There’s a quantum ton of Women’s football this summer, and for fans of the fastest growing sport in the world, (hat tip to pickleball, your day will come), there’s a bounty of quality. Still, some people are unaware of the booming global popularity of women’s football, especially in places that are historically rife with toxicity from the long-term effects of brocentric, hegemonic mindsets.
But change is a-comin’.
In Africa, for example, around the turn of this century, women’s football didn’t exist in a formal way in many countries. Fast forward to 2021 when the regional tournament expanded to twelve national teams and the final match took place in front of more than 45,000 fans in Rabat, Morocco.
In South America, a league final between women’s club teams in Brazil broke the 41,000 person mark.
In Europe, the 2022 Women’s Euro final sold out Wembley Stadium, more than 75,000 seats, in 24 hours – a full six months before anyone knew which teams would even play in the match. This year, the 2025 Women’s Euro’s in Switzerland 90,000 tickets were sold within 24 hours of the final draw, and 22 out of the total 31 matches sold out immediately. They also sold half a million tickets before the general public sale of tickets opened.
I’m going to start with the Copa América Femenina and the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations because if you don’t live in those particular regions, you have to fight to figure out how to watch the matches, but all of the tournaments provide avenues to qualification for the 2027 Women’s World Cup.
Copa América Femenina
This particular tournament has been around since 1991 and functions as more or less a coronation ceremony for Brazilian women’s football as the dominant force in the region. Of course, most of that particular timeframe has overlapped with the brilliant career of Marta (Orlando Pride), whom many regard as the greatest women’s player of all time.
Brazil has only lost once, to Argentina, in 2006. In both countries, football is basically a functional religion, but their internal programs are headed in different directions. In Argentina, the team often has to fundraise and solicit donations just to buy gear and kits, a situation which has allowed Colombia to confidently lay claim to the second best team in the region. Marta initially retired from international play, but then apparently changed her mind and returned at age 39 to compete against people half her age. She still looks great. Some people are just built differently. While Marta anchors the Brazil side in what might be her last international tourney, Colombia has developed not one but two young phenoms in the form of Mayra Ramirez (Chelsea) and Linda Caicedo (Real Madrid). Could this be the year Colombia pushes mighty Brazil?
I’ve been catching as many games as I can, but the fan turnout has been a little bit depressing. Look at all those empty seats in the stadium!
Plus, this stage of the tournament doesn’t have VAR – Video-Assisted Replay – which some people hate but I really like because I’m more into getting the call correct than shrugging and factoring in ever-present human error. Both the European and the African tournaments have VAR, so seeing poor calls go unreversed in the Copa has been a little bit irritating. As it stands, Brazil has started to stake their claim, Colombia has yet to play and Chile came out strong against Peru. One gleaming positive coming out of Paraguay is the hat trick from budding 17 year old sniper Claudia Martínez Ovando.
The match of the tournament is sure to be July 25th, when Brazil and Colombia face off to see who will represent Group B in the final.
Women’s Africa Cup of Nations
Similarly to Brazil in the Copa, this tournament has historically been Nigeria’s to lose, and they don’t do it very often. The Super Falcons have won the cup eleven times since 1991. They have a notably strong program, but recently there have been other nations fielding more competitive squads, specifically from South Africa, Morocco and Zambia. I wrote before the last NWSL season that few people stateside had any idea of the bomb that was dropped when the Orlando Pride signed Zambian superstar Barbra Banda. She proceeded to lead the Pride to their first NWSL Championship, finishing third in assists and second in goals scored, only trailing fellow African, Malawi’s Temwa Chawinga (Kansas City Current). That one of the premiere women’s leagues in the world was led in goal scoring by two African-born players is a testament to the rise of the sport in that region.
Just last week, Banda finally played in her first-ever WAFCON match. She had led Zambia’s national teams to both the World Cup and the Olympic Games, but had never played in Africa’s preeminent tourney. It took her only fifty-eight seconds to score, stunning host country Morocco. Banda has the kind of speed you can’t train. In the open field, you’ll see world-class players racing her to a ball and Banda sails past them like she’s on skates. It’s otherworldly. Unfortunately, Chawinga’s Malawi squad, The Scorchers, was forced to withdraw from Wafcon due to financial constraints from their country’s federation, so we won’t get to see her in this iteration of the tournament.
