The USWNT's new normal? The threat of losing almost any game

Anyone who still believes that the world is catching up to the U.S. women’s national team is living in the past.

The world had been catching up to the U.S. for a decade as countries invested in their women’s programs and domestic leagues. The 2023 World Cup, which saw Spain triumph for the first time and the USWNT endure its worst finish in history, was tangible confirmation that the world had already caught up.

But it was the USWNT’s rare loss in February to Mexico that put a finer point on it. The international game hasn’t only become more challenging at the highest levels — even in a Concacaf tournament, often in the past considered a perfunctory step to the real competition, the USWNT can’t expect a cakewalk anymore.

“There are no easy games anymore,” U.S. interim coach Twila Kilgore said in February after the loss to Mexico, only the second USWNT loss in 43 meetings between the teams. “And if we don’t take care of business and we don’t execute, this is to be expected, and we’ll take ownership of that.”

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When the U.S. faces Japan on Saturday in an abbreviated edition of the SheBelieves Cup, winning is on the table. But, perhaps more so than any previous point in the USWNT’s history, losing is too. Uncertainty is the new normal for the U.S. women’s national team, which won the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991 and four of the nine in history. The Americans now play in a world where the pool of top teams has expanded and, more noticeably, the number of formidable opponents capable of winning knockout games has increased exponentially.

The U.S. getting eliminated from a major tournament by old foe Sweden, as was the case in last summer’s round of 16, was not shocking in a vacuum. Hanging on by the thread of a goal post in the group stage against World Cup debutant Portugal? It was proof positive of the new landscape for those who had not been paying attention.

Now, the questions lie in how the U.S. adapts and reacts — or, perhaps, copes. Impending head coach Emma Hayes will try to answer those with X’s and O’s over the coming years. There will be glorious victories and frustrating losses, but one thing that must change in this new world is the assumption that the U.S. will win everything. Such expectations are disconnected from reality.

Admitting that is uncomfortable for anyone in elite sports, where the very premise of competitive drive is the belief that one can and should win. From a young age, U.S. players know that the standard isn’t just to win, but to dominate. It wasn’t uncommon in years past for U.S. players and coaches to face an ironic line of questioning after a victory: Sure, you won, but it was only 3-0. Why did you struggle?

Just over three months ahead of the 2024 Olympics, the USWNT is a contender, but not the favorite. Getting out of Group B, which features Australia, Germany and either Morocco or Zambia, will be a tough task, although eight out of 12 teams advancing certainly helps. If the Americans fail to win gold, it will be the first World Cup-Olympics cycle in which they have failed to win one of those tournaments.

“We’ve set the standard of being one of the best teams for such a long period of time,” current U.S. captain Lindsey Horan told ESPN before the 2023 World Cup. “Now, everyone talks about everyone catching up to us — that’s what was supposed to happen. We want the rest of the world to be at this place so it’s like the men’s World Cup where anyone can win, and all the best players, all the best teams have all the best resources, and everyone is fighting for the same thing.”

Media are partly to blame for the jarring adjustment to this new world order. The historical dominance by the U.S. women — including three straight Olympic gold medals from 2004 to 2012 — validated the idea that American triumph was inevitable, that intangibles like mentality and hard work would forever set the team apart from its competition.

Fans and media expected the USWNT to beat up on teams perceived to be inferior — but not gloat about it, as proven by the 2019 kerfuffle after the USWNT beat Thailand 13-0 — and then strategically get past the few opponents deemed worthy. Accusations of arrogance were deflected as confidence.

Back-to-back World Cup triumphs in 2015 and 2019 only heightened those unrealistic expectations. Away from the spotlight, however, new contenders were developing talented players, attracting more competent coaches and investing money into the women’s game as they realized how much more attainable major-tournament success could be relative to the men’s game.

Spain’s 2023 World Cup victory, for example, was the culmination of a decade of development at the youth level. Spain’s U-19 team won four of the past five European championships after three straight years as runners-up before that. The U-17s won the past two World Cups at that age level, in 2018 and 2022, and the U-20s won the 2022 World Cup after finishing runners-up in the prior edition.

The USWNT, meanwhile, last won a U-20 World Cup in 2012 and has never won a U-17 World Cup. The Americans’ history at the U-17 stage is checkered with group-stage exits and multiple failures to qualify.

Youth World Cup results do not perfectly forecast future senior-level success — the U.S. still prevailed in recent senior World Cups — but the dichotomy in development is striking between the current world champions and the United States.

Morocco, a potential Olympic opponent for the U.S., is a perfect example of how quickly fortunes change. The country only began investing heavily into women’s soccer in recent years, but made its World Cup debut in 2023 and advanced out of the group alongside fellow surprise Colombia, at the expense of South Korea and global heavyweight Germany. Morocco was ranked 83rd in the world following the previous World Cup and had missed nine consecutive Africa Cup of Nations final tournaments.

Jamaica, despite its federation’s mismanagement, kept three clean sheets in the group stage, including one that eliminated Brazil.

Last month, the U.S. women bounced back from that loss to Mexico by winning three knockout-stage games, including the Gold Cup final against Brazil. It was a strong response from a U.S. team navigating a roster overhaul while awkwardly waiting for its new coach, Hayes, to arrive on the sideline. Impressive wins over Colombia, Canada (via penalty shootout) and Brazil served as an immediate reminder that yes, the U.S., can still win these games and lift trophies, but doing so is no longer inevitable.

There are no easy games anymore, which is the type of competitive landscape that everyone, U.S. players included, have long desired. The U.S. winning fewer trophies, or facing more adversity on the way to victory, is a necessary consequence that will require an awkward level of self-acceptance.