that with what they’re doing on the field,” Rapinoe said.

    “I’m a proud, gay aunt, looking down on the league like, ‘Damn, we did good.’ But they’re going to be able to take it so much further.”

    And with that, Rapinoe, for the first time in well over a decade, was done with her responsibilities as a professional footballer.

    “I guess I just rode it until the wheels came right off,” Rapinoe said. “You don’t always get perfect endings, but I’ve also had so many perfect endings.”

    (Photo: Meg Oliphant/Getty Images)

    The New York Times

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  • US fights back to draw with Netherlands at Women’s World Cup | CNN

    US fights back to draw with Netherlands at Women’s World Cup | CNN

    Women’s World Cup 2023: Live scores, fixtures, results, tables and top scorers


    Wellington, New Zealand
    CNN
     — 

    In a closely-fought battle and rematch of the 2019 World Cup final, the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) and the Netherlands – two of the world’s top teams – came to a 1-1 draw on Thursday at the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

    Chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A!” reverberating around the Wellington Regional Stadium as the team faced the Netherlands in their second match of the tournament soon dissipated after the Dutch took an early lead.

    Midfielder Jill Roord put the Netherlands on the board in the 17th minute, finding the back of the net past USWNT goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher.

    It was the first time the USWNT trailed in a Women’s World Cup match since 2011 in the quarterfinal against Brazil. Prior to Thursday, the US had gone 17 straight matches without trailing – the longest streak by any team in the tournament’s history.

    The Netherlands, meanwhile, was hungry for revenge after their 2-0 loss to the US in the 2019 World Cup.

    Despite trailing at the half, the USWNT outshot the Netherlands 9-2 in the first half – and all their scoring chances finally came to fruition in the 62nd minute.

    US captain Lindsey Horan scored the equalizer with a thumping header from a corner kick, prompting ecstatic celebrations in the stands.

    Just a few minutes later, the USWNT thought they had gone ahead after forward Alex Morgan found the back of the net – but she was offside and the goal was disallowed.

    Despite five minutes of added stoppage time, both teams weren’t able to best each other by the time the final whistle blew.

    With the draw, the USWNT extends their unbeaten streak to 19 matches at the World Cup – the longest in tournament history for both men’s and women’s editions.

    Speaking after the match, Horan called it “unbelievable” that the team was able to come back and score the equalizer to avoid a loss in the group stage.

    “I felt the momentum the whole time,” Horan said. “I think the first half we could be a little disappointed in how we played but I think we fixed things right away. The pressure that we got on, the amount of chances and opportunities that came from it – so proud of the team and their response.”

    USNWT forward Alex Morgan (left) and Dutch defender Stefanie van der Gragt (right) fight for the ball during the US-Netherlands match in the Women's World Cup on July 27, 2023.

    Horan was also complimentary of the Dutch side, following the recent history between the two teams.

    “It’s against a really good opponent. Very competitive team and one that we saw last World Cup do such good things. So for us, it’s going down a goal and coming up and getting able to tie … we keep moving forward,” Horan added.

    Dutch goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar also praised her team’s performance after the match, saying they had “worked really hard” and been in frequent possession of the ball.

    “I think we were very calm, especially the first half,” she said. “The second half, they dominated more of the game and they had more chances. But after all, we can be very proud of ourselves.”

    Later on Thursday in a clash of fellow Group E contestants and two World Cup debutants, Portugal beat Vietnam 2-0 in the New Zealand city of Hamilton.

    Telma Encarnação opened the scoring in the opening 10 minutes before Francisca Nazareth gave Portugal a well-deserved two-goal cushion.

    Despite constant Portuguese pressure, the European side was unable to extend its lead further but picks up a vital three points as it seeks to reach the knockout stages of the Women’s World Cup for the first time ever.

    With two defeats in its first two games, Vietnam has been eliminated.

    Back-to-back defending champions USA are next scheduled to face Portugal on August 1, while the Netherlands goes against Vietnam that same day.

    The group matches conclude after August 3, with the tournament then moving into the knockout stage with the 16 remaining teams.