So far the play in the Wafcon has been uneven. I’ve watched several matches and even in the storied “Battle of the Gerias”, Algeria vs Nigeria, to decide which Geria is the top Geria, the play was relatively messy en route to the type of nil-nil draw that makes dopamine addled Americans check out of soccer for good. I expected much more from the Super Falcons. I also had higher hopes for Tunisia and Botswana, though the latter did score in the final seconds of stoppage time to edge Tunisia 2-1. That was an exciting finish, and the impromptu celebration was fun considering there were only like eleven people in the stands.
South Africa, at least looks like a legit side, as does Morocco, but I have a hard time rooting for them when they’re coached by Jorge Vilda, one of the blackguards who was run out of town in the wake of the Jenni Hermoso travesty after Spain’s World Cup win.
Sometimes you watch these games and despite the obvious lack of a developmental program, you can’t help but admire the obvious love of the game and the heart displayed by so many of the players. Some of these teams are held together by nothing but the grit of a manager or the determination of one public official, or the help of a private booster. Some teams are not ready for prime time but that doesn’t stop them from sacrificing the body and playing their hearts out. When I mentioned to a fellow writer that I was watching all the Wafcon matches, she assured me that no one cares about what happens in the bottom tier of that tournament. On a practical level, time spent writing vs watching etc etc, she may very well be right, but the more eyes we in the west can get onto these matches, the more likely that the powers that be (read: greedy men) will decide that the women’s game is legit enough to deserve funding. So, yes, was Ghana’s 4-1 win over Tanzania front page news? No. But every woman on every team loves football as much as we do, and watching them play in a world that has always used recreation and sport as a means of control is pure joy. The trajectory of the sport is pointing north and over the next generation, I expect an explosion of talent across the continent. With more funding and the commitment of their nations, women’s soccer in Africa can be a powerhouse.
UEFA Women’s Euros
I could write 10,000 words on each of these teams, but truthfully, the entire world is chasing the absolute lightning storm that is the Spain women’s national team. They are jaw-droppingly proficient and can beat you in a dozen ways. As a lifelong fan of the United States women’s national team, I’ve been watching with rapt attention as world class coach Emma Hayes has begun to retrain, renew and reengineer America’s team, gifted in its own right and the reigning Olympic champions, into a unit that has any prayer of taking on reigning World Cup Champion Spain. That’s how dominant the Spain team is. They’re like the Chicago Bulls if several of the players were Michael Jordan.
Indeed, in Hayes’ last press conference at Chelsea, before she was coach of the USA, her final, throwaway remark when leaving the room was “I gotta fucking beat the Spanish at some point.” That’s the type of shadow this Spain side casts.
Spain (pictured in header image) boasts the undisputed two best players on the planet in Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmati. If you’ve been around a while, you’ve heard me gush about their talent before. It’s preposterous to have this amount of generational skill at midfield. But they also have another of the world’s best players, Patri Guijarro (Barcelona), between them. If any of them get tired they just sub in 18 year old budding superstar Vicky López, like they did here when Aitana was recovering from a recent brush with meningitis.
In the front, the Spanish team is so nasty that when they showed the starters before the match against Belgium, we paused the TV in my house and stared in silence, then started to laugh. Clàudia Pina (Barcelona), Ester Gonzalez (Gotham FC) and Mariona Caldentey (Arsenal) are like three riders of the apocalypse.
Pina was the high scorer in the UEFA Women’s Champions League last season. Esther was a Top 5 NWSL goal scorer last season and currently leads the Euros in goals scored. Finally, Mariona left Champions League dominators Barcelona for Arsenal, then led her new team to a shocking and unlikely victory over Barca that very same year. Any one of these players is a literal gamechanger, the kind teams have to gameplan for and shift personnel to account for.
But with Spain, these three are fed all day by three of the best players on planet Earth. And when they get tired, Spain just subs in Athenea (Real Madrid) or Salma Paralluelo (Barcelona). How can you account for that?
You can’t. That’s the thing. No one can. It’s like the old adage, you can’t stop them, you can only hope to contain them. Over the last few years, against Spain – and to an even greater extent the club team Barcelona, which features an alarming amount of the Spanish players including both Putellas and Bonmati – the only way teams scrabble to something as monumental as a draw is if Spain/Barca just has a bad day at the office.
