USWNT Friendlies --> April-May-June 2025

She is not 'giving up' club soccer in a contract year. It is simply illogical.

 

there’s probably only three teams that could afford her( Barca, Chelsea & Lyon). The good part is all three are double stacked so they can limit Trinity’s playing time to more important games & rest her vs weaker opponents

one of the drawbacks of the NWSL is do to being so balanced & competitive , every game is played with lot more intensity & mileage put on your feat. It’s probably why established USWNT regulars like to take an break from the NWSL

 

Word. Time will tell. She definitely has the speed. Better passer, perhaps. Better on the ball, perhaps. Better shot, mm, I think not, well, not yet. Better field IQ, another good question that's hard to answer as at 20, Mel had Better team mates to run with than Alyssa this go around.

 

Mal has a better chance at making the 2027 WC despite her form than Sophia. Mal is only fighting A Thompson for a LW starting spot. She can also play at the RW if Rodman can't be healthy. It is better to be healthy than talented. We don't have good winger depth.
On the other hand, Sophia is fighting more players; Sophia is fighting 3-4 players. She needs to be more inform than Mal.
With Tiernan, she needs to be killing it for a few months and could be called up to the U23 team, as she is 22 years old.
Another conversation is that owners will want to spend money on players if players could get pregnant, and be out for 1-2 years, depending on things. Let's say you are an owner and you pay $5 million for a transfer fee, and not even halfway through her contract, she gets pregnant. Will owners be willing to pay her salary (1.5 million) even though it's not the same as an injury? There's a chance she might not be the same player before you pay her transfer fee.

 

@soccernutter just in thinking about your point #2, I was watching some youtubes about basketball and Reggie Miller was talking about when he was new to the NBA and talking with Michael Cooper about getting stronger and Cooper making the distinction between lifting weights to get bigger and lifting to get stronger without losing your quickness. Both Cooper and Miller were slight by NBA standards but Cooper was a monster defender and Miller was super quick and agile to facilitate his great shooting.

I would just say that Thompson is gifted with her speed and quickness (she was also into track or cross country in HS, I believe), so she should gradually build her strength without sacrificing her speed advantages--as they used to say "you can't teach speed". Also, I'd say that one thing she does share with Swanson is her open field speed--Swanson's speed was devastating before she got injured in 2023 and once she recovered and dominated the Olympics.

 

I definitely said she doesn't have a better shot or better awareness. Mal had awesome NT teammates who had played together some. This group is still getting to know each other on the field.

 

Absolutey.

Agree.

The point that I keep trying to make, and failing, apparenty: Swanson, Wilson, and Rodman could be compleeeeeeetely back in 2027, playing as well as they ever have. And, they still might not be the 3 best forwards. They do not represent a ceiling on the potential of the US forward. They may be surpassed. They may have been surpassed without their layoffs. They.are.not.a.ceiiing.

In addition to the ones you mentioned, there are Hanks (she looks fantastic at her young age), Turner, Fishel, Sentnor, maybe Purce stays healthy, Sears, and there may be others. Who was the lady that played on the U-20's that was amaaaaazing?

 

@psnotyours I feel like we have been looking at a lot of outside forwards in the absence of Rodman and Swanson, ie. Thompson, Sears, M Cooper, Y Ryan, Sentnor has flexibility, Macario as well, even Shaw, Ashley Sanchez. Then you've got futures like Adames, Hanks, Barcenas, M Morris, Lema, maybe even Micayla Johnson. Lots could get better at that position in the next couple years. As for competing with S Wilson, I thought she was harder to replace, but maybe some of the aforementioned could fill her role.

The serious games still don't start until next winter, I guess, with the Gold Cup, followed by WC Qualification in the summer. Emma is speeding-up the evaluation process so the pool has gotten wider/deeper. The futures will for now be slotted into their age-appropriate national teams until they outgrow them and/or the older ones disappoint or get injured.

As for pregnancy effects on valuation due to absences and recovery uncertainty, I'd guess those variables should be addressed in NWSL with the CBA. And socially perhaps a woman soccer player who gets pregnant won't want to uproot her young family by going abroad. I guess we are just going to have to see how that evolves when if a really valuable players like a Bonamati were to get pregnant.

 

Yeah you made me remember, "a real, real, real fine lady" Maddy Dahlien?

 

I assume you mean the W Championship not the Gold Cup? The W Gold Cup is part of the 4-year WC cycle, and is only to be held every 4(ish) years; the next one is scheduled for the summer of 2029. The next important tournament besides friendlies is the CONCACAF W Championship in November 2026. As one of the top two ranked teams in the confederation, the USWNT will not have to qualify for the W Championship in the summer of 2026, but gets a bye to the tournament in November. The CONCACAF W Championship is the qualifying tournament for the 2027 WWC and for the Olympics for the 2 finalists. (But, the USWNT will automatically qualify for the next Olympics as host, so presuming the US make the final of the W Championship, it could be the 3rd place team that qualifies for the Olympics.)

https://www.concacaf.com/news/concacaf-announces-2025-to-2029-women-s-national-team-competitions/

 

@lil_one thanks for correcting me. I didn't consult the CONCACAF web site as I should have. It was just wishful thinking on my part to hope we had another Women's Gold Cup in two years with the four semifinalists of the CONMOBAL Copa America and eight CONCACAF nations (as in the first one), because we need the competition sooner than 2029. And usually the WC qualifying tournaments in the summer the year prior to WC, but anyway ok to be November. Just means we have no competition to look forward to until then. And of course CONCACAF decides to have a Nations League which is obligating us to play more official games against weak Concacaf teams. Anyway, such is our lot.