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  • USWNT defeated by England in front of record Wembley crowd under shadow of Yates report | CNN

    USWNT defeated by England in front of record Wembley crowd under shadow of Yates report | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) was defeated 2-1 by England at Wembley in an international friendly that spotlighted both the increasing popularity of women’s football and its failures.

    Billed as a match-up between the world and European champions, both teams had displayed impressive form in recent months – the USWNT arrived on a 21-game unbeaten streak and England on its own 23-game unbeaten run that included winning Euro 2022.

    But the build-up to the match was dominated by matters off the pitch as, back in the US, women’s professional soccer had been left reeling from an independent investigation that found systemic abuse and misconduct within the sport.

    “It’s been an extremely difficult week for everybody and I’m proud of the players for even being on the field and playing the game,” US head coach Vltako Andonovski said after the match, according to the BBC. “It wasn’t easy.

    “I applaud their bravery and I applaud their fearless mentality and relentlessness. Once again they showed that nothing can stop them playing the game that they love. I’m very proud of them and hoping we never have to go through that again.”

    Before kickoff, both teams came together, holding a banner that read, “Protect the Players,” while the Wembley Arch was illuminated with teal light to show support for the victims of abuse.

    “First and foremost, if the players aren’t protected, then you don’t have a game, you don’t have anything. So for us to put that at the forefront of such an important night and game was really amazing and powerful for all of us,” American soccer star Megan Rapinoe said after the game, per Sky Sports.

    Throughout the match, both teams also wore teal armbands in a further display of support.

    “To take the time to do that, get the armbands – I think they were flown in from California and a little tight on some people, I’m happy I have a skinny arm – just an incredible show by all of us, some things are bigger than the game and we were able to put that on display,” Rapinoe added.

    “Obviously the report came out about our league but … it’s probably a global issue as well. To anyone in the stands tonight who has been affected by it, obviously all the players, to just show that kind of support on a night like this.”

    And the night showcased the increasing reach of women’s football as 76,893 fans gathered at Wembley Stadium – the highest attended friendly match in USWNT history – to watch both sides beginning to fine tune their preparations for next year’s World Cup.

    England took the lead after just nine minutes, as Beth Mead played a ball into the box that eluded US defender Alana Cook and landed at the feet of Lauren Hemp, who guided the ball into the goal.

    Although England continued to threaten, the American defense held firm and the USWNT tied the scores less than 20 minutes later as Sophia Smith capitalized on a mistake to fire the ball past England goalkeeper Mary Earps.

    “[Smith] seemed like she made a name for herself. But we can’t forget she’s 21 years old,” US head coach Vltako Andovnoski told media after the game, according to CBS Sports.

    “To come in an environment like this, and to be a difference maker … it just shows the potential that she has. I think that we haven’t seen the best of her [yet].

    “These are games that will expedite Soph’s development, and I’m excited to see what she’s going to look like six months from now, nine months from now.”

    Sophia Smith is one of the USWNT's rising stars.

    But England restored its lead soon after when the VAR intervened to award the home side a penalty after a high foot from Hailie Mace caught Lucy Bronze in the head. Georgia Stanway converted for a 2-1 lead.

    And the free flowing first half seemed to show no signs of abating as Smith opened up the English defense for Rapinoe who fed Trinity Rodman for a goal. But once again, the VAR intervened in England’s favor, ruling that Smith had been fractionally offside in the move.

    The second half was an altogether cagier affair as England missed two opportunities to extend its lead, allowing the USWNT a glimmer of hope.

    When the referee awarded a penalty to the Americans for handball with just 10 minutes remaining, that glimmer widened a little but replays overturned the decision and England held on to close out its first win against the reigning world champions since 2017.

    “You are the best team in the world when you have won the World Cup. We haven’t,” England head coach Sarina Wiegman told reporters, per Reuters. “We are in a good place, but there are so many good countries.

    “We just have to do what we can, control, stick together and communicate with each other at all times. We need to have the freedom to make our own choices in the game. I think we are doing well in that.”

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