With the U.S. women’s national team coming off a rare loss, it didn’t take long for the squad to bounce back. The USWNT rolled to a 3-1 win over Portugal on Sunday, boosted by an early brace from midfielder Olivia Moultrie.
After a disappointing 2-1 loss to Portugal on Thursday, manager Emma Hayes took the team into a different direction — with a great payoff. Thursday’s version of the USWNT looked inflexible and out of sync; in response, Hayes opted for a very different lineup for the second friendly, tapping into the team’s very deep bench for some of the team’s young, up-and-coming stars.
The result was a lineup with an average age of 21.6 — an average that was tempered by the 31-year-old Emily Sonnett, who started as the team’s center back and captain. (Besides Sonnett, every other player in the lineup was born after 2000, with 25-year-old goalkeeper Claudia Dickey serving as the second-oldest player on the field.)
More importantly, the result was a win, as the young players created the kind of collective and holistic win Hayes was hoping for.
Like Thursday, Sunday’s game started rapidly, as Moultrie hit the first goal in the first minute.
Jéssica Silva quickly tied things up in the fifth minute, spelling another chaotic, and potentially disastrous, matchup. But Moultrie struck again five minutes later, hitting a near-identical shot that bounced off the post and in.
The U.S. held strong for the rest of the game, before Hayes subbed out several of the young attackers and put some of the team’s veterans back into the game. One of those subs, midfielder Sam Coffey, iced the win with a great kick off a set piece in the 81st minute.
It’s a great, cleansing win for the USWNT after Thursday’s loss, with a sense of completeness that wasn’t quite there before. But it was also a great win for the team’s young core, who continue to show its talent even with a very low level of experience. For context: Sonnett had 111 caps, while the 10 other players in the starting lineup had a combined 100.
“I knew there would come situations that show some of the dynamic qualities they have, as less experienced players. I felt positionally, attacking-wise, we were much, much better in all phases of the field,” Hayes said postgame
The moral of the story for Sunday’s game isn’t necessarily that Hayes should always start the youngest members of the squad. But the Americans’ ability to change is going to be key moving forward — as is the long-term development of this next generation.
“They are the present and the future for the program. But I also respect that there’s not a straight line to it either,” Hayes said of the under-23 players on the field Sunday.
Hayes said she wanted to see where the players’ progress had gone since the USWNT’s stint at the SheBelieves Cup in April, and said she was pleased with the “higher level” that they are playing at.
“You can’t cut a corner to success, and you can’t cut a corner with development. I’ve said this many times, we’ve got really experienced players, [ages] 31, 30, 29, and then 22, 21, 19, like it’s a big gap,” Hayes said. “But I’m really, really pleased with the mentality, most importantly, of the group, to recover, but also dominate the game in a way I expect and demand.”
