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The USA closes out the 2025 SheBelieves Cup against Japan in the curtain raiser on Wednesday night in San Diego.
The squad Emma Hayes has deployed represents a new generation of young USWNT players, many of whom turned pro before finishing college or never went to college at all. Until the five years or so ago, it was almost unheard of for a USWNT player to not have finished her college eligibility.
But the money now available in the women’s pro game has changed all that, along with the resources pro teams offer to support players.
Says Hayes, “They are a generation of players who have experienced already — how do I best put it — the work that a lot of the more experienced players have had to fight for on their behalf. They’re the benefactors of being in more professional environments at a younger age.”
Hayes, who called up four uncapped players and four others with only one or two caps before the tournament, rotated her entire starting lineup between the Colombia and Australia games. The starting XI against Australia was the USA’s youngest since March 2001.
“If anything,” Hayes says of her young players, “they’ve been exposed to more things at a younger age and I’ve think they’re better prepared as a result. The real challenge for someone like me in my position is that as a result of the things they benefit from they’re also exposed to more things off of the pitch social media-wise, managing pressure in different ways at an earlier age. We have to lean into how we best support them on those things.”
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