 

Is the roster for the friendlies 23?

This is what I'd do regarding the field players

Start:

---------------------Macario
Thompson--------------------------Sears
---------------------Shaw
-----------Moultrie
-------------------------------Coffey
Dunne----Girma-----Sams--------------Fox

Next 10 field players
---------------------Tiernan
Hanks----------------------------------Cooper (if healthy. Turner if Cooper's not healthy)
-----------------------Heaps
------------Albert
------------------------------Flint
Reale-----Armstrong-----Perry-------Patterson

No opinion to express re keepers.

 

I've heard there's a certain event in three CONCACAF member nations in summer 2026 which may have influenced a move of the W Championship away from the summer.

 

Probably the biggest reason why. Also historically the CONCACAF WWC qualifying tournament was always held in the fall prior to the WWC. When they introduced the W Championship in 2022, I think it was supposed to slate into the summer, but for 2026, it made sense to move back to the fall.

 

I had to read both your posts to finally figure out what that event was! You see I've become a hardcore women's soccer fan.

 

I'm not particularly high on any of the non-espresso forwards yet. None of them are reliable goal scorers. Thompson looks like she has the most potential but she is pretty easily pushed off the ball by better international opposition (she was completely marked out of the game by Lucy Bronze who has a history of being put on her behind by other USWNT wingers). I like Macario as a playmaker but she's not much of a scorer as a professional, which is surprising given how prolific she was in college at shooting from different areas on the pitch. Shaw also looked like she was the next one up a year ago but has been really poor since the Olympics and doesn't start for her club team.

Maybe it's a long shot given her age but I thought Press has been looking like her old self in the minutes she gets. She was the best player on the pitch in a game with Sentnor, Tiernan, Thompson etc. in it. We don't have anyone in the pool that can currently score that goal she scored on Friday and she could be a good veteran resource for the younger players. Class is permanent and we've seen what Marta can still do at 37-38, and I'd argue Press is a better pure athlete so she'll probably continue to be effective for another couple years.

 

Macario's goal scoring stat is pretty good this season. She played 1300~ minutes with 10 goals. A lot of her appearances are subs and when she started, she was on a minute-limit earlier as well. She also played a lot as the second line attack midfielder instead of forward with Ramirez. I think her goal scoring number is pretty decent. Moreover, in the long run, Macario should play behind Wilson in the NT. Wilson's sprint can push the opponent backline back, and create space for Macario to receive, distribute or shoot between two lines.

I don't think Marta was really good in international competitions recently, Brazil played better when she was a sub rather than a starter or not included in the roster. She is good in NWSL because she has Banda as her teammates, and they are struggling recently as well because they are missing a few players.

Press also looked good because she was a sub, I don't believe Press's occasional impressive performance in the NWSL will transfer to the NT.

 

Moultrie and Shaw play together will likely not be too effective, their roles overlap too much. Flint is very good at stopping ball but her ball-handling, dribbling and passing skills will make it difficult for her to be effective as the pivot. Playing Reale as a left back is more like a make-do measure for Gothams, and I doubt this will be what Hayes will do in the NT.

 

Great, who would you play in their places.

Imo, Shaw is much more of a support striker/10 than Moultrie. While Moultrie is fully capable of being an 8. If you limit Moultrie to being the top of a triangle, then she's probably competing with Shaw and Macario for playing time.

Who are you putting on the roster in place of Flint, who is tearing it up in NWSL?

Who is your back up left back?

Also, I left Giselle off the roster, I'd replace Patterson with her. Or, just let Fox stay home for these matches and bring Patterson and Giselle.

 

Only RBs and CBs are locked for me. Every other position is up for grabs.
I do wonder if the US will ever call up anyone from WSL

 

I believe they already have. Probably multiple times.
In particular I believe that Phallon Tullis-Joyce (Currently the best GK that has played for the USWNT) plays in the WSL and some others have been called as well. The WSL, at least the top three to five teams, are as good or better than any team in the NWSL so ignoring them would be foolish, at best.

 

Are we talking the same WSL? Macario, Fox, and Tullis-Joyce were all called in from the WSL just in the last camp; obviously others as well in the past. If you're talking about this next roster specifically, I'd expect that with the WSL just finishing their season, those players would be available in this window, unless injured.

 

Fox looked phenomenal in Arsenal’s upset over Lyon in the Champions League as she completely shutdown Chawinga(older sister of the NWSL star) to where Lyon took their leading score out by halftime. You got to accept Fox as an excellent tackler & defensive specialist instead of the more modern attacking or overlapping FB. On the other hand, Arsenal her team mate, Nighswonger, gets practically no playing time on that club

Meantime Macario & Girma didn’t look good in Chelsea’s epic disaster vs Barca in the other Champions League s semis(lost by 8-2 aggregate). Girma looking a bit rusty & dizzy trying to figure out Barca’s ticky tacky zappy(or watchma call it)attacking style & often out of position when Chelsea got scored upon. Macario missed a couple easy sitters that could have gotten them back into the game.

I would keep some of the younger, up & coming players for the two u23 in Germany. Their going to be stronger competition than the visiting China & Jamaica—-China probably jet lagged from their 24 hour trip/usually Jamaica’s top players don’t show up for friendlies(lost their last two games to Mexico 3-0 & 4-0)
But understandable if those hotshot newbies prefer to play on the much higher profile senior squad