The Gold Standard: USWNT
What a Difference a Year Makes
*I will be alternating between soccer and football in this piece. You know what I mean for both. Don’t be a curmudgeon*
Around this time a year ago. The US Women’s National Soccer Team was at an all-time low. They had their worst World Cup showing in history. They seemed disjointed at best on the pitch even though they had stellar defense. To say the back of the net alluded them would be an understatement, as there seemed to be cohesion and personnel issues at the front. The coach at the time, Vlatko Andonovski, seemed uninspired and perfectly content with the “meh” seen on the pitch.
Unhelpful Criticism
Things were also not helped by the fact that the two American commentators for Fox’s Women’s 2023 World Cup coverage, Carli Lloyd and Alexi Lalas, were also seemingly going out of their way to be particularly combative and showing disdain towards the USWNT. Their criticism of the coach was tactically related, but the pair seemed to take particular pleasure in denigrating the women on the USWNT personally rather than actual play. From personality to the styles of hair black women chose, and even wardrobe choices. The pair seemed almost gleeful in their undressing of this team on air and their commentary fueled hatred from others who never find themselves in the sports space unless it is for these specific reasons of spewing hate.
The saddest part is that someone as amazing and brilliant of a player as Carli Lloyd decided to take after Alexi fueling the hatred for this team, rather than do what she could have done. The former 2x World Cup Champion and USWNT legend could have kept the criticism between the lines rather than lean into the personal attacks that Alexi particularly relished in.
What made things starker was how venomous their “commentary” was compared to the other nationally aligned analysts on the same broadcast. Speaking specifically of Ariane Hingst, former 2x World Cup Champion with Germany, was incredibly different in the ways in which she was criticizing her team’s performance. She actually talked about what was going on between the lines. And for the record, Germany also had their worst World Cup outing in that tournament. But she seemed to manage to keep the criticism to tactics and play on the pitch. The same could be said for international analysts from other countries as well.
This is not the focus of this article, I promise. But the tone and substance of the criticism from the Americans compared to the other analysts, all from countries with prominent women’s national team programs, couldn’t be overlooked or frankly ignored.
Despite all of the outside noise, the fact still remained that this team crashed out in 2023, and major changes needed to happen to get the USWNT back to where they should be.
The Standard
There have been 9 official FIFA Women’s World Cup tournaments. The USWNT has won 4 of them. 44.44%.
Women’s Football has been a part of the Olympics since 1996. The USWNT has won 5 Gold Medals out of the 8. 62.5%.
That means of all major global international tournaments in Women’s Football since official inception in the 90s, the USWNT has won 52.9% of them. That is a staggering success rate. What is even crazier is the fact that apart from the Olympics in 2016 and the World Cup in 2023, the USWNT has also made it to the semifinals at minimum of all the other tournaments too. They have made the semifinals in 88.2% of all major international competitions. That kind of sustained success in any sport over 3 decades is madness, let alone in soccer.
Even the greatest men’s football teams of all time could only dream of that sort of consistency over the span of 3 decades.
The World Catching Up
This of course means the USWNT has not been winning everything, and there have been strong contenders during these runs of dominance. Norway has always been good and has their own World Cup. Canada won Gold in 2021 and has been the USWNT biggest rivals in CONCACAF. Germany has a Gold Medal and 2 World Cups to their name. Japan shocked the USWNT in 2011 winning that World Cup and has been the most consistent team in Asia over the last decade. Teams like China, Sweden, and Brazil do not have the top of the line accolades but have been consistently strong footballing nations for women in terms of quality on the pitch, even if not getting the proper support from their federations.
But we have seen massive shifts in terms of resources allocated outside of major tournament years since then, and those efforts are starting to show with new powers rising.
Netherlands and France do not have major tournament glory, but they have made the obvious investment into the women’s game for domestic leagues. The most recent World Cup Champion Spain have used their domestic club juggernauts Real Madrid and Barcelona to fuel interest in the sport and produce on the field. Barcelona has been a lot more successful taking over from Lyon and Wolfsburg respectively dominating the European Club game.
English Clubs have also gone more all in as well. Chelsea, Arsenal, and Manchester City have been the most consistent over the years, and clubs like Tottenham and Manchester United have come on as of late. Liverpool have also put more investment toward their women’s squad. A result showing progress on the international stage would be the fact that England won the Women’s Euro in 2022 on home soil and are now considered one of the best teams in the world.
It would be difficult to say when the “aha” moment happened for these European federations specifically when it comes to putting more investment into women’s football. But, since the 2015 World Cup European squads have flexed massively. The 2023 Women’s World Cup featured an all European Final.
I think it would be naive to say that the USWNT did not at least inspire, if not force these changes on their European counterparts specifically. It couldn’t sit well with them that those pesky colonies were beating them at the game THEY loved and invented in the case of England.
So now the world had caught up and had seemed to blow past the US since 2019. Something needed to change.
(This was a VERY short overview of the growth of Women’s soccer. If y’all want me to get into it more I am more than happy to do so. But we have to keep it moving otherwise this article becomes a novel.)
Enter Emma Hayes
After the 2023 World Cup disaster, the USWNT was unsurprisingly in need of a new coach. We believed the talent was there, and someone was needed that was not only able to manage all of these players, but also understand how the women’s game was changing. They needed someone to unlock this team’s full potential.
Enter Emma Hayes.
Most honest and unbiased football pundits would say that Emma Hayes is the best women’s football manager in the world, and one of the best managers, period. From her tactics to revolutionizing the way her former Club Chelsea trained and took care of women athletes in specific ways, she has been at the forefront of pushing the sport forward. Coaching at Chelsea, she’s done nothing but win trophies, winning the FAWSL her final 5 seasons with the club. Her trophies are more than one can count on fingers and toes to say the least.