At least their defense sucks, right? Negative. The defense is solid. By default, it could be said that it is, in fact, the weakest part of the team, but mostly that’s semantics. And worse than that, they cycle their defenders forward to create on the outside in such a roguish way that it adds yet another layer teams can’t account for.
Oh, and 5’10” captain Irene Paredes outjumps everyone on set pieces. Because, of course, you wouldn’t want any part of the game to be anything but white-knuckled terror for Spain’s opponents. If Spain has any weakness, it’s probably in the goal, but even then, it’s a mild downgrade.
Some may read this and think I’ve drunk too much of the Kool-Aid around this team, but their bench – the players who aren’t good enough to start – would beat most teams. They have literal all-stars riding the pine.
That said, any given Sunday and all that. The beer halls of the world are chock full of stories of “unbeatable” teams that choked. Hell, England beat Spain straight up in 2022 with very similar team construction. It’s possible that someone could rise up like a leviathan and squeeze out a miracle this year against Spain. Mathematically possible. So-you’re-saying-there’s-a-chance level of possible. Last Friday they were largely held in check by an Italian team that’s more scrappy than good and Spain didn’t look great. They still won 3-1.
In the opening round, Spain scored 14 goals in three games and were only scored on three times. The next closest teams are France at 11 to 4 and England at 11 to 3. If we’re just perusing goal differential, though, I think Sweden at 8 scored and 1 scored upon is interesting.
Every time I cover American-style NFL football, I try to soberly explain that though there are thirty-two total teams in the league, there’s only ever about 12-15 who can legitimately win a championship because there are roughly only that amount of professional quarterbacks employed at any time. The rest of the teams are led by aging veterans, jumped up subs, journeyman underachievers, one-year wonders on a wing and a prayer in year two or three, and gimmicks.
Despite the closing of ranks among the European women’s teams, most nations only boast a couple of stellar players on their rosters. That’s typically not enough to beat a team like Spain. Let’s look at the teams who have the experience and womanpower and frankly, the juice to compete at that level.
England
The reigning Euro champs scored in the 96th minute of the quarterfinal against Spain in 2022 to claim a victory that shocked the continent. That said, The Lionesses are no slouch. They have the second best roster in Europe, veterans at every level, rare national team cohesiveness, and a gifted coach. They have all the pieces you need to take on a team like Spain, but whenever they do they look outclassed. Even in the 2022 victory, Spain bested England in every single stat category except goals. They had a nearly 60% time of possession and looked like the better team on the pitch, right up until The Lionesses sent them packing.
This year they have a little more flux. Superstar goalkeeper and delightful team cheerleader Mary Earps (Paris Saint-Germain) hung up her spurs. WSL legend Fran Kirby (Brighton & Hove Albion) aged out after a brilliant career and so, likely has former captain Millie Bright (Chelsea), who is taking time off for some much needed healing, both physically and emotionally. The rigors of modern football take a toll. Still, the younger faces on England are impressive. Chelsea’s Hannah Hampton (Chelsea) anchors the net. Man City’s Jess Park has infused the midfield with new creative life and Arsenal’s Alessia Russo, who was perennially a thing that would happen, has decidedly happened.
In what ended up being a fortuitous event, The Lionesses got absolutely humbled by a mean-as-hell French team and lost the opener. In that particular group, that’s nearly a death sentence. Then they completely turned it around, refocused in a must win game vs Netherlands that they did win 4-0, and looked great doing it. This is still the team to beat not named Spain.
Their next game might be the match of the tournament, when they take on perennial spoiler Sweden on July 17th.
France
France always brings the thunder, it’s just that it sometimes hits them more than their opponents. New coach Laurent Bonadei had the grit to cut aging stars Wendie Renard (Lyon), Eugenie Le Sommer (Toluca) and Kenza Dali (San Diego Wave) from the roster just before the Euros and it seems to have paid early dividends. Still, they’re erratic. Maybe it’s part of their DNA, but with Les Blues, you’re never really sure which team is going to show up. When you have team-related issues that rise to the level of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, like this team did in 2021? I mean, that’s a bastard of a situation to bounce back from. Seriously, if you have a chance, read about it. It’s confounding and bizarre in a Coen Brothers way.
