The Olympic women’s soccer tournament is one of the most grueling events in the entire world of soccer, and the United States women’s national team looked every bit like they were playing their sixth game in 17 days during the opening 45 minutes against Brazil in Saturday’s gold medal game.
At halftime, manager Emma Hayes doubled down on her chosen starting XI and made no changes despite a first half that saw Brazil outshoot the United States 8-2 and miss multiple big scoring chances. Throughout the tournament, Hayes maintained that her approach to stick with the starters would pay off. The performances across 120 minutes in the quarterfinal and semifinal weren’t exactly a ringing endorsem*nt of Hayes’s process, but the moment of individual brilliance in extra time of each match helped the United States persevere into the final. In a low-scoring sport decided on the tiniest of margins, the Americans’ elite defense meant that they’d probably need only one more moment to win the gold. In the 57th minute, the goal came, even if the decisive pass wasn’t intended for the eventual goal scorer.
Korbin Albert’s through ball in behind the Brazilian backline appeared to play in Sophia Smith, but Smith knew she was in an offside position and couldn’t play the ball. Smith and teammate Trinity Rodman had already had their decisive, match-winning goals earlier in the knockout stage.
The USWNT needed one more shot to complete the “Triple Espresso,” a self-given nickname for this newly formed attacking trio of Mallory Swanson, Rodman, and Smith. Swanson needed her goal. It wasn’t Smith’s turn.
Swanson had made a similar run to Smith from the left wing, only Swanson was in an onside position. She collected the ball and then finished with her right foot across the face of the goal to give the United States the opening, winning, and golden goals at the 2024 Olympics. After a bronze medal in Tokyo in 2021 and the worst-ever American result at the World Cup last summer, the United States faced an existential crisis about whether the rest of the world had truly caught up to them in talent and on-field performance in women’s soccer.
The United States struggled through the World Cup in 2023 and didn’t get the required game-changing performances to squeak past competitive opponents. Facing an even tougher struggle at these Olympics—given the compressed schedule, extended minutes, and condensed rosters—it’s not clear that the United States played much better collectively. But they had the high-end game changers and difference makers to overcome some inconsistency and reclaim their perch at the top of the sport.
There were moments of brilliant attacking team play throughout the group stage. In the opener, the USWNT thrashed Zambia 3-0, highlighted by the “Trin Spin,” a nickname for Rodman’s dazzling abilities with the ball at her feet that led to the opening goal. They then handled Germany 4-1 in the second group match.
Once the knockout stage began, though, it became an ugly battle for survival, summed up perfectly by NBC broadcaster Jon Champion during the broadcast following Rodman’s left-footed wonder goal in extra time against Japan.
“Amidst a morass of muddling mediocrity and frustration, a special moment. Twenty-two-year-old Trinity Rodman, take a bow,” Champion said.
An American team that appeared stuck between generations at the last two major international tournaments has now fully turned the page to the new era—spearheaded by the American trident of three attackers. Combine Triple Espresso with superstar defender Naomi Girma, and the United States has a core of stars that either weren’t on the roster or weren’t regular starters when the USWNT won the World Cup in France in 2019, but will lead the squad for the next half decade, starting with the gold medal in Paris on Saturday.
We’ll never know what the USWNT might have done last summer down under with this version of Smith, Rodman, and Swanson playing together. Former manager Vlatko Andonovski didn’t have the luxury of starting the front three that made the United States so much more dynamic in this tournament. The trio scored 10 of the USWNT’s 12 goals across six matches in these Olympics. Swanson’s left knee injury last spring left her out of the World Cup and meant that the United States rode with aging Alex Morgan as the striker, with Rodman and Smith flanking her. Morgan didn’t score a goal in four matches in the tournament, and while Rodman and Smith showed flashes, neither looked as complete, confident, or polished as they did in this tournament.
That World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was a dreadful live viewing experience for anyone stateside who sacrificed sleep to tune in. The USWNT’s final group stage match against Portugal kicked off at 3 a.m. Eastern time. After 90 minutes without a goal, the Portuguese came within inches of knocking the USWNT out of the tournament when their stoppage-time attempt deflected off Alyssa Naeher’s post.
After the match, Carli Lloyd called the post the “player of that match.” The performances in the group stage were nowhere near the standard the USWNT had set by winning the 2015 and 2019 World Cups.
After 120 minutes without a goal in the round of 16 (which began at 5 a.m. Eastern on a Sunday morning), the United States lost on penalties to Sweden and was out of the World Cup before most Americans even got out of bed that morning. The USWNT rewarded their dedicated stateside fans with no goals in the final two matches en route to the earliest exit in American history. USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe came off the bench to try to conjure up some magic with her skilled left foot, but she missed her penalty, a symbolic end of that era of the women’s national team.
