What is next

What this one is for. Spain is ranked first in the world, holds the 2023 World Cup, and has already qualified for 2027 by winning its European group. The two countries have met four times, never under Hayes, and the last meeting was a Spanish win in Pamplona in 2022; this is only the second time they have played on American soil. Hayes said they had desperately wanted Spain on the schedule and called the two matches, here and in Chester three days later, the perfect tests before World Cup qualifying at the end of the year. The Concacaf W Championship begins in late November. Crystal Dunn's retirement is celebrated before kickoff. These two matches are the last before qualifying.

Three nights after São Paulo, a win in Fortaleza in front of 55,744, a women's attendance record for the city, and the first American victory over Brazil on Brazilian soil since 1997. Fox, Sonnett, Wesley and Patterson started together in the back line for the first time. Wilson's run past two defenders forced the own goal that decided it. Dickey's clean sheet was her eighth, with eleven wins in eleven appearances, which is the answer to the goalkeeper question this era opened in December 2024. Brazil finished with nine players and eight red cards, four of them to the coaching staff, and Hayes said winning in Brazil was extremely tough. Swanson did not play in either match. The next competitive fixture is qualifying.

The first away matches since November 2024, in the country that hosts the 2027 World Cup, at a stadium that will stage it. The 26-player roster carried no uncapped players for a third straight camp, which said the pool-widening phase was over. Swanson returned after 604 days and the Olympic front three were on the same roster for the first time since Paris, though she did not play here. Girma, Macario and Coffey were out injured. Wilson's second-minute goal was her first since October 2024 and made her the ninth mother to score for the team. Brazil scored twice in the next twelve minutes in front of more than 31,000. Hayes's read was that Brazil took its chances and her team did not.

The series decider, 38 degrees at kickoff with snow pushed to the edges of the pitch, the coldest match since February 2022. Hayes went back to the senior eleven, averaging 60.7 caps, with Hutton the only holdover from Seattle and Davidson making her first start in fourteen months. Nine first-half shots produced nothing; three goals in the first twenty minutes of the second half settled it, the largest win over Japan since 2017. Wesley, on at halftime, recorded her first international goal and assist in her sixth cap and was the 27th player to score under Hayes. Girma's goal was her third, all headers. Lavelle's was her tenth goal contribution in ten appearances. Hayes called 3-0 against a top team an amazing scoreline.

Hayes changed all eleven starters from San Jose, the fourth time in her tenure she had done that, and the eleven averaged 23.9 caps against 56.3 three nights earlier. Hutton captained from the start, the youngest captain of the modern era. The crowd of 36,128 was the largest ever for a women's sporting event in Seattle, on a new grass surface laid for the men's World Cup. Japan's first-half goal was only its third win over the Americans, and it ended a ten-match winning run. Davidson came on for her first match in 412 days. Hayes said she was a developer of players and they needed to go through these things, and that she could not always play just for the result. This was the cost of the rotation, and Hayes said she accepted it.

Japan had won the Asian Cup eleven days earlier and beaten the Americans in the 2025 SheBelieves final, so a three-match series against them was the year's first real measurement. Wilson made her first start since October 2024, seventeen months after her last, following the birth of her daughter, and Hayes said it was the first time she had played at that level since the gold-medal match. Lavelle made her 100th start and had a goal and an assist. Heaps scored her 40th international goal. Japan's goal was the first the team had conceded in 2026. A tenth straight win, the first such run since 2023. Hayes's read: twelve months earlier the team might have drawn this match.

An eighth SheBelieves Cup title, won on Alyssa Thompson's strike from 30 yards in the 82nd minute, her first goal of the year and the one that made her tournament MVP. The starting eleven averaged 47.5 caps and included Rodman and Yohannes, both withdrawn on the hour. Girma came off at halftime with calf tightness. Tullis-Joyce started for the second time in the tournament, and the Americans were the only team not to concede a goal, extending the goalkeepers' run to eight straight clean sheets since October. Hayes said winning major things required different approaches in every game and the team had shown all of them. She also said provocation would happen with different opponents, and to imagine that at a World Cup. Japan, three times in April, came next.

