EL CAJON, Calif. — The U.S. women’s national team are no strangers to must-win games, so much so that the expectation is on them to claim victory, no matter the occasion. It is a belief that’s baked into the fabric of this team, to the point that head coach Emma Hayes predicted that Wednesday’s SheBelieves Cup finale against Japan will be the type of game in which “we will have to suffer” in order to reach a desired outcome. And yet, as the team hit the training pitch at San Diego FC’s brand-new performance center on Tuesday, it was hard not to notice a laid-back feeling of sorts.
“I think we have to be relative when I say that,” Hayes said in her pre-game comments, half-joking as the temperature approached 80 degrees Fahrenheit. “There’s a beautiful sun out. We’re in San Diego. Suffering is, like, over the top.”
Where to watch USA soccer vs. Japan, USWNT scenarios: Live stream SheBelieves Cup, odds, pick, prediction
Sandra Herrera
A win might be the only way the USWNT will win their sixth successive SheBelieves Cup this week, but this year’s edition of the competition is being used as a chance for inexperienced players to get valuable experience as the long road to the 2027 Women’s World Cup begins. Two games in, it’s hard not to argue that it’s been a job well done for everyone in attendance. Players like Lily Yohannes and Claire Hutton have impressed in their first starts, while Ally Sentnor and Michelle Cooper nabbed their first international goals.
“Did we do everything we set out to do in terms of simulating a tournament setting? Yes, we’ve done that,” she said. “Did we increase the players’ learning around our blueprint, our way of playing? Yes. Tick, we did that one. Did we deepen the pool and the playing opportunities under pressure for many of our players? Tick, we did that one. They were our three objectives.”
It makes Wednesday’s game against Japan a fitting finish to the three-game swing of the SheBelieves Cup. A draw or loss favors the visitors, who have been the class of the competition so far, outscoring the opposition 8-1 in two games. The USWNT have impressed but enter the match with a little bit of the flair of the underdog since 17 players on the roster have 30 or fewer appearances heading into the clash. Japan’s evolution in the last several months also means the game will have a different energy than the USWNT’s 1-0 win in the quarterfinals of the Olympics last summer.
“When you’re playing against teams that are waiting for you to press, waiting for you to jump out of areas so they can increase their own pass sequencing, you have to learn to resist in the wrong moments, so that takes a lot of discipline and a lot of tactical understanding, of which we haven’t been doing that with this group for very long,” Hayes said. “If you make the spaces between you, they will destroy us in terms of their style of play so for us, we have to be so succinct in that and as I said going forward, maintain the patience to progress the ball up the pitch in the way we have done during my tenure and something that I want to keep elevating. It’s the combination of things and it’s very taxing on the brain because dealing with overloads in different situations – which Japan present those threats – you have to keep this muscle extremely fresh.”
The first two games – a 2-0 win over Colombia and a 2-1 win against Australia – have indicated that the younger group is adjusting well to the demands of the USWNT’s period of transition, relying appropriately on the handful of veterans around for the SheBelieves Cup journey.
“It’s a lot of information but they’re doing a really great job of just asking questions,” Crystal Dunn said. “I really love when the young ones come up to us and ask a question and don’t feel too nervous or scared to do it because I know that feeling, obviously, but everyone’s been great. I’m proud of the young group stepping in.”
Veterans like Dunn, one of just three players on the squad with 100-plus caps, have an important role to play during this era of experimentation by demonstrating the expectations that await these players once the must-win games of the 2027 Women’s World Cup and 2028 Olympics finally come around.
“The young ones have to see how hard it is to be here,” Dunn said. “We don’t take any moment we’re in this environment lightly. I think they probably see in trainings the most that we are so competitive and it’s really hard to feel comfortable in this environment but we obviously do our best to make them feel as comfortable as possible, to make them feel like they belong and that they are talented and gifted and good enough to be in this environment and it’s always a challenge of making sure there’s a level of comfort but a bit of uncomfortableness that’s going to promote growth and change.”
Hayes is currently being tasked with finding a way to strike the balance of preparing the team for the future while dealing with the expectation to win that follows the USWNT like a shadow. She has decided that the right approach is not to focus on the result-driven aspect of the sport for the time being.
“I think you start by not talking about it, you know? We all want the same thing and the results, of course, are important but they are not the indicators of whether or not we’re going in the right direction or not,” she said. “I think we are the less experienced team tomorrow. That’s not to say we can’t win or we don’t want to win, but for us it’s important that we keep improving. That’s part of our growth mindset.”
The desire to win, though, is perhaps part of the USWNT’s DNA rather than a label stuck on them by others, and it may not be to their detriment. Dunn made the argument that the era of experimentation is not necessarily about finding some hard-to-define middle ground or picking one priority over the other. Winning games and preparing for the future can go hand-in-hand, which just might be the objective for the USWNT on Wednesday.
“I think we live in a world where multiple things can exist at the same time, multiple truths can be held in the same space,” Dunn said. “We are about developing these young players and getting them brought up to speed. I mean, we’re in a tournament. We’re playing in a final tomorrow. We want to win. We want to try to get that result. We obviously know it’s going to be a perfect game. These games are about us finding our groove and our way of incorporating new players but I think, the goal in itself is to try to get the job done to our best ability and we know that with the depth that we have in this group, we are more than capable of doing that.”
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