Andonovski Names 23-Player U.S. Women’s National Team Roster For Concacaf W Championship In Mexico

CHICAGO (June 13, 2022) – U.S. Women’s National Team head coach Vlatko Andonovski has named the 23-player roster that will represent the USA in Mexico at the 2022 Concacaf W Championship, an eight-team tournament at which berths to the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the 2024 Paris Olympics are at stake.

 

Andonovski also named three additional players who will be a part of a 26-player BioSteel Training Camp for the two matches against Colombia prior to the team’s departure for Mexico and will name 23 players from those 26 to suit up for each of the matches against Colombia. The first match, presented by Allstate, will take place on Saturday, June 25 at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado (7:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. MT on FS1 and ViX) and the second at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah on Tuesday, June 28 (10 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. MT on ESPN and ViX).

 

Four players on the 26-player roster hail from Colorado and will be competing for minutes in front of their hometown crowd in midfielder Lindsey Horan (Golden) – who is fresh off helping Olympique Lyon win its record eighth UEFA Women’s Champions League title as well as securing the French Division 1 Féminine title -- midfielder Jaelin Howell (Windsor) and forwards Mallory Pugh (Highlands Ranch) and Sophia Smith (Windsor). In addition, first-time call-up Taylor Kornieck was a standout midfielder at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

 

Forward Ashley Hatch was a star forward at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah and in the second friendly will be competing for minutes at the same stadium – Rio Tinto - in which she earned her first USWNT cap as a college senior 2016.

“Since we were last together in April, we’ve been evaluating a lot of games and hours of video and have had extensive conversations among the coaching staff to arrive at this 26-player roster for the Colombia games and the final 23 for qualifying,” said Andonovski. “As usual, the players don’t make these decisions easy, but we feel this is a roster that can accomplish all of our goals over the four weeks we will be together for what we hope will be seven successful games.”

 

U.S. Women’s National Team Concacaf W Championship Roster by Position (Club; Caps/Goals):

 

GOALKEEPERS (3): Aubrey Kingsbury (Washington Spirit; 1), Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage; 4), Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars; 80)

 

DEFENDERS (7): Alana Cook (OL Reign; 9/0), Emily Fox (Racing Louisville FC; 13/0), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave FC; 1/0), Sofia Huerta (OL Reign; 12/0), Kelley O’Hara (Washington Spirit; 152/2), Becky Sauerbrunn (Portland Thorns FC; 202/0), Emily Sonnett (Washington Spirit; 65/0)

 

MIDFIELDERS (6): Lindsey Horan (Olympique Lyon, FRA; 109/25), Taylor Kornieck (San Diego Wave FC; 0/0), Rose Lavelle (OL Reign; 71/20), Kristie Mewis (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 38/5), Ashley Sanchez (Washington Spirit; 7/2), Andi Sullivan (Washington Spirit; 27/3)

 

FORWARDS (7): Ashley Hatch (Washington Spirit; 8/4), Alex Morgan (San Diego Wave FC; 190/115), Mallory Pugh (Chicago Red Stars; 72/23), Midge Purce (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 14/3), Megan Rapinoe (OL Reign; 187/62), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit; 3/1), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns FC; 15/4)

 

Additional Players for June Friendlies Roster vs. Colombia (Club; Caps/Goals):

DEFENDERS (1): Carson Pickett (North Carolina Courage; 0/0)

MIDFIELDERS (2): Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns FC; 0/0), Jaelin Howell (Racing Louisville: 5/1)

 

These rosters mark the return of two of the USA’s most decorated veterans in forwards Alex Morgan (190 caps/115 goals) and Megan Rapinoe (187/62), both of whom have two World Cup titles and an Olympic gold medal on their resumes and both of whom last played for the USA in October of 2021. Team captain Becky Sauerbrunn also returns after having missed the April friendlies while recovering from a knee injury. Sauerbrunn, with 202 caps, Morgan and Rapinoe are by far the most capped players on the roster. World Cup and Olympic veteran defender Emily Sonnett also returns after missing the April friendlies due to a rib injury suffered in the NWSL.

 

Morgan made her USWNT debut at Rio Tinto Stadium back in 2010 while Sauerbrunn and defender Kelley O’Hara (who is the fourth-most capped player on the roster with 152 games played) previously played for the Utah Royals in the NWSL. 

 

These are the first full National Team callups for defender Carson Pickett, midfielder Sam Coffey and Kornieck, although all have played for the USA at the youth levels. Pickett is the first player with a limb difference ever called in to the U.S. Women’s National Team. The 28-year-old was born without part of her left arm.

 

Should there be any injuries that necessitate changes to the CWC roster, Andonovski can select any player on the USA’s 59-player preliminary roster that was announced by Concacaf on June 8. Teams can make injury replacements on their Concacaf W Championship rosters up to 24 hours before their first matches. For the USA, that would be July 3.

 

Following the two matches against Colombia, the U.S. team will depart directly to Mexico to prepare for the Concacaf W Championship, which will run from July 4-18 and will be played entirely in Monterrey. The tournament’s 16 matches will be split across two stadiums: Estadio Universitario and Estadio BBVA, the latter of which is one of Mexico’s likely venues for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

 

The USA was drawn into Group A and will face Haiti on Monday, July 4 at 6 p.m. local (7 p.m. ET), Jamaica on Thursday, July 7 at 6 p.m. local (7 p.m. ET) and Mexico on Monday, July 11 at 9 p.m. local (10 p.m. ET). The Semifinals will take place on Thursday, July 14 with the Third-Place Match and Championship Game being held on Monday, July 18. All the matches of the tournament will be available in English on Paramount+ and in Spanish on TelevisaUnivision’s streaming service ViX. The USA’s opening match against Haiti will also be broadcast on CBS Sports Network.

