USWNT storylines for 2025: Fresh faces, veterans to battle for playing time under Emma Hayes?

The national team of American women may not have a major tournament to worry this year, but the so -called “off” year is already an important for the group, one that could set the tone for the World Cup 2027 world cup and the 2028 Olympic Games.

The real work of head coach Emma Hayes started after the team won Olympic last year in Paris, where Hayes spent the months since he protruded the player pool and offered meaningful experiences to a group of emerging arrival. The results have been impressive-many of the players who are new to the ultracompetitive environment of the USSWNT have left neatly in the competitions and put their mark in competitions, so that the opportunities achieve the most for them. Hayes has done the hard work just a year after work to considerably expand the player pool.

Nearly 50 players have played since the Olympic Games of the Olympic Games of the USWNT, so that Hayes and the company have enough to work with when a new phase of the team development starts in the fall. The head coach focused on the friendly of this month against Canada, a 3-0 victory in Washington, DC, as a conclusion of its main schedule expansion project, the next step now everything about identifying the best players in a pool of around 50 and developing chemistry by less than two years to the world cup.

The schedule of the USWNT for the rest of the year is not yet confirmed, although they will probably play four to six games in the fall, because FIFA has reserved an international window in October and to close another from the end of November to the beginning of December to close 2025.

In the meantime, the storylines are here to keep an eye on the rest of the year.

Build a new nuclear grille

Hayes and her coaching staff have spent most of a year identifying rising talents that could play a role in the World Cup 2027 or 2028 Olympic Games, largely without a distinction they can now be. The head coach corrects the course for a long -term Kibbel she has had with her predecessors, with the argument that she “inherited a pool of a small player” out of an exaggerated dependence on veteran talent. The chance was also a ripe – the USWNT had just under three years on the clock between the Olympic Games in Paris and the World Cup in BrazilSo that the coaching staff and the players can develop the comfort at a reasonable pace.

Nine months, 15 games and 49 players later, Hayes now has a real fame with the player pool that will serve as a valuable basis for its tactical vision for the next three years. However, the next phase will probably see that the head coach decides which 20-plus players lead the race for selection spots on the World Cup, answers that can soon come. However, it feels very unlikely that the door will be closed to everyone himself has said that some players will spend time with the national team of U-23 if it means that they have a better chance of playing time, a place where they get the chance to make enough impression to get to the senior team. It adds a new low competition to an already competitive environment, a strategy that Hayes regards as an essential part of its plans to ensure that the USWNT remains one of the world’s best sides.

Reintroduction of the veterans

During the era of the USWNT experiments, Hayes gave a priority to working with new faces instead of the selection that Olympic Gold won in Paris and although much of it was intentionally, part of it was forced. A series of players like Nomi -size And Trinity Rodman have not been available due to injuries, while Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson are currently on maternity leave, so there is still a limited insight into how the newcomers would stand to the pillars. In the coming months, there will be many answers in that area, but in the meantime there will be enough to extrapolate.

Since October, six of the seven players at the top of the list of minutes played minutes have been part of the Gold-Medal Winning Team, with midfielder Sam Coffey And defender Emily Sonnett leads the peloton. For some, however, it is trending in the opposite direction – midfielder Korbin Albert and Vooruit Saw are no longer in the mix since April and joined the U-23 team in June, while defenders Jenna Nighswonger And Casey Kroegerer Have not played since last year. The same also applies to keeper Casey Murphywho was Alyssa Naeher‘s Back -Up at the Olympic Games, but has not been to the team since a training camp in January. It is a signal that the veterans who will be back in the mix this fall will be the ones that Hayes believes they are on the right track to be part of the team in 2027 and 2028, where the head coach may finally start building the team in her image.

Who is the starting goalkeeper?

From all the uncertainties in the line -up of the USWNT, the starting position in the goal remains the biggest unknown.

