Laken Litman
College Football & Soccer Analyst
The U.S. women’s national team will face Brazil twice over the next four days in a rematch of last summer’s epic Paris Olympics gold medal game. The Americans won 1-0 thanks to an elite goal by Mallory Swanson to clinch their first gold medal in 12 years.
The opening match takes place on Saturday afternoon at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles and marks the first time the venue will host a women’s professional sporting event. Then both teams will head to San Jose, Calif. to finish the doubleheader at PayPal Park on Tuesday night.
Emma Hayes’ lineups won’t look quite like the squad that took the pitch in Paris. For one, Swanson isn’t in this camp, and neither is Sophia Wilson. Only Trinity Rodman, one-third of the ‘Triple Espresso’, was available for selection. Center backs Naomi Girma and Tierna Davidson, who recently tore her ACL, will not be participating either. Without a chunk of USWNT starters, Hayes has promised to continue experimentation in these two games. This means giving players with fewer caps more experience so that when the next World Cup rolls around in 2027, there will be a larger pool of players with meaningful international experience in Hayes’ arsenal.
Here’s what you need to know about the USWNT during this April window:
There will be even more experimentation
Since the USWNT won gold last summer, the ensuing training camps have been more about calling in less experienced players so that Hayes and her staff can broaden the player pool.
For example, players like Lily Yohannes, Tara McKeown, and Ally Sentnor have had opportunities to earn minutes and play in high-pressure situations over the last several months. Hayes said Sentnor told her after the SheBelieves Cup final loss to Japan in February that it was “the most difficult game” she’s played in her career. Hayes’ goal is to create more moments like that for players so that they’ll be better armed to win the 2027 World Cup.
But settling into the USWNT environment takes time. And Hayes wants to see how players take learnings from one game and apply it to the next one and the next one after that.
“What I have learned being in this job is how much it means to play for this team for the players,” Hayes said Friday. “And with that comes the pressure and expectation of, ‘I’ve got to perform at the top, top level all the time,’ which is great. It’s aspirational. The realities are, you have to feel your way into that arena. And what I have noticed in this camp is the gap closing across the board within the team and that’s our first starting point.”
Experimentation means connections on the field might not be as strong or crisp, but it will help Hayes and her staff be more intentional about player combinations in the future.
Because for Hayes it’s not about beating Brazil now; it’s about defeating them in the World Cup in the future.
“You can’t go from experiencing [one game] to dominating,” Hayes said. “It’s a step-by-step process.
“… I want to be in a position come qualifying for the World Cup that we’ve got a really strong group that have cap accumulation first and foremost. And now, already, I’m seeing this happening which is great for us. … I want [the players] to work through this part of the journey in a way where they get the right exposures in the right moment and we are not just sucked into winning at all costs.”
Where does Cat Macario stand physically and mentally?
Macario has endured a turbulent journey due to injuries. After a lengthy ACL recovery kept her off the pitch for an extended period of time, Macario faced another unforeseen setback last summer when she was pulled from the Olympics roster due to “knee irritation.” She returned to her Chelsea squad earlier this season and was back with the USWNT for the SheBelieves Cup.
The 25-year-old can play the No. 9 or No. 10 roles and is finally healthy enough to play a major role for Hayes in preparation for the next World Cup (which would be Macario’s first with the USWNT). Hayes said Macario will play more of a nine because of her ability to link play between the lines and because she is “so threatening in the box.”
Because of her pesky injuries, Macario only has 21 caps and nine goals for the U.S. Hayes said people don’t realize that “she is still growing into the WNT shirt” and that she’s had to remind the player – who she recruited and coached at Chelsea – “of all the brilliant things she brings to this team.”
“Have we seen the best Cat Macario yet? Absolutely not,” Hayes said. “How long will that take? I always tell players this: they need to play continuously, stay on the field. I think getting through this [club] season for her and getting another preseason under her belt, I think we’ll start to see it go up another level.
“She’s a wonderful soul and someone that is so desperate to do well for our program. So, she’s got another opportunity to do that.”
Alyssa Thompson’s growth
One of the more intriguing players in this squad is the 20-year-old Thompson. The young forward earned her first cap as a teenager in October 2022 and was – maybe prematurely – part of the 2023 World Cup roster. But due to injury, she fell out of favor for a while.
Over the past six months, however, she’s worked her way into Haye’s plans and has seen regular USWNT call ups. She’s had a strong start to the NWSL season, too, scoring two goals in Angel City’s first three games.
“In our future, I hope we can look at someone like Alyssa Thompson’s situation, i.e. a 17-year-old coming into the program, probably under prepared because the level is so much higher,” Hayes said. “I think she’s in the best place she has been in terms of her start to the [NWSL] season. I went to the Angel City game over the weekend and thought she was fantastic.”
Since October, the USWNT staff has been working with Thompson positionally and in her decision-making processes. Hayes and the staff will say things to Thompson like, ‘Listen, at the top level, you’re a great 1-v-1 specialist, but when you play the top players in the world, they know how to drop off of you in a certain way where they don’t give you a 1-v-1 opportunity,'” Hayes said. They’re teaching her how to better link with other players, create give-and-gos, connect with the No. 9, and finish in the final third.
“When you play for me, I will overload you in a way to take the player to another level tactically,” Hayes said. “But that means for a period of time, there’s a lot of thinking going on – you have to remember here and that and that.
“I feel like with Alyssa now, she understands that, so she’s able to do it more naturally. So I’m really looking forward to seeing her at this camp for those reasons.”
Laken Litman covers college football, college basketball and soccer for FOX Sports. She previously wrote for Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Indianapolis Star. She is the author of “Strong Like a Woman,” published in spring 2022 to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Follow her at @LakenLitman.
Get more from United States Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