Ten changes from Nashville, with Gisele Thompson the only holdover, in a stadium that will host Olympic soccer in 2028. Tullis-Joyce started in goal for her first match since the Portugal loss in October and her first tournament with the national team, so both goalkeepers in the succession had now started a SheBelieves match within four days. Sentnor's half-volley from a Lavelle corner was her seventh international goal and her third of the year, the team lead, after a brace against Paraguay in January. Lavelle, from Cincinnati, assisted in her home state. The win put the Americans on six points, needing only a draw against Colombia to win an eighth title. Hayes said afterward that Tara Rudd had been a big difference with her physicality.

The opening match of the 2026 SheBelieves Cup, against one of the three teams the Americans would meet again in November qualifying. Heaps, captaining, scored her 39th international goal and extended a streak of scoring in every year since 2015, the longest on the roster. Shaw's goal was her tenth in 32 appearances and her second in consecutive matches. Maddie Dahlien made her first start in her third cap. Four starters were playing their first SheBelieves Cup: Joseph, Dahlien, Dickey and Wesley. Dickey's clean sheet was her seventh in eight appearances. Argentina was called for 21 fouls, and the physical edge became the tournament's theme. The Americans sat second after day one, behind Canada on goal difference.

Hayes had said she would not start any player in both January matches, and the eleven in Santa Barbara averaged 5.2 caps, the fewest in 25 years. Ayo Oke and Riley Jackson earned first caps, the 289th and 290th players in program history. Bethune, Joseph and Sams each scored a first international goal; the last time three Americans did that in one match was October 2006. Sams captained in her ninth appearance. Sears scored in a second straight match, six goals in 14 caps. Hayes said it did not matter who had the crest on, the role's expectations were the same. That was the audition standard for the SheBelieves Cup, whose opponents were the same teams the Americans would meet in November qualifying.

January camp falls outside a FIFA window, so the roster was all NWSL players and, with Gotham away at the Champions Cup, none of the league champions. Hayes said the camp was a chance to see players she had not seen much of and to add depth for the SheBelieves roster. The starting eleven averaged 9.6 caps, the fewest in 25 years. Rodman captained the team for the first time at 23 and handed the armband to Hutton, 20, when she came off. Reilyn Turner scored on debut, the 25th American to do so, and Sally Menti and Maddie Dahlien earned first caps. Five goals came in a twelve-minute stretch after halftime. Hayes said afterward the team had looked rusty to start.

The last match of 2025, closing a year of twelve wins and three losses, 41 goals scored and eight conceded, and 43 players capped, the most in a calendar year since 2001. Hayes said these two Italy performances were her favorite of the year. Dickey's third straight clean sheet made the goalkeeper picture clearer than it had been since Naeher retired. Wiesner made her first start, Jaelin Howell earned her first cap since April 2022, Girma reached 50 caps and Heaps her 170th, tying Carla Overbeck. Shaw's goal was her first of the year. Hayes named Bugg a huge talent who was not ready for now, which was the standard for the whole cohort. Qualifying year began next.

Italy had reached the Euro semifinals four months earlier, which made this the sternest test of the autumn. Hayes had said matches against top European teams gave, in her words, "an honest assessment" of where the team stood. Girma returned after 149 days away and captained. Moultrie scored 67 seconds in, the fourth straight match with a goal inside ten minutes, and Macario's second brace in as many matches took her to seven goals for the year, the team lead. Dickey kept a clean sheet in her fifth appearance. Jameese Joseph and Kate Wiesner earned first caps. Hayes's read afterward was that starting fast was one thing, but the team had often conceded just as quickly, so the clean sheet meant as much as the result.