 

The top two finishers in each group after round-robin play will advance to the semifinals while earning World Cup berths. The third-place finisher in each group will earn a berth to the 10-team inter-confederation playoff tournament that will be held in February of 2023 to decide the final three berths to the expanded 32-team field at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

 

The tournament winner will also get an automatic berth to the 2024 Olympics in Paris while the second and third place finishers will play off in September of 2023 for Concacaf’s second and final Olympic berth. The tournament winner and the Olympic qualifier via the playoff series will also qualify directly to a new Concacaf competition, the 2024 W Gold Cup.

 

TICKETS

Tickets for both games against Colombia are on sale at ussoccer.com/tickets. Coaches Circle and Presidents Circle members supporting the U.S. Soccer Development Fund can receive individual customer support and concierge services for their ticketing needs. Click here or contact circles@ussoccer.org for more information.

 

The match in Colorado is closing in on a capacity crowd. U.S. Soccer has approximately 1,000 tickets remaining to sell for the match.

 

Tickets for all matches of the Concacaf W Championship to be held in Monterrey, Mexico are on sale via Concacaf: https://www.concacaf.com/concacaf-w-championship-tickets

 

Additional Notes:

• Just 10 of the 23 players on the Concacaf W Championship roster have experience in World Cup and Olympic qualifying. The other 13 players will get the opportunity to make their Concacaf qualifying debuts at the senior level.

• Eight players on the Concacaf W Championship roster were on the USWNT’s roster for Olympic Qualifying in 2020: Lindsey Horan, Rose Lavelle, Alyssa Naeher, Kelley O’Hara, Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, Emily Sonnett and Andi Sullivan.  

• Nine players on this year’s 23-player roster were a part of the USA’s 2018 World Cup Qualifying roster, with Alex Morgan and Mallory Pugh joining Horan, Lavelle, Naeher, O’Hara, Rapinoe, Sauerbrunn and Sonnett.

• Megan Rapinoe leads the squad with a combined 23 appearances in qualifying events - 14 World Cup Qualifying appearances and nine Olympic qualifying appearances. Alex Morgan has 20 qualifying caps (11 World Cup and nine Olympic) while Becky Sauerbrunn has 18 (eight World Cup and 10 Olympic) and Kelley O’Hara has 16 appearances all-time for the USA in qualifying (six World Cup and 10 Olympic).

• Morgan has a total of 19 goals in her 20 qualifying appearances, 10 of those coming in World Cup qualifying, which is tied for fourth-most in team in history.

• Morgan has scored nine goals in Olympic qualifying (third most behind Abby Wambach and Carli Lloyd), and Horan has seven. Horan led the USA in scoring with six goals during Olympic qualifying in 2020.

• Kelley O’Hara and Becky Sauerbrunn lead the squad with 10 Olympic qualifying appearances each, and one of O’Hara’s two career goals came in Olympic qualifying. Lindsey Horan, Morgan and Rapinoe all have nine Olympic qualifying appearances.

• The Concacaf W Championship roster features five players with 100 or more caps – Sauerbrunn, Morgan, Rapinoe, O’Hara (152) and midfielder Horan (109).

• Conversely, the CWC roster features 13 players with 27 caps or fewer, including eight in single digits: Alana Cook (9 caps), Ashley Hatch (8), Ashley Sanchez (7), Casey Murphy (4), Trinity Rodman (3), Naomi Girma (1), Aubrey Kingsbury (1) and Taylor Kornieck (0).

• Girma and Kingsbury made their international debuts in the USA’s most recent match vs. Uzbekistan on April 12 while Rodman scored her first international goal in that same game in Chester, Pa., becoming the youngest player to score for the USWNT since 2018.

• Sauerbrunn is the oldest player on this roster at 37 years of age while the now 20-year-old Rodman is the youngest.

• Morgan, Rapinoe and Sauerbrunn were on the U.S. team that last played in a World Cup qualifying tournament in Mexico. That was in 2010 when the USA lost its only match to Mexico, which occurred in the semifinal in Cancun. That loss forced the USA to win the Third-Place Match and then the two-leg playoff vs. Italy to qualify for the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, a tournament in which the USA advanced to the Final before falling in penalty kicks to Japan.

• Of the 26 players called in for the camp in June, seven are in their 30s while 10 players are age 25 or younger.

• Although she didn’t make the final roster for the 2018 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup Team, June friendlies call-up Sam Coffey did help the USA qualify for that tournament and finished her U-20 career with 14 caps and one goal. She also spent time in camps with the U.S. U-18s and U-19s and traveled to Spain with the U.S. U-23s in 2019.

• When she plays, midfielder Taylor Kornieck will become the tallest field player in USWNT history at 6-foot-1. She and goalkeeper Casey Murphy, who is also 6-1, are the tallest players in team history. Murphy returns to the roster after being unavailable for selection for the April matches due to a knee injury.

• Kornieck has experience in training camps with the U.S. U-18s, U-19s and U-20s. She has two U.S. U-19 caps and five caps with the U.S. U-18s. Kornieck is the first-ever USWNT call-up from Las Vegas.

• Pickett has experience with the U.S. U-17s WNT in 2010 and played with the U.S. U-23s in 2015.

• Of the USA’s 23-player CWC roster, seven players (30%) were called up from the Washington Spirit. The NWSL club with the next most is OL Reign with four.

• Eight of the 12 NWSL clubs are represented on this roster, along with 2021-22 UEFA Women's Champions League winners Olympique Lyon.