USWNT fans rejoice: Two major assets in Mallory Pugh and Kelley O’Hara have returned to the USWNT roster. Coach Jill Ellis announced the list of 23 players who would report to training camp for friendlies against Chile on Aug. 31 and Sept. 4 in California.
Our final roster before World Cup Qualifying is here. You with US? pic.twitter.com/0GqLS1SGOw
U.S. Soccer is still looking for a clear path forward after the shocking failure of the men’s national team to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. In its search, the federation is turning to you, the soccer community, to help guide U.S. Soccer into the future in a new initiative called U.S. Soccer Voices.
A U.S. national soccer team being knocked out at the group stage of a major tournament is a headline that we don't often associate with the women’s side, but today produced an outcome not many in the soccer world could've predicted. The U.S. U-20 women’s national team saw its journey at the 2018 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup come to a shocking end before it really even got started.
STANDINGS // CLASSEMENT
August 12th, 2016 was a low point for the United States women’s national team. They were heading home from Rio after falling to Sweden in a penalty kick shootout in the quarterfinals. A fifth place finish for a team that had won gold at the previous two editions of the Summer Games, and who had just won the World Cup a year ago, was an embarrassment.
There was something vaguely familiar about yesterday’s Orlando Pride vs. Sky Blue match up: a handball clearance off the line in crunch time, a red card, a penalty, a penalty save. All right, it’s not exactly a World Cup knockout game and Carli Lloyd didn’t know much about the goal-saving move (it seems), but one can’t help but think of a certain Uruguayan striker by the name of Luis Suarez after seeing this.
Carli Lloyd's red card pic.twitter.com/iOnZwEiY0d
Down a goal in the first half, the U.S. women’s national team came back and then some on its way to winning the Tournament of Nations on Thursday night in Chicago. The team went undefeated and put away nine goals in the three-game series, lifting its first ToN trophy and continuing to build its case as 2019 World Cup favorite with a 4-1 win for the USWNT vs Brazil.
Had the head of Lindsey Horan not come to the rescue in the dying seconds of the match against Australia last night, the USWNT would have been handed its first loss in over a year. Though they salvaged a draw, fans of the game have seen this before and the message is loud and clear: the rest of the world is catching up.
The USWNT hadn’t suffered a defeat since last July’s Tournament of Nations match against Australia, so with the clock striking 90 in tonight's rematch and the Matildas holding a 1-0 lead thanks to Chloe Logarzo’s 22nd minute strike, it looked like time was indeed a flat circle. But Lindsey Horan’s header at the death pushed the USWNT’s unbeaten streak to 18 games and kept the host nation in the running for the 2018 Tournament of Nations trophy.
The USWNT defeated Japan 4-2 to begin Tournament of Nations play (essentially the warmup for October’s World Cup qualifying event) with Alex Morgan registering a hat-trick inside 56 minutes and The Best FIFA Women’s Player finalist Megan Rapinoe adding the fourth in the 66th.
The 2018 Tournament of Nations is set to get under way on July 26. The competition consists of a series of friendly games between four of the world’s top women’s national teams. Like last summer, this year’s edition will feature the national teams of Australia (ranked 8th by FIFA), Brazil (7th), Japan (6th) and the hosts, the United States (1st).
Yesterday, USWNT coach Jill Ellis released her preliminary list of 25 players for the tournament.