The first match at CPKC Stadium, the first stadium built for a women's team, and the least experienced starting eleven in 25 years at 17.3 caps per player. Lavelle, captaining, had 114 caps; the other ten had 77 between them. The back line had eleven combined appearances, and Kennedy Wesley earned her first cap in the middle of it. Sears, starting for the first time in the camp, scored a hat trick, her first for the national team, in her eleventh cap. Macario added a fourth career brace. Six goals were the most the team had scored since the nine against Uzbekistan in April 2022. Hayes said Sears had an instinct inside the box that could not be taught, and the striker question had a new name in it.

Eight changes from Chester and a younger eleven, averaging 19.2 caps with three teenagers in it: Yohannes at 18, Hutton and Jordyn Bugg at 19. Sonnett, captaining for the third time in her 112th cap, had more caps than the other ten starters combined. Moultrie scored twice inside ten minutes, the opener after 44 seconds, and became the fourth-youngest American to score a brace. Dickey made her first start in goal. Coffey came off the bench and scored the goal that settled it. Naeher was honored before kickoff in her home state. Hayes said the team was much better in all phases, and the bounce-back, three days after her most irritating loss, was the thing she pointed to.

Hayes had said this window would start the build toward 2027 qualifying, and it opened with a loss to a team the Americans had never conceded a goal to in eleven meetings. Rodman had sprained her MCL for the Washington Spirit on the day she was named to the roster and watched from the stands. Patterson, Tara McKeown, Sonnett and Fox started together in the back line for the first time, and both Portuguese goals came from corners. Lavelle's goal after 33 seconds was the seventh-fastest in program history and counted for nothing. Hayes called it a game of whack-a-mole and said the team was poor, not any individual. It was the third loss of 2025 and the third of her tenure.

Third match in seven days, ten changes back toward the Colorado eleven, and a third straight clean sheet against a Canada side ranked eighth in the world. Coffey scored from a set piece and Hayes said afterward she was in the form of her life. Hutton, at 19, headed in her first international goal in her sixth cap, from a Lavelle corner. Girma remained the only Europe-based starter. Three wins, no goals conceded, and a long list of first caps was the summer's ledger, and Hayes said her next step was to attend the Euros to watch top European opponents in person. The team did not play again until October, a gap of 113 days.

Eleven changes from Colorado three days earlier, and the result was the program's 600th win. Biyendolo captained the team for the first time and came into the match with 81 caps, nearly twice as many as the other ten starters combined. Izzy Rodriguez and Sam Meza earned first caps, the 281st and 282nd players in program history, and Rodriguez scored. Ryan scored her first international goal in her eleventh cap. Sears had a hand in the first three goals. Ireland did not manage a shot on target. The point of the window was to see everyone, and by the end of this afternoon almost everyone in camp had started a match. Canada in Washington came three days later.

The summer window that defined the year. Hayes named a roster that excluded nearly every Europe-based player to give them rest after their club seasons, Girma the one exception, and said the goals were to improve the understanding of how the team wanted to play and to widen the pool. Claudia Dickey started in goal on debut and played the full match, the third goalkeeper tried in three months. Lilly Reale started at fullback on her first cap and assisted a goal. Patterson scored her first international goal. Lavelle returned for her first appearance since December after ankle surgery and had a goal and an assist. Six of the eleven starters had fewer than ten caps.

Jamaica arrived shorthanded and the match was one-sided, so read it for the individuals. Sentnor scored twice, her first multi-goal match, and her third and fourth international goals made her the team's leading scorer of 2025 at the age of 21. Kerry Abello started at left back on debut, the 275th player capped and the nineteenth to debut under Hayes. Tullis-Joyce became the first goalkeeper since Naeher to keep a clean sheet in each of her first three caps, which made her the front-runner for a job that was still open. Becky Sauerbrunn was honored before the match in her hometown. Six starters had nine caps or fewer, and that ratio would only grow in the window that followed.

