SAN DIEGO — United States women’s national team coach Emma Hayes played down the significance of the team’s first loss since she took charge last year, saying after Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat to Japan in the SheBelieves Cup that “development isn’t linear.”
“We’ve won the gold medal in the summer, and we are wanting to compete to win the World Cup, so we have to keep developing and development isn’t linear. It isn’t just in one direction. I think you need moments to give you a sense of where you are in that path,” Hayes said post-game at Snapdragon Stadium.
“But I think it’s exciting and I think our future is exciting regardless of the result. As I’ve said, we played one of the best teams in the world today, whose nucleus have played together for a long time, and it showed. So for us, we need to build the group and the larger pool that we think are going to progress us to the World Cup.”
Wednesday’s result meant Hayes and her roster finished second in the tournament to Japan, who lifted the SheBelieves title for the first time thanks to three consecutive victories. The USWNT finished the tournament with a 2W-0D-1L record.
Despite the first loss for Hayes after a previous 15W-2D-0L record in all competitions, the coach sounded an optimistic tone after being able to utilize an experimental and youthful roster at the SheBelieves Cup.
“I always go back to what our objectives were in the first place, and that was to deepen our playing pool with opportunities in high-pressured situations against top opponents, and that’s what tonight especially was about,” Hayes said.
“I think we look through the lens of our objectives, and say, listen, we’ve certainly looked at our players in this setting, and we’ve definitely got a better understanding of where they are within that journey … which players are ready for now, which players are ready for later and which ones will go with the [U]23s, and which ones will develop with us. So from that perspective, it was mission accomplished.”
Wednesday’s group-stage finale was a difficult one for a USWNT side that went down 1-0 by the second minute after a goal from Japan’s Yuka Momiki. Although the home side found a 14th minute equalizer from Ally Sentnor, Japan eventually secured a second-half game-winner from Toko Koga that cemented a 2-1 scoreline and the tournament’s trophy.
“We have to be patient too in our expectations,” Hayes said about her squad.
“We have a player in Cat Macario who has played the best part of two games for the national team in more than 24 months and shown moments of brilliance, but is still building her way back to full fitness. We’ve got the vast majority of our players just in their preseason, so it’s important for us to be reflective that we are where we are in the stage of our development.”
The USWNT will return to play with a set of California friendlies against Brazil on April 5 at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium and on April 8 at San Jose’s PayPal Park.
Elsewhere in the SheBelieves Cup, Colombia finished third in the tournament thanks to a 2-1 win over bottom-of-the-table Australia on Wednesday
>
