After a 2020 that was, in many ways, a lost year for international soccer, the U.S. women’s national team went into 2021 with high hopes. The year ended with feelings of missed opportunities and the need for a rethink moving forward less than 20 months away from the next Women’s World Cup.
Are you the kind of person who prefers to respond to emails and texts with GIFs instead of having to type something out? Do you also love the USWNT? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, then you or a loved one may be entitled to a plethora of new USWNT GIFs.
As a sendoff for 2021, the USWNT social team decided to do its version of Spotify Wrapped in GIF form. You might want to put a few of these in your back pocket for a rainy day.
The USWNT released 18 total GIFs for your viewing pleasure. The18 (see what I did there?) USWNT GIFs are as follows.
Carli Lloyd passed the torch to Lindsey Horan this year. Lloyd, who won two Women’s World Cups wearing the vaunted No. 10 jersey, bequeathed the number to Horan after retiring. On Thursday night, it was Horan who honored the jersey by being named U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year.
The first 2021 award winner for the USWNT was revealed on Tuesday morning with the Goal of the Year being announced. The USWNT Goal of the Year 2021 nominees included a list of sensational goals. Here’s a quick refresher on what fans could vote for.
All of them were pretty great, but what was favorite goal of 2021?
U.S. Soccer announced the nominees for its wide range of 2021 Player of the Year awards, and voting is open now for fans until Dec. 12. The finalists for the awards highlight where the men’s and women’s national teams are right now, and they’re clearly not in the same place.
There was a large sense during the USWNT’s last two friendlies against South Korea that the team was growing stale.
Carli Lloyd’s final USWNT appearance is Tuesday, Oct. 26, in a friendly against South Korea from Saint Paul, Minnesota. One of the greatest women’s soccer players of all time is retiring at the end of the NWSL season to start a family, and she’ll have one last sendoff with the national team. To commemorate her final cap, Fox Soccer will have a dedicated stream — a Carli Cam, if you will — following her every move at Allianz Field, according to Engadget.
On Thursday night, the USWNT bossed South Korea around the pitch but couldn’t find a way through to score. The 0-0 draw ended a 22-game home winning streak that dated back to another draw with South Korea in 2019.
If the USWNT’s two October friendlies were supposed to be feel-good send-offs for Carli Lloyd, no one told Yoon Young-Guel and South Korea.
Yoon made eight saves to earn a 0-0 draw against the U.S., ending the USWNT’s 22-game home winning streak on Thursday at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas. The last time the U.S. failed to win on home soil was Oct. 6, 2019, a 1-1 draw to this same South Korea side, a match that ended the USWNT’s 17-game winning streak that included winning the 2019 Women’s World Cup.
Carli Lloyd’s playing career is coming to an end. But first, two final farewell matches later this month against South Korea. On Wednesday, coach Vlatko Andonovski named his USWNT roster for the upcoming friendlies, which are little more than a chance to send Lloyd off in style.
Lloyd announced in August she will retire after the 2021 NWSL season, calling an end to an historic career.