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It’s NBA Playoff Time!
Emma Hayes will finally be on the sidelines with the U.S. women’s national team after being named head coach in December 2023. The USWNT will face South Korea in a two-game, penultimate Olympic send-off, beginning Saturday, June 1 in Colorado. It will be the 16th meeting between the two sides and the USWNT is unbeaten (11W-0L-4D) in the all-time series and the first match between the two teams since 2021.
Here’s everything you need to know ahead of the game:
These are just friendlies during an international break, so there’s no trophy to be won here, but there will be plenty for U.S. players to showcase. The next pair of friendlies are scheduled for July and promoted as Olympic send-off games, so the two matches against South Korea will be the final games before the official U.S. Olympic roster is announced.
This week Hayes finally got some one-on-one time with her roster, though she still hasn’t settled with every player individually just yet. During her pre-game press conference, Hayes confirmed she was still meeting with players individually and joked that she was learning all their names. Brief introduction to the media and public aside, Hayes will eventually have to name an Olympic roster, but insists her focus is only on the game ahead of them.
“Well, I’m not focused on that today. I’m focused on preparing the team for tomorrow. You know, the camp objectives this week have been, you know, developing an introduction to the structural principles, the principles of play,” said Hayes.
“It’s been about building trust. It’s been about making sure everybody understands what the expectations are. So, it’s a process and we’ve got to go one step at a time and for me, the focus is on tomorrow.”
So, despite the two-game series being scheduled as simple friendlies, they are a pair of set-up matches ahead of the Olympics, and they’re still the first for Hayes on the sideline. She named a 27-player roster, that includes four training players, so the final group of 18 Olympic hopefuls will likely be selected from the current 23 players Hayes initially named to training camps.
Hayes’ initial arrival stateside included a media tour in New York before USWNT training camp. Here’s some of what she said about how she and the program need to regroup ahead of the Olympics:
“The realities are the world game is where it is, and the rest of the world do not fear the USA in the way that they once did. And that’s valid. I think it’s valid. There are different world champions, there are different Olympic champions. There are different European champions. So it’s our job to grasp quite quickly what we need to do to get close again, to those levels.”
USWNT players will have plenty to prove so look for some early final third entries and attacking opportunities, South Korea won’t make it easy though. Pick: USWNT 3, South Korea 0
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