Familiar faces fill U.S. women’s Olympic soccer team
One last hurrah.
That’s the theme for the U.S. women’s national team heading into the Tokyo Olympics. The reigning world champions revealed an Olympic roster that is loaded with familiar faces, one that will try to win a fifth Olympic gold medal and be the first to win consecutive world and Olympic championships.
Top among those familiar faces is Carli Lloyd. Lloyd, who will turn 39 the week before the Olympics begin, will be the oldestever U.S. women’s soccer Olympian, playing in her fourth Olympic Games along with forward Tobin Heath. Redding native Megan Rapinoe, soon to be 36, and Cal alum Alex Morgan, who will be 32 in Tokyo, are among four players marking their third Olympics.
With very little turnover from the 2019 World Cup championship, America’s favorite national team is experienced, with an average age of 30.8 years.
“I don’t look at players by age,” said coach Vlatko Andonovski. “The most important thing is whether they perform or not. Whether they’re going to be able to help us win the Olympics or not . ... They’re hitting all the numbers that we need. If you look at the statistical data, you’ll see that Megan Rapinoe scored the most goals in 2021 and Carli Lloyd has the most assists.”
The team, revealed on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Wednesday, has a heavy Bay Area influence. In addition to Morgan, the roster includes Santa Clara alum Julie Ertz, Stanford products Christen Press, Kelly O’Hara, Tierna Davidson and Menlo Park’s Abby Dahlkemper. Named as alternates are two other Stanford alums, forward Catarina Macario and goalkeeper Jane Campbell.
Lloyd’s status has been a major source of speculation. But she has continued to make herself indispensable with her uncanny scoring ability. In a start this month against Jamaica, she scored just 23 seconds into the game, as though to send a clear message to Andonovski: The player who scored the goldmedalwinning goals in 2008 and 2012 was ready for another Olympics. Andonovski agrees.
“I never spoke to Carli about how old she is,” Andonovski said. “She has done everything she needs to do to earn a spot on the team. The fact that she’s 39 is remarkable and speaks to her determination and her mentality.”
On the other end of the age spectrum, Macario, 21, who helped lead Stanford to two national championships in her three seasons with the Cardinal before turning professional, was another roster question. The Brazilianborn star gained her American citizenship in 2020 and debuted with the senior national team last January.
Andonovski threaded the needle by including Kristie Mewis over Macario. Mewis, whose younger sister Samantha is also on the team, was dropped by the national team in 2014 but played her way back onto the team last year, thanks to strong performances in the NWSL, and has been playing well. But by including Macario as an alternate, Andonovski is looking to the future, giving the player expected to be a future star the Olympic experience, and possibly playing time in case of injury.
“Catarina is an exceptional player,” Andonovski said. “But other players were more ready than her for the Olympics. The fact that she’s an alternate will give her the experience necessary to see what it takes to compete on world stage. We expect her to be a main figure on this team for a long time.”
This will be Andonovski’s first major tournament. He was named coach in 2019 replacing Jill Ellis, who guided the team to two World Cup championships before retiring. But Ellis’ lone Olympic experience was a bitter disappointment: The team was knocked out by Sweden, marking the first time the team had failed to play for a gold medal.
The first game for the U.S. team in Tokyo will be against Sweden, on July 21.
“That’s going to be a big game,” Morgan said on “Good Morning America,” adding, “we’re a really motivated roster.”
No women’s team has ever won the coveted backtoback: a World Cup and an Olympic gold. That may be because of the intensity of preparation and demands in the usual 12month span between the events in the women’s schedule. The pandemic has given the U.S. team an extra year to try to break that pattern.