Girma's first appearance since December, after the injuries that had cost her the spring at Chelsea, and Hayes said plainly that the team had missed her. Tullis-Joyce kept a second clean sheet in her second cap. Macario scored and assisted, and her third goal of 2025 made her the year's leading American scorer at that point. The debut that made history came in the 70th minute: Lo'eau LaBonta, at 32 years and two months, became the oldest player ever to earn a first cap, passing McCall Zerboni's 2017 mark. Hayes had framed this camp and the next as chances to develop squad depth, and with Wilson and Swanson on maternity leave and Rodman injured, depth was the whole assignment.

Hayes made seven changes and started an eleven averaging 17.9 caps, the fewest for any starting group in 24 years. Patterson and Michelle Cooper made first starts, Claire Hutton and Gisele Thompson played the full match at 19, and Yohannes played the first half at 17. Catarina Macario scored after 34 seconds against the country of her birth. Brazil's stoppage-time winner was its first victory over the Americans since 2014 and the first by a South American team on U.S. soil. It was the second loss of the Hayes era, after Japan at the SheBelieves Cup in February. Hayes said afterward she was prioritizing the progress from expanding the pool over short-term results, and the summer that followed proved she meant it.

A rematch of the Olympic final, in front of 32,303 at the first women's professional event ever held at SoFi Stadium. Thirteen members of the Olympic squad were unavailable through injury, retirement or leave, including both starting center backs, Girma with a calf injury and Davidson with a knee ligament tear. Rodman returned for her first match since Paris after eight months out with a back problem and scored in the sixth minute. Phallon Tullis-Joyce kept a clean sheet on her debut, the first goalkeeper to start after Naeher, and Avery Patterson earned her first cap late. Hayes had said the window would be about experimentation. The winning eleven here was the last look at a settled one for months.

The first loss of the Hayes era, in her eighteenth match, and the end of a run of five straight SheBelieves Cup titles. Hayes went back to ten of the eleven who had beaten Colombia, with Dunn the one change. Japan led inside two minutes after Campbell collided with a defender and Yuka Momiki finished into an empty net, and the winner came when Campbell could not clear a rebound from a Yui Hasegawa free kick. Two goalkeeper errors in a final, with Naeher three months retired, told the story of the year ahead. Swanson was away on personal commitments, Rodman rehabbing a back injury and Wilson not yet in game form. Japan lifted the trophy for the first time and beat the Americans again in Seattle fourteen months later.

Hayes changed all eleven starters from Houston, only the sixth time in program history a lineup had turned over completely from one match to the next, and the new eleven scored after 41 seconds. Mandy McGlynn made her second start in goal, three days after Campbell had made the first, so the succession was being run as an open trial. Hutton, 19, earned her first cap and first start in midfield in the same night. Gisele Thompson made her first start days after her debut. Cooper scored her first international goal six minutes after coming on. Davidson captained for the first time in her 66th appearance. The win put the Americans into the deciding match against Japan in San Diego.

The first match of 2025 and the first without Naeher, who had retired in December. Hayes turned to Jane Campbell, 30, for her ninth cap and only her second since 2021, which was the opening move in a goalkeeper search that ran the whole year. Three players earned first caps: Tara McKeown, Gisele Thompson and Michelle Cooper. Macario's goal was her first for the national team since April 2022, before the ACL tear that cost her most of two years. Sentnor scored her first international goal in her first start, the first American to open her account at this tournament. Rodman, Wilson and Swanson were all absent, which made the SheBelieves Cup a measurement of everyone else.

Naeher's last match, played with the captain's armband in her 115th appearance, and she made six saves in The Hague. That was the story. The result closed 2024 at 18 wins, one loss and four draws, with a twenty-match unbeaten run since the February loss to Mexico. Lily Yohannes earned her second cap three weeks after committing to the United States over the Netherlands, a decision that mattered more in this stadium than anywhere. The year ended with the program back atop the world ranking and with an open question it had not faced in a decade: who plays in goal. The next three windows would be spent answering it.

