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November 3, 2026
The 51

Hayes's 51 made room for 11 from outside this year and none for four from January

Sam Meza, Lo'eau LaBonta, Sally Menti and Izzy Rodriguez all played for their clubs on Sunday. None is on the preliminary list for the Concacaf W Championship, and Concacaf's rule is that every replacement comes from that list.

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Maya ArguelloNov 3, 20264 min read
Every call on this site goes on a public ledger and gets graded. The misses stay up.
Sam Meza in an ESPN studio portrait, smiling, in a navy top.

Sam Meza started 25 of Seattle Reign FC's 30 league matches this season and played the full 90 minutes of Sunday's 1-0 win over Orlando. On Monday, Concacaf published the preliminary rosters for the W Championship, and she was not among the 51 players the United States submitted.

The list matters more than its size suggests. Concacaf's announcement says the final 23 will be confirmed before the tournament starts, and that after the deadline an outfield player can be replaced only for a serious injury or medical matter, up to 24 hours before a team's first match. Every replacement has to come from the preliminary roster. A player who is not on the 51 has no route into this tournament once the 23 is set, and in this tournament the four quarterfinal winners qualify for Brazil.

Four from January, with no injury listed#

Emma Hayes took 26 players to her January camp in Carson, all from the NWSL. She said at the time, in U.S. Soccer's release, that it was a chance for players "to show they can contribute in 2026, 2027 or beyond." Eighteen of the 26 are on the 51.

Four of the eight who are not are on the league's season-ending injury list, as updated October 31: Maddie Dahlien, Hal Hershfelt and Olivia Moultrie with knee injuries, and Kate Wiesner with an ankle injury. Emily Sonnett and Catarina Macario, who were not in that camp, are off the list too, and both are on the same report with knee injuries.

The other four are not on that report, and all four played on Sunday.

None of the four was on the SheBelieves Cup roster in February, the Japan roster in April, the Brazil roster in June or the Spain roster in October. January was their only camp this year. Monday's list rules all four out of this tournament.

Their clubs are still represented. Seattle has Claudia Dickey, Jordyn Bugg and Mia Fishel on the 51. Kansas City has Croix Bethune, Michelle Cooper and Laney Rouse, a defender, on it, and not the defender who started every Current league match this season.

Eleven from outside this year's rosters#

The list makes room for players Hayes has not named at all in 2026. Eleven of the 51 were on none of the five rosters U.S. Soccer announced this year: goalkeeper Angelina Anderson; defenders Eva Gaetino, Gia Corley, Laney Rouse and Savannah King; midfielders Ally Lemos, Kimmi Ascanio and Korbin Shrader; and forwards Caiya Hanks, Melanie Barcenas and Mia Fishel. A twelfth, Trinity Byars, was named in September for the Spain matches and did not dress for either.

Ascanio was born in 2008 and Barcenas in 2007, by Concacaf's own list. Both play for San Diego, as do Corley and Byars.

Midfield is where the swap is sharpest. Three of the eight midfielders from January are on the list: Bethune, Claire Hutton and Riley Jackson. Two of the other five, Hershfelt and Moultrie, are injured. Three are LaBonta, Menti and Meza. And three of the 14 midfielders on the list, Lemos, Ascanio and Shrader, come from outside this year's rosters. Three midfielders from January with no listed injury went off, and three from outside this year's rosters came on.

What the 51 does not settle#

A preliminary list is a long list by design. It is 28 names longer than the squad that will play El Salvador. Being on it is not a selection. Being off it means no way in as a replacement once the 23 is set.

It does not settle Jaelin Howell, who is on it. She came off in the 23rd minute of Gotham's 2-0 win over Utah on Sunday, after an injury stoppage at 20 minutes, by ESPN's match events, and the league's last availability report was posted the day before that match.

The United States play El Salvador on Friday, November 27, at Texas Health Mansfield Stadium. The winner goes to Brazil. If anybody in the 23 gets hurt before then, Meza, LaBonta, Menti and Rodriguez are not among the players who can be called in.

Sources: Concacaf, "2026 Concacaf W Championship Preliminary Rosters Revealed" and its roster PDF (November 2); U.S. Soccer roster releases of January 8, February 17, April, May 27 and September 29, and its November key-dates story (October 30); NWSL availability report (updated October 31); ESPN match logs and box scores for Seattle v Orlando and Louisville v Kansas City (November 1) and Gotham v Utah key events (November 1).

Filed under USWNT

On the record

Called Shots →
Held upAug 11, 2026

San Francisco adds a catcher from outside the organization before September 1.

The club is down to two healthy catchers on the 40-man, one of whom was in Double-A in April and one of whom has never appeared in a major league game, with Jesus Rodriguez on the injured list behind them and Susac out with a fractured patella. Susan Slusser of the Chronicle reported on August 10 that the Giants are looking at outside names, so the direction is not mine, but whether they actually do it is: a 49-70 club has an equally good argument for handing the rest of the season to Cavanaugh and finding out what he is, and September roster expansion arrives inside a month anyway. That is how I lose this, and it is a real way to lose it.

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