- USWNT coach Emma Hayes is using a January training camp to evaluate young prospects ahead of World Cup qualifying.
- As much as Hayes would like to have her full roster at the ready, having several veteran players out presents an opportunity.
WhenEmma Hayes took the reins of thewomen’s national soccer team in 2024, one of her first goals was to plumb the depths of the team’s talent pool. She knew what she had on the surface with veterans such asRose Lavelle,Naomi Girma,Lindsey Heaps andTrinity Rodman. But what about the players under them? Who could step in in case of injury, absence or a lack of form?
Twenty months later, Hayes still hasn’t reached the bottom of that pool, making this month’s training camp in Carson an important one with World Cup qualifying looming in the fall.
“Some of the pool players are going to get an opportunity to shine,” she said. “Some are high-potential prospects. I think aboutHal Hershfelt orCroix Bethune, players who have not had a lot of opportunity with us. I get a chance to really see where they’re at.
“My message is these players really have to take these opportunities because they will become few and far between.”
As the man behind the 1984 L.A. Olympics soccer tournament and the 1994 World Cup, Alan Rothenberg arguably had more to do with writing the story of modern U.S. Soccer than anyone.
Hayes has given 27 players their senior national team debuts and has used 50 different starters in her 30 matches as coach. No other U.S. manager has named more than 36 starters over a similar span. And the number of debutantes could grow since three of the 26 women called up are still looking for their first international cap — something they could earn this month since the training camp will end with friendlies against Paraguay on Saturday at Dignity Health Sports Park and Chile at UC Santa Barbara on Jan. 27.
Saturday’s matinee will include a pregame tribute to Christen Press, a two-time world champion who announced her retirement last fall.
But as valuable as the continuing auditions may be, the decision to call up a roster of young, NWSL players was made out of necessity, not design. Because the camp falls outside a FIFA window, Hayes was unable to summon European-based players such as Girma, Heaps, Alyssa Thompson, Crystal Dunn and Catarina Macario. Also unavailable were Jaedyn Shaw, Jaelin Howell, Tierna Davidson, Emily Sonnett and Lavelle, U.S. Soccer’s women’s player of the year, who will all be playing for Gotham FC in next week’s FIFA Women’s Championship Club in England.
“If the European-based players and the Gotham-based players were here, this would be a completely different roster,” Hayes said. “But that’s not the case.”
It’s also nothing new. The coach hasn’t had what she considers her first-choice roster since taking over the national team.
Injury kept Macario off the team that struck gold in the Paris Olympics, Hayes’ first tournament as coach, while forwards Sophia Wilson and Mallory Swanson have been on maternity leave since the Olympics. Injuries have limited Rodman, another forward, to one game over the past 18 months.
Despite that, the U.S. has lost just three of 20 games since climbing off the medal stand in Paris. So while she would prefer to start the new year with the veteran core of her 2027 World Cup roster in uniform, that didn’t happen. Instead, the 26 invited players — among them Rodman,Angel City defenderGisele Thompson and Santa Clarita’sOlivia Moultrie — average 24.1 years of age and 6.6 caps of senior-team experience.
“What I’ve learned since the Olympics is I can never, ever pick the best roster because I’m always going to be without players,” she said.
With the World Cup a year away, the tryout period will soon be ending. Hayes said she and her staff have mapped out how they’d like to see 2026 unfold, and that plan includes narrowing the potential player pool to about 35 women ahead of theSheBelieves Cup in March.
The champion with Tigres UANL women’s team and U-17 World Cup medalist detailed the sporting and personal reasons that led her to change course, with the full support of her parents.
“Once we get to SheBelieves, if everyone is available to me, it will be the group that are strong candidates to be [part of World Cup qualifying],” she said. “It will be an extremely competitive roster.”
Yet it will be one that still won’t include Wilson or Swanson, who combined for seven of the team’s 12 goals in the Olympics. Wilson gave birth to a daughter in September, two months before Swanson did the same. Hayes, who had a son in the spring of 2018, doesn’t plan to rush back either player.
“I know how long it takes to recover after having a baby. That’s why I don’t like putting time frames on it,” she said. “Hormones play a big part of it. And you don’t actually realize that until you’ve had a baby.
“For some the recovery is quicker than others. Depends on your age, depends on type of birth, sleep. Loads of things.”
In the meantime, Hayes will keep dipping into the talent pool she has.
⚽You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.
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Kevin Baxter writes about soccer and hockey for the Los Angeles Times. He has covered seven World Cups, five Olympic Games, six World Series and a Super Bowl and has contributed to three Pulitzer Prize-winning series at The Times and Miami Herald. An essay he wrote in fifth grade was voted best in the class. He has a cool dog.