So, despite France’s many disappointments on an international level, they still kicked the everliving tar out of the reigning champs in the opener and any team that can bully a team of that caliber is a team people need to watch out for. And any forward line that features the kind of talent we see in Kadidiatou Diani (Lyon), Marie-Antoinette Katoto (Lyon), Delphine Cascarino (San Diego Wave), and Sandy Baltimore (Chelsea) has to be taken seriously. Cascarino put on a clinic against England’s Jess Carter (Gotham FC) and Baltimore, at only 25, is rapidly becoming one of the top players in the world.
Their next match is July 19th against a Germany team that has robbed them in the past.
Sweden
This Sweden team looks fantastic to me, and as long as they have long time captain Kosovare Asllani (London City) holding court in the middle and Stina Blackstenius dominating the front, they can hang with just about anyone. Blackstenius was such a huge get for club team Arsenal and in my mind there’s no way they pull off both the season they had and the upset of Barca in the Champions League without her. That front of Asllani, Blackstenius, Rytting Kaneryd (Chelsea), and Fridolina Rolfö – who departed from club team Barcelona just last week in a move that sent shock waves through the team – is daunting when they actually get the ball. Sweden resembles Germany in that they have the players, they have the tradition, they have the discipline and the skill to beat just about anyone.
You also have to factor in the advantage of the tall women on the back line for Sweden. You’ve got Arsenal’s Amanda Ilestedt at 5’10”, 5’9” Nathalie Björn (Chelsea) storied veteran Magdalena Eriksson (Bayern Munich) at 5’8” and Linda Sembrant (Bayern Munich) at 5’9”. That might not seem important, but on corner kicks that’s like a wall of yellow you can’t see over. Blackstenius is 5’9” and Rolfö is 5’10” but they both play like they’re 6’5”. The challenge of tangling with players of that size is daunting. By comparison, Spain has only one player that’s 5’10”.
Sweden takes on England on Thursday.
Germany
This is a team that looks messy as hell, but you’ll never count me among those who would overlook any team from Germany. They’re not a complete unit right now, they’re young and often confused and they make mental mistakes. But they’re scrappy and physical and they hate getting beat. The loss of captain Giulia Gwinn (Bayern Munich) to an MCL injury in the opening game is a huge emotional blow, and she won’t return until after the Euros are over. I still think this squad is a few tournaments away from gelling after the retirement from international play of all-time legend Alexandra Popp (Wolfsburg). They also need budding superstar Lena Oberdorf (Bayern Munich) to return from an ACL tear before they’ll pose a true threat to anyone. In the meantime, they have the ability to function as spoiler with players like Sjoeke Nüsken (Chelsea), Lea Schüller (Bayern Munich) and Klara Bühl (Bayern Munich).
Germany will look to prove doubters wrong against France on Saturday.
Norway
Caroline Graham Hanson (Barcelona) could have won the Ballon D’Or several times over the last few seasons she wasn’t so busy helping her teammates clinch it. She is a true student of the game and is a world class player. When you try to match up a team like Norway, who sailed through their group easily to the quarter finals, against a team like Spain, it’s difficult to imagine coming away with anything but a loss. Norway’s players just plain cannot stack up person for person against a team like Spain or England. Still, with Chelea’s Guro Reiten paired with Arsenal’s Frida Maanum feeding former Ballon D’or winner Ada Hegerberg (Lyon), they have the capacity and the physicality to body a smaller team like Spain.
Norway looks to handle a fiery but questionable Italy team in the first match of the quarterfinals, tomorrow.
So those are the teams who even have a prayer of competing with Spain. Since returning from a knee injury that seemed to take forever to truly heal, much like American wunderkind Katarina Macario (Chelsea), Alexia Putellas has finally regained her top form and, at least to my eye, has a commanding position heading into the race for this year’s Ballon D’Or.
The Ballon D’Or, or Golden Ball, recognizes the top player in the world for that year.
Putellas won it in 2021 and 2022, then was injured, making way for her teammate Aitana Bonmati to win it back to back in 2023 and 2024. This year it appears that Alexia is going to use the Euros to pad her stats in an attempt to win her third golden ball. They don’t call her La Reina (The Queen) for nothing.
The Ballon D’Or Race
Here’s how I have it.