The crowd was 78,346, the fourth-largest ever for this team and the largest for a friendly. The match was a goalless draw in which the Americans had a goal ruled out for offside and a penalty awarded and then correctly reversed on review. Naeher had announced her international retirement five days earlier, and her tenth shutout of 2024 set a personal single-year record. Girma was named woman of the match. Ally Sentnor came on in the 87th minute for her first cap, the 269th player in program history and the eleventh debut of the year. The unbeaten run reached nineteen. The result mattered less than the venue: this was the first away test of the post-Olympic team against a top European side.

The last home match of 2024, and the deepest reach into the pool yet: ten changes from Nashville, with Lavelle wearing the armband. Hershfelt made her first start in midfield. Alyssa Malonson started at left back on debut and recorded an assist, the second American in two matches to do that in a first cap. Eva Gaetino and Mandy Haught also earned first caps as starters. The goals were Girma's first two as a professional, both headers, in her 42nd appearance. A sellout in Louisville sent the team to Europe unbeaten under Hayes at twelve wins and a draw, with Wembley and The Hague to close the year.

Three days after an eleven averaging 72 caps, Hayes sent out one averaging 39 caps and 25.5 years, with Olivia Moultrie and Jaedyn Shaw, both 19, starting. The Americans trailed at halftime for the first time in the era and turned it around with three second-half goals. The name that came out of Nashville was Emma Sears. On debut she set up Biyendolo's equalizer and scored in stoppage time, only the fourth player in program history with a goal and an assist in a first cap. Emily Sams earned her first cap the same night. Sears was the seventh debut under Hayes, and within a year she would be the leading American scorer in the NWSL and a fixture in camp.

The first match after Paris, two and a half months later, with ten Olympians in the starting eleven. Sonnett reached 100 caps at kickoff, one day short of nine years since her debut. Alyssa Thompson, the youngest player on the field, scored her first international goal. What made the night matter was the stretch after Iceland equalized in the 54th minute, when a gold-medal team could not find a second goal for half an hour and needed two finishes in the last five minutes. Yazmeen Ryan and Hal Hershfelt earned their first caps off the bench, the 262nd and 263rd players in program history, and the pool that would be examined for the next two years began to open here.

The biggest match of the era, and the one every later decision is measured against. A fifth Olympic gold, four more than any other nation, and the first since 2012, the longest gap in the program's Olympic history. Swanson scored on her 100th cap, the ninth American to do so, running onto a through ball from Shrader, who had replaced Lavelle in the starting lineup. The eleven averaged 26.7 years, the second-youngest ever to start a gold-medal match. Naeher saved a stoppage-time redirection from Gabi Portilho in the first half and a point-blank header from Adriana in the 94th minute. Marta came on at 61 minutes for what was framed as her Olympic farewell. Hayes had been in charge for ten matches.

A second consecutive extra-time win, and the match in which the goalkeeper decided the tournament. Coffey returned from suspension and Davidson from injury, so Hayes had her first-choice eleven back. Wilson's chip from a Swanson pass in the 95th minute was the goal, but Naeher finished with seven saves, the most she had ever made in a World Cup or Olympic match, including a kick save off a German header near the end of extra time that kept the lead. The Americans reached a gold-medal match for the sixth time in eight Olympics and their eleventh world-championship final overall. The opponent would be Brazil, who beat Spain in the other semifinal, and Naeher's form was now the reason to believe.

The hardest match of the tournament. Coffey was suspended for yellow-card accumulation and Shrader took her place. Japan sat in a 5-2-3 and forced the Americans to play through it for more than 105 minutes without a breakthrough. The goal that ended it came from a long, angled switch by Dunn from the center circle, Rodman collecting it in the right corner and cutting inside to finish. At 22 she was the youngest American to score in an Olympic knockout match since Lindsay Tarpley in the 2004 final. Naeher's clean sheet was her tenth in twenty career Olympic or World Cup appearances. A seventh semifinal in eight Olympics followed, against Germany in Lyon, and the pattern of a single goal deciding everything was now set.

