The U.S. women’s national team’s Olympic roster is officially set.
Sophia Smith, Catarina Macario, and Lindsey Horan headlined Emma Hayes’ 18-player roster for the upcoming Paris Olympics this summer. A total of eight players on the roster were part of the USWNT’s 2020 Olympic involvement.
Goalkeeper Jane Campbell, midfielders Hal Hershfelt and Croix Bethune, and forward Lynn Williams have been selected as alternates on the roster, meaning they will be able to train with the team in Paris.
Star striker Alex Morgan and durable midfielder Kristie Mewis were among the exclusions. Morgan’s 224 caps and 123 goals are each the most among active USWNT players.
“Making an Olympic roster is a huge privilege and an honor and there is no denying that it was an extremely competitive process among the players and that there were difficult choices, especially considering how hard everyone has worked over the past 10 months,” said Hayes.
“Choosing an 18-player roster plus alternates involved many considerations, but I am excited for the group we have selected and I’m looking forward to building on the work from last camp as we head into the Send-Off matches and then onto France. These are great opportunities for us to continue to show the progress we are making.”
The USWNT will face Zambia on July 25 in Group B play before also squaring off with Germany on July 28 and Australia on July 31 respectively.
Prior to that, the Americans will take on Mexico and Costa Rica on July 13 and July 16 respectively in their final pre-Olympic matches on home soil. Red Bull Arena and Audi Field will play host to those matches.
Here is a closer look at the full USWNT Olympic Roster:
GOALKEEPERS: Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage; 19), Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars; 104).
DEFENDERS: Tierna Davidson (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 58/3), Emily Fox (Arsenal FC, ENG; 49/1), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave FC; 32/0), Casey Krueger (Washington Spirit; 49/0), Jenna Nighswonger (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 9/2), Emily Sonnett (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 91/2).
MIDFIELDERS: Korbin Albert (Paris Saint-Germain, FRA; 11/0), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns FC; 17/1), Lindsey Horan (Olympique Lyon, FRA; 148/35), Rose Lavelle (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 100/24), Catarina Macario (Chelsea FC, ENG; 19/8).
FORWARDS: Crystal Dunn (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 147/25), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit; 38/7), Jaedyn Shaw (San Diego Wave FC; 14/7), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns FC; 48/19), Mallory Swanson (Chicago Red Stars; 92/34).
Alternates: Goalkeeper Jane Campbell, midfielder Hal Hershfelt, midfielder Croix Bethune and forward Lynn Williams.
Mallory is going to be the 9. I’ll tune in to see; I think the players selected fit a profile of a 3-4-3. It looks like a roster fit for the podium. The road to success, starts with a step!
I guess Sophia or Cat will be the backup 9? Do you agree It’s?
i was saying months ago when we set up this hire that if she served out her CFC season the nature of that beast would be she would have limited actual time — just a window — to try new things for this tournament. i hoped they would go youth movement for the olympics since she just doesn’t have time. but another possibility was that she’d just tweak the WWC team and go for it.
i respect hayes’ CV to take charge and see if with a camp she can just go for it. i trust her to be handed the wheel this emphatically than GB, who created a years-long mess and still isn’t at an endgame. i also think it matters the roster limit is 18 meaning most who get called will have to play. i think that makes it harder to do the julian green thing and call in some of the 0 or 1 cap prospects mentioned in comments below. even though i want coaches in who can see talent that clearly and pull it off.
to be fair, that kind of choice would be in the spirit of my desired youth movement approach, but that also was treating the olympics as a throwaway.
10 of 18 are 25 or younger, 2 of 4 alternates are 23 or younger. Most of those 10 are pretty experienced young players so it probably makes them feel older. The 23 for the WC only had 7 players 25 or under. We’d like to see Bethune, Yohannes Fishel (inj) and Moultrie, but it’s probably too early.
yeah, well, nearly 1/3 of the team is over 30, including at least 1 of the choices criticized in the other comments.
are you serious including “alternates?” they by definition got cut.
I’m genuinely curious how youthful would you like this team to be? A straight U23 or U20? What would your desired youth movement line-up look like? Are you dropping players due to age only or also players who have had a multiple years with the team but are still relatively young? Is there a criteria or skillset beyond age which would qualify a player for the team – or just young players with hype and few good games at club level – you know, bring them in for the 2nd biggest tourney the USWNT plays and see if they sink or swim? Trial by fire? Then sort it all out in prep for the WC?
i want you to think back to 2019 gold cup for the men. we had a choice of whether to pretend the old 2018 cycle team had some juice left that would help us win the event — and bring back jozy, zardes, bradley, omar, and ream — or clear the decks and go younger.
with the benefit of hindsight, we backslid to 2nd in gold cup to mexico — they were not ringers, the old team sucked — and precisely one guy off that list was around for the world cup later on — and as an injury replacement.
