A year since the Olympics, the USWNT’s next era is fully underway

WASHINGTON — There are days when it feels like there’s almost too much soccer going on this summer. Even the sport’s diehards can struggle to keep pace with the Club World Cup, the Gold Cup, MLS, the NWSL, and the USL’s lower leagues all at once — and the women’s European Championship joins the party on Wednesday.

Amid all this, the U.S. women’s national team is quietly doing the work manager Emma Hayes wants to see after last year’s Olympic title. She has given 24 new players their senior-squad debuts in her 24 games in charge, with 12 of those contests coming since the gold-medal game in Paris.

Wednesday will bring the 13th such game and the last of five in the summer: a matchup with Canada that’s a friendly by name, but never in nature (7:30 p.m., TNT, Universo). The U.S. team’s northern neighbor is its longest-standing rival in the women’s game, and this will be their 67th meeting in a series that started in 1986.

“Some are ready for tomorrow, some are ready for today, some are ready for a long time [from now], some might not quite make that cut,” Hayes said in her game-day-eve news conference. “But creating these experiences, I think, [is] giving us rich learnings.”

This game won’t have the same stakes as a tournament or a warmup for one. But that suits Hayes just fine as she continues building out the depth of her player pool heading toward the 2027 World Cup.

It also sends a message that newcomers doing well in the NWSL will get a shot on a national team often dominated by veterans.

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“If players who dream and aspire to be at this level are fortunate enough to get the opportunity to play at this level — whether it’s one cap; whether it’s 100 caps — I think it indirectly has an impact on the league,” Hayes said. “Because players feel like, ‘You know what? If I do well at the club, I’m going to get an opportunity here.’ … I believe by giving the broader base more experiences at the international level, it’s going to improve the domestic level in many ways.”

Hayes gave Penn State-bred midfielder Sam Coffey the captain’s armband for the first time in Sunday’s 4-0 rout of Ireland, when Coffey came off the bench in the 63rd minute. It was a surprise to the 26-year-old in the moment, but Hayes said Tuesday that the idea had been in her head.

“I think that’s a testament, in 12 months [since Coffey made the Olympic team], to the trust and value that Sam has for this team,” she said. “I do think the last few months, and I’ve told her this too, I think she’s gone up another gear. … It’s who she is on the field. It’s how she goes about her business. It’s the contributions she makes to the team.”

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Hayes called Coffey “an impeccable learner,” and said “she is always, always wanting to improve her game. It never ends. It’s never enough — she’d sit and watch film permanently if she could.”

And from the sound of things, this wasn’t a one-off with a young roster.

“She’s got leadership qualities that will see her with that armband more in the future,” Hayes said.

Coffey, the younger sister of Inquirer staff writer Alex Coffey, told The Inquirer that “it just meant the world to me, and for her to have that confidence in me and see me in that light means everything.” And a player who trained with Carli Lloyd while in high school knows what it means to join the lineage of U.S. captains.

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“I think of the women before me who have worn that, the women who wear it presently,” Coffey said. “Just being able to wear it for 30 minutes is a massive honor, and one that I take so seriously and with such great pride.”

That this game is taking place in the nation’s capital adds an unavoidable subtext to what happens on the grass: President Donald Trump’s outspoken desire to make Canada the 51st state. Trump’s rhetoric has already overshadowed U.S.-Canada games in other sports, including the Concacaf Nations League final four in March and hockey’s Four Nations Face-Off in February.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows about the U.S. women’s soccer team that it has long had a strong distaste for Trump on several subjects. There’s no word about whether he or anyone else from the White House will show up Wednesday, and it would be surprising if they do.

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But the storyline still is out there, and it feels unavoidable. After all, the U.S. Capitol is visible beyond Audi Field’s north stands, and the walk that fans take from the Metro to the stadium offers a postcard view up South Capitol Street.

“We try to ignore as much as we can and keep the bubble really tight and not let anything impact the team,” Canada manager Casey Stoney said. “Obviously, players are aware of the political climate. They’re not blind to it. They have their opinions, their strong opinions, and I support their opinions fully. But we’re here to play a game of football.”

Canadian defender Gabrielle Carle said the subject hasn’t come up among the players.

“Honestly, we’re just focused on the game,” she said. “I think that’s all we can do. There’s things we can’t control, but there’s things we can.”

Coincidentally, the U.S. women and men will play at the same time Wednesday night. There have been times before when both teams have played on the same day — in fact, it happened just this past Sunday. (Before then, it had happened in 2023, 2013, and 2005.)

But on none of those days did both teams play at the same hour.

» READ MORE: Emma Hayes supports a new wave of USWNT players moving to big European clubs

The men face Guatemala in a Gold Cup semifinal (7:30 p.m., FS1, Univision 65) in St. Louis. They got there with heroics from Wayne-born former Union goalkeeper Matt Freese, who made three saves in Sunday’s quarterfinal penalty shootout win over Costa Rica. Guatemala upset Canada in its own shootout earlier Sunday. (Had Canada won, we’d have had simultaneous U.S.-Canada games.)

Mexico plays Honduras in Santa Clara, Calif., in Wednesday’s second semifinal (10 p.m., FS1, Univision 65). The winners advance to Sunday’s final in Houston (7 p.m., Fox29, Univision).