The group finale, and the first forced change of the tournament. Davidson was sidelined with a leg contusion, Emily Sonnett took her place beside Girma, and Hayes otherwise kept the ten who had started the first two matches. The winner was a 25-yard strike from Shrader, who at 20 became the first American woman to score her debut international goal at an Olympics. Coffey picked up a second yellow card of the tournament and was suspended for the quarterfinal. Three group wins from three had happened only once before in eight Olympic appearances, in 2012. The reward was Japan at the Parc des Princes, a side that would sit deeper than anyone the Americans had played so far.

Hayes kept the same eleven that had beaten Zambia, moving Heaps deeper alongside Coffey, and the result clinched a quarterfinal place with a group match to spare. Germany's equalizer in the 22nd minute was the first goal conceded in the Hayes era, ending a run of 475 minutes, and three unanswered goals followed. Swanson's tally gave her three goals across the first two Olympic matches, a program record, and Wilson became the seventh American to score twice in an Olympic match. Lynn Biyendolo's late finish came off a counter that Rodman started in her own half. The front three had now produced a goal or an assist each in consecutive matches. Australia, and first place in the group, remained.

The Olympic opener in Nice, and the youngest starting eleven the program had sent out at a World Cup or Olympics since 2008, averaging 27.4 years. Seven starters were making their Olympic debut, Sam Coffey, Fox, Naomi Girma, Rodman, Wilson, Shrader and Nighswonger among them. All three goals arrived in the first 25 minutes and two came from Heaps assists, the captain feeding a front three that had been assembled only weeks earlier. Naeher posted her third straight shutout. A small crowd of 5,550 saw the tournament's eventual champions declare their method on the first night, which was to let the forwards run at a low block until it broke. Germany in Marseille came three days later.

The last match before the Olympics, played in Washington heat against a Costa Rica side that defended for ninety minutes and got its point. Hayes made two changes from New Jersey. Dunn replaced the resting Nighswonger at left back, and Korbin Shrader came into the lineup late after Lavelle felt leg tightness in warm-ups, a scare that passed. The Americans could not score and did not concede, which extended a clean sheet run to four matches in four under Hayes, the second-longest to open any full-time tenure. Naeher's 64th career shutout was the quieter story. A goalless send-off looked like a warning at the time. Three weeks later it read as the defence that would carry a tournament.

The first of two send-off matches before Paris, played in front of a sellout in New Jersey with the 1999 World Cup team honored before kickoff. This is the night the Olympic eleven took shape in public. Alyssa Naeher in goal, Emily Fox earning her 50th cap in the back line, Lavelle and Heaps in midfield, and Trinity Rodman, Sophia Wilson and Swanson together up front. The winner came from that front three passing to each other, which would become the tournament's signature. Croix Bethune earned her first cap as an Olympic alternate. Mexico had beaten this team at the Gold Cup in February; the 1-0 was narrow, but the shape was the one Hayes took to France.

Hayes changed nine starters from Colorado, keeping only Lindsey Heaps and Jenna Nighswonger, which made the two South Korea matches one audition split across two cities. Rose Lavelle reached 100 caps at kickoff. Crystal Dunn, who had spent two World Cup cycles at left back, started on the right wing and scored her first goal in more than five years. The night belonged to Lily Yohannes, 16 years and 358 days old, who came on and scored within ten minutes, the third-youngest scorer in program history and the youngest player to appear for the team since 2001. Hayes named her Olympic squad after this window; Yohannes was not on it, and the question of where she would play her international football was not yet settled.

Emma Hayes's first match, and the first sheet of the era. A sold-out Colorado crowd watched Hayes hand Sam Staab the first debut of her tenure, the 249th cap in program history, and give Jane Campbell her first cap since October 2021. The two braces mattered more for who scored them than for the margin. Mallory Swanson's goal was her first in 465 days, Tierna Davidson's her first in 2,101 days, Swanson back from a knee injury with an Olympic squad to be named within weeks. On the evidence of one night, two of the eighteen places were being reclaimed rather than contested. The rematch in St. Paul came three days later.