Possibility and Playfulness: How the Next Generation of the USWNT Is Redefining Itself
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For the first time in a long time, it appears the US Women’s National Team is starting fresh.
With seasoned veterans Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn sitting out of the 2024 roster, and younger stars Jaedyn Shaw and Trinity Rodman preparing for their Olympic debuts, it appears this tournament is truly a new group of players.
“(We) respect our history, but also try to write a new story for this team,” defenseman Naomi Girma said before the team’s Olympic farewell games. “Going into this tournament … that’s something we really work on and are intentional about: ‘What do we take with us and what do we need to change moving forward?’ I think that’s important for every team and program to do that to continue to be successful.”
There is, however, a lot of continuity from the old guard. Crystal Dunn, Lindsey Horan and Alyssa Naeher are just a few of the players who bring with them a thread of history and stability that dates back to 2015, when Naeher was a reserve goalkeeper at the World Cup. However, only seven of the players on the 2019 World Cup-winning roster are now at these Olympics in France. Without Morgan on the call sheet, there is no Olympic gold medalist left.
It’s a good core group of experienced players, but there’s also plenty of room for relatively younger players. According to head coach Emma Hayes, who only officially joined the group at the end of May, that was intentional.
“When you look at the team’s cap accumulation, there’s a lack of development, of putting some of the less experienced players in positions where they can develop that experience,” Hayes said after revealing her tournament roster. “I think it’s important that we do that to take the next step. So I’m not looking back.”
With a new vibe comes a new search for identity. This 2024 team can’t help but be aware that the United States, so accustomed to a certain level of global dominance, hasn’t won a major tournament since that 2019 high. There have been just two major tournaments since then, but the U.S. was knocked out by underdog rival Canada at the Tokyo Olympics, then battled its way to a bronze medal against Australia three years ago. And at the 2023 World Cup, they reached a round of 16 appearance before being eliminated on penalties by Sweden.
“We’ve gone further than we did last summer,” Sophia Smith said during a media briefing in Marseille before they took on Zambia in their opening Group B match. “It’s a completely new environment and opportunity, a lot of new players. We’re just looking forward. At this point we’re taking the game once, and with Emma coming in we’ve learned a lot, we’ve grown a lot and we’ve introduced a lot of new things that I think will help us be successful in this tournament.”
This team is determined not to let the specter of 2023 hang over their heads. It’s part of the paradox of any team’s history: you’re inevitably shaped by past successes and failures, but you can’t depend on them. You have to learn from mistakes without dwelling on them.
This new team — featuring eight of the 22 players who weren’t even born when the 99ers elevated the U.S. women’s team to legacy status — doesn’t yet have a definitive vibe, at least not publicly. It’s understandable that they’re still feeling emotionally charged as a group, considering they didn’t even have a firm hand at the helm until Hayes arrived in late May, having spent nine months with an interim head coach before that.
“The transition hasn’t been the easiest in a lot of ways,” Dunn said. “But I think the team has done an incredible job of not skipping a beat.
“Obviously we left the World Cup feeling a bit underwhelmed about our performance, but I think at the end of the day we knew we had an incredible opportunity to bounce back and get back at it.”
Dunn is one of the more experienced players ushering in the new era. (Photo by Howard Smith, Getty Images for USSF)
That doesn’t mean they lack leadership. In addition to captain Horan, many players have cited Dunn, Girma, Tierna Davidson, Rose Lavelle and Emily Sonnett as players who have stepped up to provide guidance and support. And there are actually only four players on the core Olympic roster without prior Olympic or senior World Cup experience: Korbin Albert, Sam Coffey, Jenna Nighswonger and Shaw. Of the replacements, Hal Hershfelt, Croix Bethune and Emily Sams are also new, but are expected to see reduced playing time, while alternate goalkeeper Jane Campbell was in Tokyo, also as a reserve.
There is a feeling that, with the new players in the mix, this could be the tournament that defines the next core group of players; the beginning of a new era of USWNT superstars.
Although Girma is only 24, she is already being highly regarded as the next captain due to her excellent play as a centre-back. Davidson, who could finally establish herself as Girma’s defensive partner if she stays healthy, is only 25, while full-back Nighswonger is 23.
In attack, the U.S. has some of the most exciting names in world soccer, including Rodman (22), Smith (23), and Mallory Swanson (26). Add in Shaw, at 19, and even Bethune at 23, and American fans should be knocking on the doors to see these players compete together at the 2027 World Cup. And if 24-year-old midfielder Catarina Macario can get and stay healthy, the sky is the limit under the right coach.
