United States women’s team legend Carla Overbeck will coach a team dubbed ‘US Women’ next month at The Soccer Tournament, a $1 million, winner-take-all event in Cary, N.C.
Overbeck, the captain of the USWNT’s 1999 World Cup-winning team, will be joined by several other former U.S. players on staff for the TST event, including Mia Hamm and Carli Lloyd as assistants.
– Stream on ESPN+: The Soccer Tournament – June 7-10 (U.S.)
The Soccer Tournament debuted last year as a winner-take-all event that had a lone women’s team in the field, a US Women’s team led by 2015 World Cup champion Heather O’Reilly.
This year, TST has expanded to include an exclusive, eight-team women’s event with a $1 million prize, separate from the 48-team men’s field with the same amount of money on the line.
“There are not many moments where we have former national team players and staff all together, so being a part of this amazing squad was something I have been really looking forward to,” Lloyd said in a statement.
“Heather has assembled a great team and has put a lot of work into pushing for a women’s TST to happen. Although I would have loved to play this summer with a lot of my former teammates, I’ll be cheering and coaching from the sidelines with all the other legendary staff.”
The TST women’s tournament, which can be viewed on ESPN networks from June 7-10, is split into two groups. The US Women will face Wrexham Red Dragons, a team sponsored by National Women’s Soccer League club Angel City FC and Streetball FC Canada in group play.
Other members of the US Women’s team’s staff include FIFA Female Player of the Century Michelle Akers, plus Wendy Palladino, Bill Palladino, Kacey White, Lisa Pittaro, Jen Mead and Kendall Fletcher White.
The roster is headlined by O’Reilly and former USWNT defender Ali Krieger, who helped the Americans win the 2015 and 2019 World Cups, and who just won an NWSL Championship with NJ/NY Gotham FC last year before retiring.
“We put together a pretty epic coaching staff,” O’Reilly said in a statement. “They were some of the best footballers on the planet spanning over three decades of USWNT domination. If I can’t win when Michelle Akers, Mia Hamm, and Carli Lloyd are encouraging me, I don’t deserve to split the million.”
Burnley FC, Soccerhead FC and teams sponsored by the USL Super League’s Tampa Bay Sun FC and the NWSL’s North Carolina Courage will compete in the other group of the women’s event.
The top two teams from each group will advance to the semifinals on June 9, and one team will take home $1 million by winning the final the following day.
Tournament organizers, who also run The Basketball Tournament, expect the level of play to rise in the second edition of the tournament as teams understand the style of play on a more compact field with hockey-style substitutions and a scoring format — target score time — that requires every game to finish on a goal.