#1 Alexia Putellas (Spain, Barcelona)
#2 Aitana Bonmati (Spain, Barcelona)
#3 Mariona Caldentey (Spain, Arsenal)
#4 Ewa Pajor (Poland, Barcelona)
#5 Patri Guijarro (Spain, Barcelona)
#6 Caroline Graham Hanson (Norway, Barcelona)
#7 Claudia Pina (Spain, Barcelona)
#8 Melchie Dumornay (Haiti, Lyon)
#9 Sandy Baltimore (France, Chelsea)
#10 Barbra Banda (Zambia, Orlando Pride)
It’s anyone’s guess how the final voting will shake out, but usually an outstanding performance in a high-pressure tournament is weighted heavily in the eventual tally. So many players are in peak form, but to my eye they’re all chasing La Reina, who has already begun to quietly dominate, scoring three goals and two assists in only three games played.
The current Euro’s bracket goes through the quarterfinals, but I’ve added some projections here for the rest of the tournament:
I have Spain all the way through, meeting Sweden or England in the final. The most difficult game to predict is Sweden vs England, because you never know which teams will show up. For Sweden, who has only given up a single goal in the tournament, would an early Lionesses goal rattle them? Or would a staunch Sweden back line frustrate the more emotional English side and cause them to make errors? Of the last sixteen meetings with England, Sweden has come away victorious nine times, losing three with four draws. It would take a huge game to knock off the defending champs, but the way Rytting Kaneryd is playing? I could see Sweden eking out a tight victory. Whichever team wins, I think they’ll best the winner of Italy and Norway. I love the Italian fire, but I wonder if they have the size and the composure to best this Norway team. I know Valentina Giacinte had a down year for AS Roma, which probably contributed to her being left off the national team, but they could really use her deep runs against this Norway side.
Teams have today and tomorrow off but play resumes on Wednesday at 3:00 pm EST when Norway takes on Italy at 3 pm EST. But surely the game of the week – and possibly the entire tournament, will be England vs Sweden at 3pm on Thursday.
Meanwhile, back on the range…
— I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the retirement of long-time USWNT standout Tobin Heath. Heath had the sweetest feet and could do things that defied logic and convention. Watching her play was a unique treat and there hasn’t really been anyone like her since. Her numbers aren’t gaudy, but that’s because she liked nothing better than creating space with her otherworldly touch, insane quick-twitch directional shifts and bountiful vision and then dishing off to a teammate. Here’s a video of her talking about her retirement, as well as an overview of some of her most jaw-dropping skills. I watch her and Christen Press (Angel City) all the time via their Re-Inc channel and even though she won’t be playing, it’s a relief to know that her personality and insight will still be available to all of us going forward.
Tobin’s skills:
Tobin’s retirement:
— Arsenal made headlines a few days ago by breaking the record for the £1m signing of 20-year-old Canadian forward Olivia Smith. That breaks the record of £900,000 paid by Chelsea earlier this year to sign away generational talent Naomi Girma from the San Diego Wave. It’s a decidedly depressing development for Liverpool, who has struggled to find relevance in the WSL, but perhaps they can put this profit to good use developmentally.
— I mentioned how Brazil and Nigeria tend to dominate their regional tournaments, but that happens with the US and to a lesser degree Canada in the CONCACAF as well. When you look over the state of women’s soccer across the globe, it’s exciting to see growth almost everywhere. It means being able to catch games you’d never see just two or three years ago, so it’s a great time to be a fan. But your heart can break to see the struggles of programs that can’t afford basic things like footwear or find fields to play on when the teams they’ll eventually compete against have state-or-the-art training facilities.
It’s no wonder that England’s Lionesses are such a dominant side when you watch their impressive training session, complete with hyper-targeted muscle groups, specialized supplements and of course, their own mobile cryo unit. If you’re a fan of England, being a fly on the wall for this training session was super fun.
