The U.S. ladies’s nationwide staff efficiently hit the reset button in 2024, bouncing again in high quality type from final 12 months’s disappointment on the Girls’s World Cup by profitable the Olympic gold medal in Paris and reasserting themselves as one among ladies’s soccer high sides.

The gold medal win, although, is only one second in a memorable 12 months for the world’s top-ranked facet. Regardless of the short turnaround from the World Cup to the Olympics and head coach Emma Hayes’ unusually quick preparation for Paris, the USWNT completed an formidable rebuild that constructed the inspiration for the evolution Hayes is planning for the staff. It makes 2024 a banner 12 months for the USWNT in an more and more aggressive ladies’s soccer panorama, particularly because the staff made a number of noteworthy choices to place themselves in good standing because the lengthy highway to the 2027 World Cup begins.

This is a glance again on the USWNT’s high 5 moments from 2024.

5. Emma Hayes lastly arrives

Although U.S. Soccer formally introduced Hayes’ rent in Nov. 2023, her obligations with Chelsea meant she was unable to start out her new job till the tip of Could. When she lastly took cost of her first coaching session in Colorado, it marked the joyful finish of a protracted ready sport – and the beginning of an formidable new chapter for the four-time World Cup winners.

Hayes’ arrival with simply 4 video games to arrange for the Olympics is the true origin of the USWNT’s unlikely run to the gold medal, particularly since she didn’t have time to tinker a lot with the participant pool or tactical plan. The truth that she and the gamers have been in sync from the second they started to work collectively, although, is probably the most spectacular a part of the U.S.’ triumph in Paris and lays a robust basis now that the true work begins for Hayes. With two years and alter till the 2027 Girls’s World Cup, she will be able to now introduce her concepts for all the program, designed to maintain the U.S. aggressive as funding floods the ladies’s sport.

4. Contemporary faces prepared the ground

Although Hayes has but to go away her full mark on the staff, the primary huge name she made because the USWNT head coach was to choose youth over expertise on the Olympics. Now-retired star Alex Morgan was left at dwelling and solely 4 gamers on her staff for Paris had 100-plus caps, whereas eight have been newcomers to main worldwide tournaments. The choice in the end served the USWNT nicely within the short-term and can possible achieve this within the long-term, however was additionally the results of a months-long venture.

Whereas the USWNT waited for Hayes, interim head coach Twila Kilgore launched a number of recent faces into the combo and ensured they might earn priceless enjoying time earlier than Hayes needed to lock any choices in. The group that obtained their first caps below Kilgore is headlined by Jaedyn Shaw, however Hayes continued the development after the Olympics. Eight gamers below the age of 21 made their debuts in 2024, probably the most in a single calendar 12 months since 2002, per Opta.

3. Alyssa Naeher’s penalty kick heroics

Whereas the USWNT’s 12 months was outlined by newcomers and recent concepts, longtime goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher referred to as time on her worldwide profession. Although she constructed her repute by being a quiet and continuously dependable shot-stopper, Naeher matched that with equal quantities of leisure worth in her closing 12 months with the USWNT and earned herself a becoming and memorable sendoff.

There are literally a number of noteworthy moments to choose from in Naeher’s closing 12 months, together with a powerful save together with her foot towards Germany within the semifinals of the Olympics. She actually set herself aside in her closing video games for the nationwide staff as an elite goalkeeper in a penalty shootout, not solely as a shot-stopper however as a goalscorer. She turned the one goalkeeper to attain a penalty within the historical past of the Girls’s World Cup in 2023, however outdid herself within the Concacaf Gold Cup semifinals towards Canada in March. Not solely did she save three penalties, she additionally transformed her personal spotkick.

2. Hiya, triple espresso

The trouble by Kilgore and Hayes to introduce youthful expertise to the USWNT’s lineup led to the staff’s new all-star entrance line of Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson – the self-described “triple espresso.”

Regardless of enjoying solely a handful of minutes collectively, the trio wasted little time residing as much as the hype on the Olympics. The three of them mixed to attain 10 targets in six video games, accounting for all however two of the staff’s targets en path to the gold medal. Their robust exhibiting in France formally turned the nook on the USWNT’s poor attacking exhibiting on the World Cup, a event Swanson missed with harm, and ensured the staff would as soon as once more embrace the goalscoring identification that has lengthy outlined them.

1. USWNT win Olympic gold

A 12 months’s price of laborious work and daring choices led the USWNT to the last word prize in August – their fifth Olympic gold medal, and their first since 2008.

The gold medal triumph impressed new confidence within the U.S. and its participant pool, particularly for the reason that roster was mainly made up of expertise that had but to win their first main worldwide title. The expertise not solely created a brand new technology of champions that follows within the USWNT’s lengthy line of serial winners, but additionally revealed probably the most handy fact for the USWNT. They didn’t fail on the World Cup as a result of they’re now the has-beens of the new-look ladies’s sport; the USWNT have been merely in want of some tinkers to remain aggressive as their opposition will get higher and higher.