Six keepers have played since the Olympic Games, including Alyssa Naeher in her last games before they withdrew from the national team, all with varied quantities of playing time. Mandy McMlynn is at the top of the group with four games, but it is not a huge lead – Phallon Tullis-Joyce has three, while Jane Campbell and Claudia Dickey Each has played twice and Murphy once. It really sketches a photo that the race to be the successor to Naeher is good and really for the taking, with the October matches that are potentially illuminative about how Hayes arranges this Shot-Stoppers.

Murphy’s lack of playing time may come as the most surprising development here as an old Understudy for Naereher, but Hayes may have used the last 15 games to experiment as much as possible. She has had Nice Things to say about the group, which Tullis-Joyce describes as “at the moment in that area in that area in her age category” prior to the friendly competitions in June, and Dickey as “probably the best-performing goalkeeper in the NWSL this season.”

No triple espresso, no problem?

The triple espresso of Rodman, Swanson and Wilson have not played together since the Olympic Games, but the USWNT has not been struggling to score without them, a sign that the historical shame of the team of wealth in that category should continue for a different generation or something. A handful of players have also made real progress in that area of the field, among them Alyssa Thompson. The World Cup participant 2023 is in third place for minutes played since the Olympic Games and has four goals and one assist on the road, in third place for target contributions during that piece and probably has the best case to stay in the race for a starting role, with or without triple espresso.

Thompson, however, is not the only one who counts her minutes. Yazmeen Ryan And Ally Sentnor has been played in the top 10 for minutes on the USWNT since October, the latter really impresses in her first games in the Senior National Team. Sentnor has four goals and two assists in 467 minutes of play, on average a target contribution every 77.83 minutes. Catarina Macario, finally regularly back with the group after fighting injuries for most of three years, has three goals and two assists in 391 minutes of play, on average a target contribution every 78.2 minutes. Veteran Lynn BiyendoloIn the meantime, a beat has not missed – it is played in the top 10 of the USWNT for minutes and leads the group in target contributions with six goals and one assist in that period. Each of the best artists has a real argument as starters, which means that a number of good problems for Hayes and its staff will create in the coming years.

Lily Yohannes and the midfield photo

Hayes has been very wise to hand out opportunities to a wide range of players, but if there is one face of the youngsters-oriented project, it is the 18-year-old midfielder Lily Yohannes. The coaching staff has rightly been patient with Yohannes, who has only played 373 minutes since the Olympic Games, but in the coming two years will be very important for her and the national team as a whole. Yohannes moved from Ajax to Ol Lyonnes this summer, the next phase of its development at club level and gives herself enough time to realize her potential. However, the signs are clear that the 18-year-old has the potential to be a transforming figure in the midfield of the USWNT, which has written out a balance in recent years.

The midfield of the team has since seen it Sam Mewiss And Julie ErtzThe time as regular starters ended for the Pandemic-Wanted Olympic Games of 2020 in Tokyo, the first to have to do with injuries before he retired and recently was missing due to pregnancy leave before retiring. Former head coach Vlatko Andonovski also struggled to find the right mix on the World Cup 2023 while the USWNT went a more than 200 -minute run without scoring a goal, and Hayes did not really find the answer at the Olympic Games in Paris. Run with a combination of Coffey, Albert, Lindsey Heaps and RoseHayes’ USWNT felt occasionally pole and left a lot to be desired.

Coffey voelt op dit moment als een steunpilaar met Hayes, speelt meer minuten dan wie dan ook sinds de Olympische Spelen, en Yohannes voelt als een speler waar de USWNT op tijd op wedt op de Wereldbeker 2027. Dat laat echter een vrij klein aantal plekken achter die voor het oprapen liggen-Lavelle is waarschijnlijk een starter als hij gezond is, en er is misschien geen andere speler in het zwembad die een soortgelijk profiel biedt in termen van haar technische, attack -oriented skills. The 19-year-old Claire Hutton However, it really seems to rise, which could force a number of difficult decisions of Hayes, especially because it has the role of hope. She is still in front of the peloton for minutes, is in fourth place in that category since the Olympic Games, and it seems unlikely that Hayes will leave her soon. Finding the right fit in a busy field will probably be the most difficult tasks of Hayes and although she has the advantage of time to find out how they can find the balance, find out how to do it, that will have to do.