— I’ve been thinking a lot about how actual change happens in sport. Like, how does a program that’s stingy with money decide to actually invest? Often, it requires a specific change agent. One case many of you may not have heard of happened in the organization of the Tottenham Hotspurs. American superstar Alex Morgan was playing in the NWSL and decided to league-jump to keep her skills fresh in the offseason, which many players do. Now, I can’t find the source of this story and I only remember it anecdotally, but the Spurs were thrilled to have a shot at a player of Morgan’s caliber, not to mention her, at that time, 9 million plus IG followers. Back then, she was among the most followed people in the world. So she shows up and everything is peachy and the organization is bending over backwards to accommodate her and raise the level of play to make the Lilywhites more competitive in the WSL. But their facilities for the women were substandard. So they’re playing on this ass-poor field and Morgan notices that there’s an unused, pristine Tottenham men’s practice field available right next to them. Morgan was like, “let’s move over there” and is met by stares from the coaches and players because they all understand that that’s a big no no. Morgan moves them over anyway, and when a team representative comes tottering out, presumably in a wide-eyed panic, to correct the obvious error, Morgan tells them in no uncertain terms that the women will be playing on this pitch for practice going forward, and if they don’t like it, the 9 million plus followers that they were so eager to have buying Spurs merch will very quickly hear about how the women’s team is considered lesser than by the organization. The team backed away and since then the women have been able to use the better facilities. Morgan only ended up playing five games for the Spurs, but in her time in England she changed the lives of the players on that team, as well as all the ones who would eventually play there. I know some people who only know Alex Morgan from magazine covers imagine that she’s a princess, but Alex Morgan is a fucking tiger. She’s not one to toot her own horn, which is probably why I can’t find the original source for this (and accordingly, I may have messed up timelines, small details, etc) but her impact on the women’s game worldwide cannot be underestimated.
— On that note, I miss the old gang. For those of you who have been here for a while, you know I’ve been writing about the USWNT forever. One of the things I admired about them, especially in the form of Megan Rapinoe, was how they spoke truth to power. They’d never stay silent about things. We remember the old guard and how they protested. How they kneeled. How they pushed for change. How they were dragged in the press for their beliefs non-stop, but still chose to use their platform to push for women’s rights. Many of us also remember who, specifically, kneeled and who decided that it was time to stand. Obviously, this isn’t an exact science and certainly you can’t kneel forever or else the protest loses its teeth. Some people thought the kneeling was performative. I viewed it as absolutely necessary. This iteration of the team, captained by Lindsay Heaps, who many remember standing when the rest of the team was kneeling, seems to lack the soul of those pioneers. Perhaps, in the same way that protests can’t last forever, teams can’t maintain that rogueish outsider persona, but as excited as I am about coach Emma Hayes, and the new crop of talent she’s developing, I kind of miss those rabble rousers.
— Christen Press said it better than I ever could, and I’m paraphrasing here, but it’s basically that no one can tell a woman what to do about her last name with regard to marriage. That’s her decision and no one else’s. Hard stop. Then Pressy goes on to admit that she’s a hypocrite, laughing all the way, and that she wishes that players wouldn’t change their last names when they get married. She also said that if a female athlete marries a male athlete and she has better stats than him, he should take her name. That was a joke but I’m down for it. It just feels jarring when you’ve rooted for someone for years and years and then they change their moniker. Obviously, women can do whatever the hell they want in my book, and all the power to them. It’s just that I loved rooting for Mal Pugh and now I’m rooting for Mal Swanson, which is a chicken dinner name. Horan has become Heaps. Her literal nickname is The Great Horan as in Heron, like she’s a mighty, magical bird. Lindsay lost her name and her nickname! Alliterative Sophia Smith has become Sophia Wilson. It makes me think of Tom Hanks’ buddy in Cast Away. Maybe it’s a good reminder that players are complete people and are more than just the avatar we cheer for on gameday. Lynn Williams has become Lynn Biyendolo, which was jarring at first, but then I read Lynn’s explanation, which was actually very lovely, like every other thing about Lynn Williams err… I mean Lynn Biyendolo.
“During NWSL Media Day in January 2025, Lynn Biyendolo, formerly known as Lynn Williams, spoke about her decision to use her married name. She explained that in Congolese culture, sometimes a person is “gifted a name,” or a last name. Her father-in-law, Clotaire, chose to continue the surname Biyendolo for his family, even though his sister’s last name was different. Biyendolo expressed that she found this tradition “very cool and special”. She noted that outside of one other family, any other Biyendolo in the Congo would be related to her and her husband’s family. She also mentioned that while her maiden name, Williams, had its own history, it was linked to slave owners at some point. Taking on the name Biyendolo, which was gifted to her father-in-law, allowed her to embrace a special tradition and connect with the family she chose.”
