News & Media II: Articles, photos, videos, etc.

New kit announced:

Meet: The Heartbeat Kit.

Channeling the pulse of the soccer nation. pic.twitter.com/ieNoDm69WS

— U.S. Soccer (@ussoccer) May 13, 2025

A tribute to the trailblazers who have shaped soccer and inspired generations. pic.twitter.com/Z970ci1bGJ

— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) May 13, 2025

The WNT will debut the light jersey (the Brilliant kit) in the May 31 China match. The MNT will debut the dark jersey (the Heartbeat kit) in their June 7 match. (https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...team-kits-fusion-heritage-fashion-uswnt-usmnt)

The light jersey is meant to celebrate the 40th year anniversary of the WNT.

 

As the light kit is to celebrate 40 years of the WNT, it will be a women's only kit. The MNT will continue to wear the existing white kit. (However, there will likely be a kit just for the MNT that will drop right before the men's WC next year.)

 

Becky Sauerbrunn has announced that she's pregnant and due in October. So many USWNT babies coming this year! (Becky's announcement is at the end of this TWG podcast)

 

Jeff Kassouf

• We debuted our new studio setup last night in Bristol. It is HUGE and a major step for our Futbol W show. Really exciting times. There's a separate telestrator off the side from the main desk, a coffee table conversation area on the other side, and a fourth area with a jumbo screen.
  We are on ESPN+ Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. ET discussing the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the hashtag#USWNT and the wider world of women's soccer. Tune in!
  Bookmark our show page: https://lnkd.in/eAjXkFZH

 

US Women win the TST 7v7 tournament becoming back-to-back TST champs:

EVELYN SHORES SCORES THE ONE MILLION DOLLAR GOAL ASSISTED BY HEATHER O’REILLY!!!!!!!

US WOMEN ARE YOUR TST 2025 WOMEN’S CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!

BACK-TO-BACK!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/cUioB5xekx

— TST (@TST7v7) June 10, 2025

Former USWNT players who were on of the TST team include Heather O'Reilly (the one who put the team together), Carli Lloyd, Ali Krieger, Cat Whitehill, Allie Long, Amber Brooks, Casey Loyd, Jill Loyden, and Jo Lohman. The team was filled out with some other former professional and college players. Plus, there as coaches the US Women had Michelle Akers, Lori Lindsey, Leslie Osborne, Thori Bryan, Kacey White, Kendall Fletcher (listed as head coach), and Jennifer Mead.

 

Tobin Heath has been named to the Technical Study Group for the FIFA Club World Cup (yes, the men's). It's not often (if ever?) that you see a woman on the technical study group for a men's competition.

 

Emma takes questions from Guardian readers, gives most British answer possible to the first one:
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...es-england-womens-football-euro-2025-us-coach

 

The trend of USWNT players marrying other pro athletes continues:

Pro Soccer Wire: "USWNT midfielder Albert marries Colts kicker Shrader" — Bluesky

 

We're in the part of the cycle between major tournaments when USWNT players seem to become non-existent for awards like the Ballon d'Or, so only Emily Fox and Lindsey Heaps are nominated for the 2025 Ballon d'Or (long list): https://www.olympics.com/en/news/ba...ards-full-schedule-complete-list-live-updates

EDIT: I will add that technically the 2025 Ballon d'Or is supposed to cover the period of August 1, 2024-July 31, 2025, so that'd include the knockout rounds of the Olympics last year, but that's pretty pointless to note here.

 

Congratulations to Sophia Wilson who had her baby girl, Gianna Capri, on Tuesday: https://prosoccerwire.usatoday.com/...-wilson-announce-birth-baby-girl/85948389007/

Baby Gianna has arrived 🥹💝

Congrats to Sophia and Mike Wilson on the newest addition to the family! pic.twitter.com/SQWDhwxM20

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) September 4, 2025

 

Emma Hayes will be inducted into England's Hall of Fame:

Honouring one of the game's most successful and respected coaches. 💫

Later this month, former @ChelseaFCW manager Emma Hayes OBE will join the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Bill Shankly and Hope Powell in our Hall of Fame.https://t.co/Y7xPKCWe0Q pic.twitter.com/3ciixdnIGS

— Nat. Football Museum (@FootballMuseum) September 3, 2025

 

Is it common to choose an Italian name as Gianna for a family with no Italian heritage that I am aware of?

As an Italian, then, I will never understand how Capri can become a women's name: Capri is the name of an island near Naples, period.

To an Italian ear, it sounds like if you'd call a person Maui or Terranova.

 

In the US, parents definitely choose children's names from all different heritages; that's not that unusual. You can really name your child anything. I mean, there's probably an American child out there named Maui. I also wouldn't be 100% sure that they don't have some Italian heritage either, especially as both Michael and Sophia's parents had interracial marriages. (I also just learned in trying to see if any of their parents maybe has some Italian heritage that Michael's aunt was a starter for the New Zealand women's national team at the 1991 WWC. That's a fun fact.)

I have no idea how they decided on the name, but upon seeing it, my first thought was of Kobe Bryant as two of his daughters were named Gianna and Capri (Gianna was the one who passed away in the helicopter with him). So, Capri while unusual as a name isn't unheard of in the States.

 

In fact, as soon as I wrote that, I thought that someone was going to exhibit evidence of a lil girl named Maui. I should have chosen a different Hawaii's island as my example, as Molokai: come on, no one can have named a human being Molokai!

Edit: also, in the case of Kobe Bryant, the name Gianna made a lot of sense, since he lived in Italy for long, including his youth.

 

Just to prove my point, I just looked up Molokai on Facebook, and indeed I found a Molokai who looks to be a real person fairly quickly. In a world where Elon Musk names his child X Æ A-Xii, come on, Molokai doesn't seem that strange.

 

I always wondered how children with such odd names in USA can survive elementary schools: school-mates can be evil.

Elon Musk, then, would be a plain outlaw in Italy, for no other reasons than just giving that name, that here wouldn't be allowed. Call us conservatives.

 

A while ago, we met a family with three children: Denali, Thiessen, and Shasta. They all are mountains in the western USA. Here, so far as names are concerned, anything goes!

 

You remind me of one of my favorite required readings in college, I think in an English lit class. It was an essay titled, "The Onomastics of Anti-Pedobaptist Nomenclature." It was an article on the naming conventions of some groups in the Southern USA who did not believe in infant baptism, apparently rather believing in getting taken out into the river and full-body dunked to get baptised. It was full of some of the best names you'd ever see.

And, just found on the internet, for some great entertainment, especially in the last few pages, I recommend Bible Belt Onomastics or Some Curiousities of Anti-Pedobabtist Nomenclature. Along with lots of examples of actual names, the article refers to "three leading factors in American name-giving: the desire to be unique, to be fashionable, and to be folksily democratic."

But, I digress ....

 

I never knew how much it cost to host a game, and soccer's biggest issue is that the US is in Concacaf.

 

I feel like this is a must-read, considering how many complaints we see in this forum about scheduling certain opponents or why the team hasn't played in certain regions for awhile. The article has some great details especially about how the Italy games got scheduled.

When it talks about costs of scheduling opponents, I also feel like the article hints at a reason the USWNT plays so many games at home, even though it doesn't directly say so. It mentions how successful teams can command a certain appearance fee when playing on the road or ask for certain accommodations for their delegation. Obviously, in the case of the USWNT, they may be just too expensive for some federations to host, or even if the USWNT were to forego some of that for just the experience of an away game, that might not be worth it to do very often.