Here’s a sentence you see every four years: The United States is a favorite to win the Women’s World Cup.
Why should the public not believe the hype this time?
The United States’ résumé is top of its class: It is the No. 1-ranked women’s soccer team in the world and the two-time defending world champion. And unlike any other women’s team, it has four tiny golden stars sewn above its jersey crest to show the program’s pedigree of four World Cup titles.
The Americans are set to arrive at this summer’s tournament in Australia and New Zealand with a roster anchored by nine players who have lifted the trophy before. For three of those players — forwards Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe and defender Kelley O’Hara — this will be their fourth World Cup. For two other players — goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher and midfielder Julie Ertz — this will be their third.
But knowing what it takes to win and doing it with one of the youngest and most inexperienced teams the United States has ever taken to a World Cup are very different things. Of the 23 players named to the team on Wednesday, 14 will be World Cup rookies. And the team must find a way to play at its best, even without its respected captain and its most dangerous striker, who are out with injuries.
“We have a roster with depth and versatility, and that will help us take on all the challenges that will be coming our way,” the U.S. coach, Vlatko Andonovski, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Andonovski, who coached the team to a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, has spent the past few years trying to rebuild his squad as this tournament loomed, easing out veterans and introducing new talent in an effort to build a team that he thinks can win this summer and succeed into the future.
Andonovski was faced with a few surprises as he tweaked the roster, which made a hard process even harder. Just last week, he lost his captain, defender Becky Sauerbrunn, who was ruled out with a lingering foot injury. Other injuries long ago cost him the services of Sam Mewis, a midfield fixture of the 2019 World Cup champions, and more recently the presence of two valuable attacking options, Mallory Swanson, who appeared to be peaking at the perfect time, and Catarina Macario.
Still, he had a core of stalwarts he could count on, including stars like Morgan and Rapinoe, who bring years of international experience as well as their gravitas as two of the most famous and most outspoken female athletes in the world. He will also have midfielder Rose Lavelle, the breakout star of the 2019 tournament after she made scoring look all too easy. Lavelle and Lindsey Horan will offer a familiar combination of grit and flash in midfield.
There will be many new stars, including Sophia Smith, 22, who was last year’s most valuable player of the National Women’s Soccer League, and 21-year-old Trinity Rodman, the 2021 N.W.S.L. rookie of the year and daughter of Dennis Rodman, the former N.B.A. All-Star.
The Americans’ first game will be July 22 against Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand — 9 p.m. Eastern time on July 21. That will be followed by the team’s biggest game since the last World Cup: a rematch with the other 2019 finalist, the Netherlands, that will probably leave the winner with a much easier path in the knockout stage.
Andonovski might have even surprised himself with some of the names he had penciled in. But as with several other top teams, injuries forced him to alter his plans in recent months.
Sauerbrunn, 38, announced last week that she would miss the World Cup with a foot injury. She was not only a dogged central defender for years, but also a revered role model for her teammates: the team’s Zen master of confidence and calm, not to mention the anchor of its back line as it won the past two World Cups.
Her announcement came only weeks after Swanson, who had been Andonovski’s most dangerous forward this year, tore the patellar tendon in her left knee. Other players with World Cup experience, including Mewis, Abby Dahlkemper, Christen Press and Tobin Heath, have been out with injuries or are still coming back from surgeries. Macario simply ran out of time to get back up to speed after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her knee last year while playing in France.
There will be, however, many familiar and experienced players when Andonovski and his team gather for a training camp next week in California. Ertz, 10 months after having a baby, has stepped directly back into the team’s midfield. Crystal Dunn, who gave birth to a son 13 months ago, will continue to be a rock on defense, as will Emily Sonnett. Dunn and Sonnett have played in the World Cup once before.
Casual fans will have to learn some new names at the same time, though. In her World Cup debut, Naomi Girma, a 23-year-old defender for the San Diego Wave, former Stanford team captain and daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, will be in line to replace Sauerbrunn. Savannah DeMelo has never played an international game for the national team but is having a strong year for her N.W.S.L. team. And three young forwards — Smith, Rodman and Alyssa Thompson — have what it takes to push Morgan, Rapinoe and Lynn Williams up front.
Thompson, 18, was called up after Swanson’s injury; she will become the youngest U.S. women’s soccer player at a World Cup since at least 2007. The first draft pick in this year’s N.W.S.L. draft, she has the energy, skill and phenomenal speed to be a generational player. But she is also just out of high school.
With all the new players mingled with the old, it remains to be seen if the team that shows up in New Zealand will have the swagger of previous ones. The team’s pre-eminence in the women’s game has been under threat from the growing investments, and the growing power, of rivals in Europe. Last fall, the United States lost three games in a row for the first time since 1993.
That the defeats came against three European opponents — Germany, England and Spain — was an unmistakable message to outsiders: The United States still ranks among the favorites. But its margin may be finer than ever.