It’s never a given that older and newer players can be paired in a compatible way, but this current group seems to have done it through a mix of player- and staff-led communication. The word “fun” was on everyone’s lips when asked about what emotions were in the air and what social dynamics were starting to form with another group of players. Sonnett, who has been in and out of the USWNT mix since 2015, called the team “kind of a silly group” and described a dynamic with more room for play, like a round of Heads Up Seven Up because everyone was five minutes early for a team meeting.
“The team vibes are really great,” Dunn said. “Ultimately, we’re here to win football games, but we’ve got to have fun doing it and that means creating a competitive environment that brings out the best in us and not just makes us so stressed about making mistakes.”
The public pressure on the team to win in 2019 took away much of that grace for error. They were on a run of high-profile World Cup successes, from challenging a surging Japan in the 2011 final to winning it all in what almost felt like a spellbinding run in Canada in 2015. The pressure created a bubble of incredible focus, a sense of collectiveness. Not that they were all buddy-buddy about it all the time, but everyone seemed to be on the same page about what they were doing and why.
No room for blunders, especially when the team was fighting for equal pay and better treatment from US Soccer. And there’s nothing like sweating in the trenches of labor action next to someone, while eyeing the possibility of a lockout, to build camaraderie.
The 2019 World Cup winners also became friends in their fight for equal pay. (Photo by James Devaney, GC Images)
The 2019 squad also benefited from vocal leadership, led largely by the outspoken Rapinoe but certainly shared by Morgan, Sauerbrunn and other players like Ali Krieger, Kelley O’Hara and even the maverick Carli Lloyd. This was a squad that banged the drum wherever it went — whether it meant to or not.
This new iteration is still figuring out which drum to beat and when. Now that the pay equity lawsuit is settled, they can move other priorities to the top of the list. Winning, of course, but also growth, innovation, adaptation, figuring out what the new pace of global development looks like and even how to get ahead of it.
Dunn pointed out that the team is bringing in new players at an increasingly rapid pace, something that the busy football calendar and increasingly earlier player development make increasingly necessary.
“The biggest difference is you had to wait a little bit to get that first cap,” said Dunn, who made her first USWNT appearance in 2013. “That was the norm. Some of us would go to camp for a whole year before we got more than two caps and that was kind of our process. And I think now you find yourself almost throwing these kids into the fire and seeing if they can survive, and I think that’s a way to do it too.”
Horan, whose leadership style involves one-on-one conversations, said the team will rely on its younger players, who were already rising to the occasion. “New players, young players, the confidence is amazing,” she said. “I wish I had that when I was 18 and came into this team, so (I’m) proud of them.”
If the younger players are nervous, they certainly aren’t showing it. Part of that is likely the accumulation of club experience; Shaw, Rodman and Bethune are all familiar players who carry a heavy tactical load at their NWSL clubs. That’s good for Hayes, who has shown a preference for fluid thinkers who can quickly adjust positionally, press and defend from different formations throughout a game.
Shaw and Rodman are also key players on their NWSL teams (Photo by Todd Kirkland, Getty Images)
But behind the tactics are the human connections that build trust. As Davidson said in Colorado, “I think that feeling like someone has your back is so important in football, in any sport, especially when the game gets tight. You turn to each other. You don’t turn to anyone else.”
Both the older and younger players seem happy that that trust is there. “I think we’re doing so well connecting off the field and just being together,” Rodman said. “It’s not so much isolation. Obviously we all find that time to be alone. But we have fun together. We also have that human aspect of it, of hanging out and not talking about football, as hard as it is.”
“We’re coming together more than I’ve ever seen in this team,” said Sam Coffey, who earned her first cap in 2022. “We have a clear philosophy of what we’re trying to do, who we’re trying to be, who we want to be on and off the pitch. That culture is really being created and those are things that Emma and her staff are really emphasising.”
When asked to define that philosophy, Coffey declined to elaborate on the tactical aspect of it, but off the field it ultimately boils down to “putting the team before yourself.”
“It’s doing whatever it takes to make the team win,” Coffey said. “It’s putting the team, the winning culture, the success of the group, above anything else about the individual, and I’m proud to play for a team like that. I want to be on that team.”
The team-first ethos isn’t new, but its implementation can be as varied as the ways to score a goal. From the way players describe it, there’s a renewed energy in the camp, a sense of possibility and playfulness. The last team was an autumn season, still vibrant and bountiful, but waning towards the end of a cycle. This team is a renewed spring, waiting to see what will emerge from the seeds they’ve planted, hoping for a glorious summer.
(Top photo: Stephen Nadler/Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)