with the old farts included, it takes the weahs and richards and miles and reynas and sargents and so on well into WCQ to become integrated.
to me one of the big failings of US soccer recently is the inability to grasp there is more upside in the career front end of beasley and donovan (2002) than the back end of careers eg reyna (2006).
we also don’t seem to grasp anymore the value of elevating one event over another, or treating everything as building to some later peak moment. we are too concerned with winning more games next week even if without roster turnover we stand no chance of winning the whole tournament. that maybe i should trade off using the olympics to test the pool for a better build towards WWC. we also seem to have no clue on age planning, eg, ream. but then we let that 2018 cycle team get old as dirt. ditto the last WWC team. like i said, we err on the side of trying to milk the past one time more rather than harness the future.
i mean, how many of these O-30s will be around for WWC? if you are playing a long game, they should all be gone. but we like to play a short game which butts heads with the long game. any minute ream or kreuger get are ones that are likely overrated and cost us the chance to move the position forward. you can’t both play them and give meaningful minutes to successors. and we overrate the “win now” results we think we get from erring “experience.”
anyhow, i am never saying use these events as U20. i am saying clear the O-30s out and take a longer view on what/when the goal is. leave in some of the younger core players, or maybe older ones still at peak. but every old fart or player on their down slope should be gone with an eye to winning the next WWC. which, we have 3 years to work for. and not 1 month. i have no idea why we are trying to squeeze this lemon for more juice. they cleared out some old farts eg morgan. keep going. act like since we have this coach 1 month it’s a stretch to think we gold medal. act like we are then making longer term plans. use this tournament to replace all the friendlies she missed this year.
everyone around USSF is win now and then we don’t actually do it anymore. we are unwilling to take the altuve-correa-bregman risk of saying those kids over there are the future, you are the past, and i am going to emphasize the “reyna” end of this team over the “ream” end. the “ream” end has had its go and on neither gender team produced the goods.
move on.
with my 2002 hint i think you’re underrating what happens if we err fresh over historical.
IV – you have an interesting perspective on how things should be. It’s really different than mine. I value the Olympics. This and the WC are two tournaments where there should be an assessment of what the current best team is and then run them out. There is no age restriction for the women at the Olympics so this will be the best of the best competing against one another. Why would the US bring a team of “may bes” or “could bes” to a tournament that the rest of the world is bring their best to? (I get it…to – in your opinion – prepare for the WC which is the singular international tournament).
Who would you drop and who would bring?
Master of Obvious not sure why you can’t see the obvious.
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30 yr old with 4 WC goals , Champions League winner, US Player of the Year, WC Champion, NWSL Player of the Year winner, a drag on the team.
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29 yr old 1 WC goal, and 1 2.Bundesliga title 7 years ago, the key to us defeating big teams and advancing in WC.
MoO: my deal is once we agreed to a coach who wanted to finish out her club season, this was destined to be a 1-month prep effort. i don’t believe this can be turned around in 1 month by some incremental tweak and some initial coaching. i think we have thrown away 2 tournaments before this thinking don’t get crazy, we can squeak this sucker out with some of the old guard — even though they haven’t gotten it done.
to me this is when you just call time on the horan-morgan era, clear cut everyone over 30, and err on the side of evaluating players for the WWC — when we will have plenty of time to prepare right.
we have instead called people who generally have 10+ caps, but including roughly 1/3 who are over 30. to be fair i am eager to see what hayes does, but i feel like the mentality remains just as short termist and incrementalist as the men.
personally what i would have done is call 30+ kids who are all under 30. hayes hadn’t seen anyone and called just 23 to pick 18. treat korea more like a tryout camp, hand out playing time freely, and see what you like.
we shall see what hayes manages. maybe she can do more with this with a few snips here and some coaching there.
JR i wouldn’t imagine you’d peer behind the statistics and get where horan turns the attack into a glacial passing speed. you continue to miss that (a) sometimes a club form player can’t do it for the nats and (b) sometimes a player is somewhat productive for the nats but not the one the ball should go through when they run the offense.
eg you delighted in bolivia but seemed to forget how we have done running the offense through pulisic against teams like canada. this is my whole point about does it work in the big games and not the easy ones. my counterpoint to “stick to the plan.”
to be fair, maybe in some big picture sense she has something to offer in a tournament immediately, but i explained where my focus is 3 years from now. and i just think they play so incredibly slow and sloppy when she is the focus. it ruins the tempo.
i am not saying none of these O-30s should ever play again or not in the WWC. i am saying exercise standard pasturing of the older players like most NT do after a world tournament. you know what horan does. and also her limits. you want to know what else there is. if in a year or 2 horan is needed, we can circle back around. but otherwise, to me, the horan/morgan era hasn’t borne fruit and time to move on.
you can quote numbers to me all you want but the last time the women actually won one of these was 2019 when lloyd was the star and horan was a bit player. and she put up more goals in that single tournament than you’re telling me horan has in all her WWC experience. so maybe that’s less impressive and should be less of a shield than you think……
JR – I admit I must be wrong about Horan. I just don’t get it though. Yeah, she’s been on all those winng teams as a starter. So yeah I’m missing something for sure. I feel like I’m a MB90 hater or something…which feels weird.
