The USWNT’s year of change and integration: ‘We’re still cooking’

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Back in April, following the U.S. women’s national team’s 2-1 loss to Brazil in the second leg of the two friendlies, head coach Emma Hayes declared her intent to “put players in the frying pan” and feel the heat.

Eight months later, the USWNT went 10-1, with an overall record of 12-3 on the year. They scored 41 goals and conceded eight. Six of the 11 teams they played are currently ranked among the top 20 in the world, according to FIFA. Most impressively, the USWNT accomplished this as 16 players earned their first senior national team caps, the most in any calendar year in program history.

And yet, Hayes said following the U.S.’s 2-0 win over Italy at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale on Monday night, what she introduced in the spring has not yet become a finished product.

“We’re still cooking,” she said. “I think about it being a nice winter dish, like slow-cooked stew, and gets better with more time. It’s on the heat, so it gets more tender. I think when I watch our team play, I think you’re starting to see the maturity in the performances.”

So concludes a year that has been an exercise in time manipulation. By fortifying pathways to the senior national team, Hayes and her coaching staff — along with under-23 head coach Heather Dyche and under-20 head coach Vicky Jepson, both of whom were hired this year — have been able to compress time for players whose readiness did not match up to the opportunities they were given, and to slow things down for others who were thrust into roles before they were ready.

The project began in January when Hayes named 24 players to the inaugural USWNT Futures Camp. Several of those individuals — like midfielder Claire Hutton, full-backs Lilly Reale and Avery Patterson, center-back Jordyn Bugg, and, most recently, forward Jameese Joseph — have since earned senior team call ups.

That Fort Lauderdale has marked the beginning and the end of their year makes for aggressively on-the-nose poetry, but it wasn’t designed that way. Originally, the January camps were to be held in Carson, Calif., but deadly Southern California wildfires required U.S. Soccer to change the location to South Florida.

“It even went back to flying into this airport,” said Patterson, 23, of her Fort Lauderdale memories. “I hadn’t been a national team kid growing up, but it was something that was, not a distant goal, but something that you were always striving for that you never quite broke into.”

Patterson, who plays for the Houston Dash in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), has become a standout modern-day full-back for club and country, utilizing her craftiness on the ball to propel herself into the attack. She scored her first national team goal this summer against the Republic of Ireland and has recorded two assists.

Integrating into the USWNT, Patterson added, was easier because of that first Fort Lauderdale camp: “It’s all of these terms and this new terminology that’s being thrown at you and asked of you to learn in such a short time, but you know it’s what’s expected at the highest level. It’s who can retain that and then apply it to their game.”

As is often the case for perennial winners, the USWNT’s richest learning opportunities came from failures. Hutton, another futures camper-turned-senior-team staple this year at 19, recalled lessons from the team’s loss to Brazil in April.

“What was so cool about that game, it was a very young squad that was in the lineup,” Hutton said of herself, Korbin Shrader, Lily Yohannes, and Jaedyn Shaw on the eve of the Italy match.

“Alyssa (Thompson) was on the field, and we had a meeting before the game with Emma, primarily of the younger players, and she sat us down and basically told us this was a moment for us to take it with stride and know that it was going to be tough, know that there were going to be moments of struggle, which there were in that game, but it was how we were going to respond and reflect on that.

“And that game was tough,” Hutton emphasized. “I remember leaving it feeling like I just battled in the army.”

But six months later, when the USWNT sought a rebound after a frustrating 2-1 loss to Portugal, Hutton felt prepared. Again, Hayes started younger players in midfield but this time, there was no pre-game sit-down.

“What people would say is less experience, but knowing that we went into that game and had more of a calm presence and did have the experience of that Brazil game and of the games throughout the year, just added a layer and it was just cool to see how much we grew as a group,” she said.

The USWNT won that match against Portugal 3-1.

Investing in the younger levels of the national team has already delivered gainful returns. Hayes has spoken at length this year about utilizing the under-23 team as a developmental pathway for players in that age group, and she’s not hesitated to send those who’ve already gained senior caps to the younger team for more experience.

Shaw had 26 national team caps and eight goals under her belt when she was named in two consecutive under-23 squads between May and July. She returned to the senior team in October for the Portugal friendlies and scored her first national team goal this year against Italy on Monday.

“Having those conversations with Emma, her being extremely transparent with me about the 23s program, what that’s going to look like moving forward for me, and how I can continue to go back and forth just depending on what the camp looks like, is something that’s going to help me in the future and to come up big in these moments as well,” Shaw said after the match.

Folding so many new players into the team took place alongside returns of veterans like striker Catarina Macario, midfielder Rose Lavelle, and center-back Naomi Girma from their respective injuries.

When healthy, they zip the squad together through the middle, demonstrated in part by Macario’s team-leading eight goals this year, three of which were against Italy across the two legs. Monday saw the 26-year-old receive an impeccably timed pass by Yohannes down the flank and carry the ball into the box before calmly lofting it over Italian goalkeeper Francesca Durante and into the side netting. Hayes said the goal conjured tears of pride.

“That’s the best level I’ve seen her since her injury,” she said. “That’s what I was celebrating, she’s got a little swagger back and that matters to her, not to me, because I always think she puts in great performances. But I saw that there really is another level to her to go — in her words, not mine.”

The UWSNT will not begin 2026 with an empty to-do list. By the time Hayes sat for the post-game press conference, her coaching staff had already informed the team’s backline that they’d won just 25 percent of their aerial duels that night, an “unacceptable” figure by their standards.

And with the expected returns of players like Trinity Rodman, who was not called up due to injury, and Sophia Wilson, who has been on maternity leave this year, competition for a place on the 2027 World Cup roster will stiffen further, offering a different kind of heat to simmer in.

It is all part of Hayes’ long-term recipe for the program.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

US Women's national team, NWSL, Women's Soccer

2025 The Athletic Media Company