But she got her managerial start in the US. With little to no opportunities to coach women’s soccer in England she found her way here, coaching semi pro, college, and professionally. As a result, she has an intricate knowledge of how the US soccer system works as well. She would take her knowledge back over to England in 2012 when Chelsea hired her and revolutionized the women’s side of that club.
Emma said coaching the USWNT would be a dream job for her, and I think prior to the official announcement many fans, even Chelsea supporters like me, were saying there’s only one person for the job. The US Soccer Federation did something right for once, and officially hired Emma Hayes at the end of 2023, allowing her to finish out the season with Chelsea as a part of the agreement. With the Olympics being a quick turnaround for Emma and the squad in 2024, many folks were nervous.
But this was always the right long term move for the best manager in the world.
Immediate Impact
Emma Hayes officially took over the squad in June of 2024. Yup, that’s right. A little over a month before their first Olympic match. She had 2 matches against South Korea before having to choose an Olympic squad, and two more warm up games against Mexico and Costa Rica to get that 18 playing somewhat cohesively.
I won’t get into the personnel decisions too much, but Emma leaving off a big name and performer like Alex Morgan did make sense due to the need for flexibility of the smaller Olympic roster. But the move still sent a message that Emma was willing to make the tough decisions previous managers may not have done. Mallory Swanson was also back after missing the 2023 World Cup with an injury. Her presence was obviously missed, but we can’t chalk up that let down due to just her absence. However, with her on the squad now, we were in for something quite impressive.
The two warm up matches against Mexico and Costa Rica left plenty to be desired though. The US still looked sluggish in front of goal and were shut out by Costa Rica in a 0-0 draw. Expectations weren’t high for this team going into the Olympics. I think many would have said even with the brilliance of Emma and the players at her disposal, just getting a medal would be a massive step forward compared to the embarrassment of 2023.
Olympic Brilliance
The USWNT was not guaranteed to get out of their group, but they were favored to do so. Olympic groups for women’s football are notoriously stacked, and the US was going in with a young squad, and barely any time under their new manager.
Well, the egg is on all of our faces, isn’t it?
The US won all 3 of their group stage games. They shut out the most potent attacker on the planet Barbara Banda and beat Zambia 3-0. They beat one of the Gold Medal favorites Germany 4-1 in possibly the most impressive game of the tournament, and then offed Australia 2-1 in a match that actually helped fellow Olympic finalists Brazil sneak into the last spot of the knockout rounds. Those two goals were the only ones scored against the US in the entire tournament, and the front 3 of Mallory Swanson, Sophia Smith, and Trinity Rodman were showing how they would play off of one another once freed from such rigidities.
They had to beat old foe Japan in the quarterfinals and a wonder goal from Trinity Rodman along with stunning defense from Naomi Girma shown bright and outlasted the Japanese low block.
Then the US had to beat Germany a second time, outlasting the side for a 1-0 stunning goal from Sophia Smith. Alyssa Naeher also starred with one of the best saves of the tournament.
Both of these games went into extra time and the tired legs of this compact tournament could possibly bite the USWNT in the final. It also didn’t help that Emma was not rotating players much unless injury dictated it. But they were through to the final and that was a win in and of itself.
There they would meet Brazil, a team that the US helped get into the knockout stages by beating Australia. Then Brazil went on to beat host France and former WWC Champions Spain without one of the greatest women’s footballers of all time Marta, who was sitting out on a red card suspension. Brazil was flying high, better rested, and motivated going into his final.
And it showed, especially in the first half. The USWNT looked tired. Brazil was more on the ball. Even Naomi Girma looked a bit tired. The offside flag even saved the USWNT from going down 1-0, which would have been the first ever deficit under Emma Hayes. The second half would prove to be a different story though with the US having a lot more of the ball and chances. A breakthrough finally came with Mallory Swanson slotting home the Gold Medal winning goal.
That’s right. The front 3, or “Triple Espresso” as they would like to be known as, all had game winning goals in the knockout rounds. And Alyssa Naeher had two insanely brilliant saves to keep the US from having to go into yet another extra time session.
The USWNT has won their Gold.
Elation and Redemption
Almost a year to the day before, the USWNT was at an all-time low. Performance on the field was uninspiring, and the team needed a massive change. The commentary from prominent “analysts” was venomous at best, but downright hateful and derogatory at worst. A lot needed to change.
Following the Gold Medal match an emotional Emma Hayes was asked what she changed about this team in such a short time. She said one word.
Love.
I think that says a lot. This team, pioneers for the women’s game in their own country and around the world had been so overly criticized for things out of their control but also nothing to do with actual soccer, it wouldn’t be so farfetched to think that what they actually needed was someone to metaphorically (and perhaps literally) hold them. Emma’s best managerial move so far hasn’t necessarily been tactics. It has been her ability to let these players be themselves again. Love the game, love themselves, and love each other. That joy and love was something we had not seen in a while, and it was effervescent on the pitch.
Hell, she even has Carli Lloyd and Alexi Lalas giving the most tepid of golf claps now, though Carli seems to credit only Emma and perhaps barely the players. Their Twitter mentions under their tweets will show you just the kind of hate and vitriol they have found themselves amongst after their coming out parties in 2023.
But we should end on a happy note here. The players are joyous. They are embracing Emma’s tactics. Their brilliance shone brightly all throughout this Olympic tournament. The team is young, hungry, and obscenely talented. They weren’t even at full strength, with talisman midfielder Catarina Marcario sadly missing out due to a late injury.
Yes. That attack can be even deadlier.
In a little over 2 months the USWNT went from unknown expectations to Olympic Gold Medalists. They have newfound belief in themselves, and supporters are overjoyed watching this team be themselves once again. The best part is it will only get better from here.
I cannot wait to watch and bear witness.
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