Even with the team’s overall failure down under, weak points were identified, and strengths emerged that ultimately became the core of this gold medal in Paris. Andonovski’s seat was already warm entering that World Cup after the United States underperformed and settled for bronze at the Olympics in Tokyo. Once they lost to Sweden, he didn’t have a seat at all. He resigned less than two weeks following the defeat, and the United States Soccer Federation had to act quickly to get a new manager and prepare for the Olympics less than a year later.
The U.S. went for arguably the biggest coaching name in the sport to lead the world’s most successful international team. Hayes agreed to become manager in November but wouldn’t join until after completing the club season with Chelsea in the Women’s Super League. Hayes’s first match was June 1, the first of two consecutive friendlies against South Korea. Her most significant decision was whether to take Morgan on the 18-player Olympic roster. Morgan was an unused substitute in the June 1 match and then played 61 minutes in the June 4 match. Morgan didn’t make the Olympic roster, which meant the USWNT fully embraced Triple Espresso in France.
The Americans still had the always-reliable Naeher in goal, who stood tall with massive saves in the closing minutes of both the semifinal and the final as the United States bunkered in to try to protect its slim 1-0 leads. Naeher is one of three players who played in the World Cup final in 2019—along with Crystal Dunn and Rose Lavelle—who were regular starters in these Olympics. Naeher was celebrated for her 100th career appearance for the USWNT in an Olympic send-off friendly against Mexico on July 13.
The USWNT underperformed at the World Cup, but it wasn’t because of the defense, which conceded just one goal and 1.4 expected goals in four matches. Hayes has managed 10 games, including the six at the Olympics, and the Americans have conceded two goals.
Girma is the defense captain. She is a 24-year-old center back who was named NWSL Defender of the Year in 2022 and 2023. After the semifinal win, Hayes called Girma the “best defender I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ve never seen a player as good as her at the back,” Hayes said. “She’s got everything: poise, composure, she can defend, she anticipates, she leads.”
Girma had a couple of rare missteps in the early minutes of the final and was fortunate to see the offside flag go up when Brazil appeared to grab the lead in the 16th minute. From that point forward, the San Diego Wave superstar didn’t put a foot wrong. She led the United States in ball recoveries in the semifinal, and defensive midfielder Sam Coffey did in the final.
Coffey is one of the newcomers to this squad who didn’t make the World Cup roster last summer. Now, she’s a mainstay in the defensive midfield. Coffey was suspended for the quarterfinal against Japan after two yellow cards in the group stage, but she played every minute of the other five matches she was available to play in. Midfield has been the United States’ biggest question mark at this tournament. In the match against Japan, the Americans had plenty of defensive possession but offered minimal thrust into the attacking penalty area.
There was far too much sideways passing, as evidenced by this chart of all USWNT passes before the 70th minute. The goal ultimately came from Dunn, a left back, playing a direct diagonal forward pass to Rodman, bypassing the midfield and letting her cook. Although the midfield still was inconsistent in the final two matches, the winning goals in the semifinal and final came from clever midfield movement and forward passing. In the semifinal against Germany, Coffey received the ball from Girma, turned, and immediately played a forward pass into Swanson between the lines. Coffey earned a hockey assist when Swanson eventually played in Smith for the winning goal.
Hayes made the decision to drop Lavelle in favor of Albert in the final. Lavelle ended up an unused substitute, and the 20-year-old Albert notched the game-winning assist on the through ball and led the Americans with five tackles won in midfield. Once they lost midfielder Catarina Macario to right knee irritation two weeks before the Olympics, the USWNT knew it would need Hayes to find the right combinations to help bring the nation back to its height at the top of the sport.
The new American manager made a bet on her starting XI by playing them almost exclusively without a ton of bench contribution. She gambled that Triple Espresso would have enough attacking output, and they rewarded her with 10 goals. She changed how the Americans played tactically, focusing more on controlled possession and fewer direct attacks. It’s been only 10 matches, but the United States looked for a star manager and hired the consensus best women’s club manager in Hayes, and the symbiotic relationship culminated in the gold on Saturday. The United States was hardly dominant like it has been in past tournaments, but Hayes worked her way to the top of the sport and has now helped push the USWNT over the line.
Hayes is English, but her coaching origin story involves years of cutting her teeth at the collegiate level in the United States and a shaky stint in the NWSL. After 12 years of club success at Chelsea, she returned to America to bring immediate triumph.
“I’ve been at a club for 12 years where I’ve had huge success,” Hayes said. “But I was desperate to do well for this country.” When asked about that sense of desperation, Hayes responds, “I love America. It made me. And I always say that. It definitely made me.”