— I mention the state of several international programs here, but I should mention how lucky we are, here in the USA, to have a team that is supported and admired. Thanks to the reputation of the team and the Herculean efforts by players like Morgan and Rapinoe to push for equal pay, the US women’s national team is a desired location for players. Case in point: two of the key (and I mean KEY writ large, as in, best-in-the-world level talent) players of the next generation could have played for other countries. Catarina Macario (Chelsea) was born in Brazil but grew up in San Diego and was highly coveted by the Brazilian program. She attended Stanford, where she won two national championships and was named college soccer’s best player twice. In her first year as a pro, playing for Lyon, she won the Champions League. Cat is one of those quiet, disciplined leaders that every coach covets. She can do anything and would have been a fantastic heir to Marta’s legacy in Brazil. A few years ago, she had to make a choice and it basically cost her a year of eligibility but she chose to play for the USA. Ditto for Lily Yohannes (Lyon), who was born in Virgina but moved to Amsterdam when she was ten because her father had a job there. She started training with pro team Ajax when she was only 13 years old and made her professional debut at 15. Netherlands was very keen on her becoming a fixture in their program, and as recently as April of 2024 she applied for Dutch citizenship to be eligible to play for the Dutch National Team. She has two older brothers who play for teams in the Netherlands and it seems like most of her support structure is in Europe. Finally, thanks in no small part I’m sure to the excellence of American skipper Emma Hayes, Lily opted to play for the US in November of 2024. I am, admittedly, irrationally excited about her. She’s only 18 now, but plays midfield – a position where the US has struggled in recent years, and her ability to playmake is nothing short of stunning. Her touch is like nothing I’ve ever seen. She can drop balls in at the perfect pace in places where no one can drop balls in. And she does it effortlessly and on the move. I get giddy watching her play. It’s like watching Andre Agassi return a serve or Simone Biles stick a vault. You know you’re watching something special. Coach Emma Hayes has appropriately tried to tamp down expectations for fans like me who watch what she can do and have trouble not gushing, but holy mackerel what a talent. Despite the cascading fall of grace that we’re experiencing as a country thanks to the current administration of duplicitous shitweasels, we can be grateful to the amazing women who built the team into an international force that could convince players of this lofty echelon to be part of it.
— Not to end on a negative note, but as I’m ruminating on the women of that era, it’s hard not to think about Carli Lloyd, America’s only two-time Ballon D’Or winner, who has become a commentator for Fox Sports and is just the absolute worst. Or second worst, really, after Alexei Lallas, a colostomy bag that can speak. The two of them are so out of touch with the American soccer community. It’s like having a MAGA rally at a gay wedding. Yes, you can just mute them, which I do tout suite, of course, rather than hear the bullshit outrage farming from Lalas or how Carli can steer any topic back to Carli. Being a commentator is like the Carli Lloyd personal revenge tour, making sure we know that she was definitely NOT with all those pink-haired weirdos who 100% made the team the bastion of acceptance and diversity it is today. Nothing was better for Carli than when the team was losing under former coach Vlatko Andonofski so that she could sling copious I told you so’s while advocating for her brand of me-first ideology. And nothing is worse for Carli and that smug, festering pustule Lalas than a brilliant gay coach who is building a juggernaut. Carli Lloyd and Alexei Lalas have every right to say whatever awful shit they want, I just don’t want it in my living room. But let’s not focus only on the acidic mouthpieces, but the enablers as well. Fox Sports sucks ass, and the people who hired these rage-baiting assholes, subjecting what is naturally an open-minded and diversity-friendly audience to their close-minded, dismissive toxicity are gross.
— I don’t want to end on a downer, so let me go back to gushing. 20-year-old Alyssa Thompson (Angel City) has leveled up in front of our eyes. She’s thrilling to watch, and I love rooting for players who aren’t very tall. At 5’4”, Thompson is playing a foot taller and sending ripples of excitement through the soccer/football world. Here’s the call on her very first international goal, which she made look easy.
When you look at some of the players that Emma Hayes is doctoring into the next generation of the USWNT, players like Thompson and the aforementioned Girma, Macario and Yohannes, along with 24 year old Mia Fishel (Seattle Reign), 23 year old Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), and 21 year old Ally Sentnor (Utah Royals), the future of the team is incandescent.
If you made it this far, congrats! You win the Pajiba most unlikely read of the day award! Feel free to jump into the comments to chime in about the Women’s game, things I may have missed, or thoughts of your own. Or to flame me when England beats Sweden on Thursday. (They absolutely could!) Let’s hope for continued excellence in all of the tournaments, players staying healthy, and more people becoming aware of the quality of the women’s game. It’s a great time to be a fan of the sport and I’m thrilled to get to share it with all of you.
