Every four years, the best international soccer (or football) teams gather in a special location to play out a tournament similar to the Olympics: the World Cup.
The schedule works out to where one year after the men’s World Cup is the women’s tournament. This year, the Women’s World Cup is being played in Australia/New Zealand from July 20-August 20.
For the United States, the women’s national team is looking to lift the World Cup trophy for the third consecutive tournament and for a fifth time as a country.
Joining the US in their Group E table are Portugal, Vietnam, and the Netherlands. Between those three countries are just five WWC appearances, with the best finish being a runner-up from the Netherlands in 2019 when the US beat them 2-0 in the final.
Since the US won the last two World Cups in 2015 and 2019, the pressure to win a third is almost impossible. Not to mention everything the team has had to go through: new players, retirements, coaching changes, and injuries have transformed the entire women’s national team.
One of the biggest injuries is to Mallory Swanson, a young superstar who suffered a major leg injury back in April. At just 25 years old, Swanson has already appeared in 88 matches for the USWNT, scoring 32 goals and also notching 27 assists. The forward was a sure-fire pick for the Golden Boot this summer Down Under, but now the squad will have to find their production from younger stars like Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith.
Rose Lavelle, one of the leaders of the squad now in her second World Cup, said this in an interview with Sports Illustrated just two days before Swanson’s injury: “We have so many different weapons to use. I laugh sometimes, because I’m like if you sub (Swanson) out, now you have (Rodman) coming in. The depth that we have, especially with the young group, is incredible.”
When you look at the WWC roster for the US in 2023, 11 players are making their World Cup debut while Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, and Kelley O’Hara were selected to their fourth World Cup roster, becoming just the 10th, 11th, and 12th USWNT players to appear in four different World Cups.
That experience that O’Hara, Rapinoe, and Morgan provide will be huge for a very young group headed to Australia. The average age of this roster is 28.5 years old, which is on par with the 2015 and 2019 squads (around 28). However, some stats regarding the younger players are astonishing:
- Alyssa Thompson is the fourth teenager and second youngest player to ever be named to a World Cup roster for the US
- Trinity Rodman, 21, is just the 17th USWNT player on a World Cup roster at 21 or younger.
- Thompson, Rodman, Naomi Girma, and Sophia Smith weren’t alive when the US won its second World Cup in 1999.
Even with all the youth on the squad, Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe return as the vocal leaders in what will be their fourth World Cup.
Morgan has been a mainstay on the USWNT, but it was nearly all over back in 2021. After an odd 2020 Olympics plagued by COVID where Morgan scored one goal in six matches and the US got the bronze medal, she felt off.
This was also the time of the Alex Morgan et al. v. United States Soccer Federation, Inc. lawsuit where the national team was fighting for equal pay and equal treatment.
“I vocalized to coach Vlatko Andonovski that I was not mentally 100% in it at the moment, because of the year that I had, and I could benefit from some extra time off,” said Morgan in an interview with Sports Illustrated. “That just didn’t sit well with him. And given the Olympics and how we did, he wanted to turn the page and get started on preparing for the World Cup.”
According to Morgan, Andonovski didn’t give her a guarantee that she would have a spot on the World Cup roster, which started to relight the fire that she has had throughout her playing career.
Now, Morgan feels like the pressure’s off and she can play at the very top of her game, which is one of the best forwards in the world.
With the strong mixture of veterans and young talent, the United States Women’s National Team looks primed for a third straight World Cup title, which would make them the first international soccer club, men or women, to accomplish that feat.