FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — After the U.S. women’s national team lost 2-1 to Brazil in the second leg of two friendlies in April, head coach Emma Hayes declared her intention to “let the players take the heat” and feel the heat.
Eight months later, the U.S. women’s soccer team had a 10-1 record, and the overall record for the year was 12-3. They scored 41 goals and conceded 8 goals. Six of the 11 teams they play for are currently ranked in the top 20 in the world, according to FIFA. Most impressively, the U.S. Women’s National Team achieved this goal with 16 players making their senior national team debuts, the most in the program’s history.
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However, Hayes said the content she put out in the spring wasn’t yet a finished product after the U.S. beat Italy 2-0 on Monday night at Chase Field in Fort Lauderdale.
“We’re still cooking,” she said. “I think it’s a nice winter dish, and like a slow-cooked stew, it gets better the longer it’s cooked. It’s being heated, so it’s more tender. I think when I watch our team play, I think you start to see the maturity in them.”
Thus ended a year of time manipulation practice. By strengthening the pathway into the senior national team, Hayes and her coaching staff, along with under-23 head coach Heather Dyche and under-20 head coach Vicky Jepson, who have been hired this year, are able to compress time for players whose preparation does not match the opportunities they have been given, and slow down the pace for those who are thrust into roles before they are ready.
The program began in January when Hayes named 24 players to participate in the inaugural USWNT Futures Camp. Some of them – such as midfielder Claire Hutton, full-backs Lily Real and Avery Patterson, centre-back Jordyn Bugg and, most recently, forward Jamie Joseph – have since earned first-team call-ups.
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Fort Lauderdale marks the beginning and end of the year, which makes it a radical, compelling piece of poetry, but it wasn’t designed that way. Originally, January training camp was scheduled to be held in Carson City, California, but deadly Southern California wildfires forced U.S. Soccer to change the location to South Florida.
“It even brings back memories of flying into this airport,” Patterson, 23, said of her memories of being in Fort Lauderdale. “I didn’t grow up as a national team kid, but it’s not like it’s a distant goal, it’s something you always strive for but never quite achieve.”
Patterson, who plays for the Houston Dash of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), has emerged as one of today’s standout full-backs for club and country, using her crafty ball-handling abilities to propel her attacks forward. This summer she scored her first international goal and provided two assists against the Republic of Ireland.
Patterson added that integrating into the U.S. Women’s National Team was made easier because of the first Fort Lauderdale training camp: “All these terms and new terms are thrown at you and asked to learn in such a short period of time, but you know it’s expected at the highest level. It’s about who retains the terminology and then applies it to their game.”
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As is the case with perennial winners, the U.S. women’s soccer team’s richest learning opportunities come from failure. Hutton, another future camper who, at 19, has become a regular for the senior team, recalled the lessons learned from the team’s loss to Brazil in April.
“The cool thing about that game was how young the roster was,” Hutton said of himself, Corbin Schrader, Lily Johannes and Jadine Shaw on the eve of the Italy game.
“Alyssa (Thompson) was on the court and we met with Emma before the game, mainly the younger players, and she sat us down and basically told us this was a moment for us to take it in stride and know that it was going to be tough, know that there were going to be moments of struggle, like there were in that game, but that’s how we were going to deal with it and reflect on it.
“It was a tough game,” Hutton stressed. “I remember leaving feeling like I had just been in the military fighting.”
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But six months later, as the U.S. women’s soccer team looked to bounce back from a 2-1 loss to Portugal, Hutton felt ready. Hayes once again started a youngster in midfield, but this time, there was no pre-match sit-down.
“People would say less experience, but knowing that we went into that game and played with a lot more poise and really have the experience of that Brazil game and playing throughout the year, it just adds another layer and it’s been really cool to see how much we’ve grown as a team,” she said.
The U.S. women’s soccer team defeated Portugal 3-1.
Investment in the national team’s young players has paid off handsomely. Hayes has spoken at length this year about using the under-23 side as a development pathway for players in that age group, and she has not hesitated to send players who have already earned senior caps to younger teams to gain more experience.
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Between May and July, Shaw was named to the under-23 national team twice in a row, playing a total of 26 times for the national team and scoring 8 goals. She returned to the senior team in October for friendly matches in Portugal and scored her first international goal of the year against Italy on Monday.
“Having those conversations with Emma and her being very transparent with me about the 23 program and what that’s going to look like for me and how I can continue to go back and forth based on what’s going on in training camp is going to help me in the future and be important in these moments as well,” Shaw said after the game.
While incorporating so many new players into the squad, veterans such as forward Catarina Macario, midfielder Rose Lavelle and center back Naomi Gilma are also returning from their respective injuries.
When healthy, they pull the team together through the middle, as evidenced in part by Macario’s team-leading eight goals this year, three of which came in two legs against Italy. On Monday, the 26-year-old latched on to a pinpoint pass from Johannes on the flank, drove the ball into the penalty area and calmly slotted the ball past Italy goalkeeper Francesca Durant and into the side netting. Hayes said the goal brought tears of pride to his eyes.
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“This is the best I’ve seen her since her injury,” she said. “That’s what I celebrate, she’s back with a little swagger, which is important to her, not to me because I’ve always thought she was doing great. But I find she does have another level to rise to – in her words, not mine.”
UWSNT is not starting 2026 with an empty to-do list. By the time Hayes attended the post-match press conference, her coaching staff had informed the team’s backline that they were winning just 25 percent of their aerial battles that night, an “unacceptable” number by their standards.
With the return of players such as Trinity Rodman, who missed due to injury, and Sofia Wilson, who took maternity leave this year, the competition for the 2027 World Cup roster will further intensify, bringing a different kind of heat.
It’s part of Hayes’ long-term approach to the program.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
U.S. Women’s National Team, NWSL, Women’s Soccer
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