“eg you delighted in bolivia but seemed to forget how we have done running the offense through pulisic against teams like canada. this is my whole point about does it work in the big games and not the easy ones.” You clearly don’t actually read what I post my response to the offense the other night was too slow and too predictable, too stuck on one side, Reyna was too far from goal to connect passes in dangerous areas. Said you can’t take Reyna out of lineup for Musah. Horan shouldn’t play the #10 role as Vlatko had her, but Emma didn’t play her there.
Pretty good roster. My only real concern is our CBs. Girma rocks but Davidson is slow to cover and was the reason we lost to Canada last OG. Sonnet isn’t a very good CB either. Surely there us somebody better in this nation of 300,000 playera.
My only complaint would be Albert over Yohannes. Albert to me is the female Paul Arriola, just runs around a lot but is mostly disconnected and out of position. That Lilly isn’t an alternate might signal she’s not ready to be cap tied? I’ve also been impressed with Croix but her body of work is so small I understand just having her as an alternate.
agreed on Yohannes exclusion, though Kreuger would be the drop for me and Dunn plays FB, and she’s better than Albert in my view too
good team, good luck
Yeah, It seems Hayes (through the Twila) really rates Korbin. I’ve been high on her too in the past. I think she plays well with Coffey. However, people I respect for their tactical and general soccer nerdery that way surpasses mine have said things like “I don’t think she knows how to soccer”. That has me thinking maybe I’m wrong about her. Shockingly it has happened before. I’m obviously wrong about Horan. I think she is the main cog holding this team back. She is the “old style” USWNT player that lacks the technical skill needed in today’s women’s game. She misses so many goals and her passing is not what it should be for her position. She’s big strong, physical, athletic and even good movement but just not refined. Sure in a double pivot (the US shouldn’t need to play a double pivot 99% of the time) but not quite a six or even a creative eight. The USWNT has to find a reliable six (and solid pairing for Girma) so there can be two technical players in front of the front line ( a healthy Rose and Shaw?)
Yohannes really looked like a World Class (yes, capitalized) player. But it was such a short look. I know she had a whole camp with Hayes and even played against Chelsea so maybe there’s more to that decision than just a captie issue.
“ I will continue to work with with Lily beyond the Olympics and I really do hope that she will be part of our future. But at this moment, she wasn’t ready to make that decision, and I fully support it.” Hayes comment during her press conference announcing the roster.
horan is precisely the type of meh O-30 i think we needed to pasture here. i think she’s a decent target player but she’s slow as molasses to build around as a mid. it’s never quite worked. so your choice is, give horan another cycle as the anvil dragging behind this team, or chop the chain and embrace uncertainty.
i think there is a type who is like, but horan has produced some. my deal is she’s 30, will be 33 WWC, and this hasn’t been going anywhere up to now built around her.
i think the USSF standard reaction is its “binkie” just got taken away. and how will we win anything. and where will the goals come from.
i think we’d be fine. just like i think we can do better than GB’s usual suspects.
i think there is a fanboy mentality stuck back about 10-15 years ago when our teams were more competitive where there was “earned tenure.” to me we should keep fiddling until we win.
Albert’s can play the 6,8,and 10 and Arriola plays wing, no comparison. Further Albert’s is 20 and already plays at a higher level then Arriola ever did at club level.
Lily will get her chances for the USWNT but it is up to her.
Hayes definitely favored dexterity at positions and familiarity with players she has history with Alex Morgan raised doubt in the WC with her play and amount of ineffectiveness on the pitch.
Looks like best fit for the task at hand!
Twomilerule: the comparison to Arriola and Albert is that she is just mostly energy, runs around a lot and sometimes finds herself in the right spot because of it. Just as often she finds herself in the completely wrong spot. Because she plays for PSG I haven’t seen her play much so maybe I’m wrong and as you say she’s young so certainly time to improve her awareness.
this is a good roster. It’s ironic that Crystal Dunn is finally getting her shot as a frontline player after years of miss playing her as a left back, this is at a time when the USWNT is brimming with quality young attacking players.
Morgan should be congratulated for a good career. She mostly under-performed in big moments, though, and never quite lived up to her reputation.
we’ll see where she lines up; she’s better than Kreuger, by a margin; Kreuger’s inclusion the only surprise imho, but happy for her. She’s been a great teammate for many years
Krueger was included bc she can play both fb spots, and cb as well
I believe Dunn played for Hayes in the past in a more forward position. And I think there would be no hesitation in slotting her in the back if that becomes an issue. She can literally play any position – I bet keeper too, lol.