United States women's national soccer team

History

Origins

The passing of Title IX in 1972, which outlawed gender-based discrimination for federally-funded education programs, spurred the creation of women's college soccer teams across the United States at a time when women's soccer was rising in popularity globally. In its first foray into women's international soccer, the U.S. Soccer Federation asked coach Mike Ryan to select a roster of collegiate players to participate in the 1985 Mundialito tournament in Italy. The team played its first match on August 18, 1985, losing 1–0 to Italy, and finished the tournament in fourth place.

University of North Carolina coach Anson Dorrance was hired as the team's first full-time head coach in 1986 with the goal of fielding a competitive women's team at the next Mundialito and at future tournaments. In their first Mundialito under Dorrance, the United States defeated China, Brazil, and Japan before finishing as runners-up to Italy. Dorrance gave national team appearances to teenage players, including future stars Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, and Kristine Lilly, instead of the college players preferred by the federation. The U.S. played in the 1988 FIFA Women's Invitation Tournament in China, a competition meant to test the feasibility of a regular women's championship. The U.S. lost in the quarterfinals to eventual champions Norway.

1990s: First World Cup and Olympic wins

Following the 1988 tournament, FIFA announced plans for a new women's tournament, named the 1st FIFA World Championship for Women's Football for the M&M's Cup until it was retroactively named the "World Cup". The U.S. qualified for the tournament by winning the inaugural CONCACAF Women's Championship, hosted by Haiti in April 1991. The U.S. outscored its opponents 49–0 for the confederation's sole World Cup berth. The team played several exhibition matches against European opponents to prepare for the World Cup; its players quit their regular jobs to train full-time for meager compensation. Dorrance utilized a 4–3–3 formation that was spearheaded by the "Triple-Edged Sword" of forward Michelle Akers and wingers Carin Jennings and April Heinrichs.

At the World Cup, the U.S. won all three of its group stage matches and outscored its opponents 11–2. The Americans achieved a 7–0 victory in the quarterfinals over Chinese Taipei, fueled by a five-goal performance by Akers in the first 50 minutes of the match. In the semifinal against Germany, Jennings scored a hat-trick in the first half as the U.S. won 5–2. The team's lopsided victories in the earlier rounds had brought attention from American media outlets, but the final match was not televised live in the U.S. The United States won the inaugural Women's World Cup title by defeating Norway 2–1 in the final, played in front of 65,000 spectators at Tianhe Stadium in Guangzhou. Both goals were scored by Akers, who finished as the top goalscorer of the tournament, with ten goals. Jennings was awarded the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player.

Despite its World Cup victory, the U.S. team remained in relative obscurity and received only a small welcome from several U.S. Soccer Federation officials upon arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The team was given fewer resources and little attention as the federation focused on improving the men's national team in preparation for the 1994 men's World Cup that would be hosted in the United States. The women's team was placed on hiatus after the 1991 World Cup, only playing twice in 1992. They returned the following year to play in several tournaments hosted in Cyprus, Canada, and the United States, and won a second CONCACAF Championship title.

The U.S. played in several tournaments to prepare for the 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup and its qualification campaign. The first was the inaugural Algarve Cup in Portugal, which saw the team lose 1–0 to Norway in the final. The Algarve Cup was followed by a victory at the Chiquita Cup, an exhibition tournament hosted on the U.S. East Coast against Germany, China, and Norway. Dorrance resigned from his position as head coach in August 1994 and was replaced by his assistant, Tony DiCicco, a former professional goalkeeper who played in the American Soccer League. Under DiCicco, the USWNT secured a berth at the 1995 World Cup by winning the 1994 CONCACAF Championship, during which they scored 36 goals and conceded only one.

2000s: two Olympic gold medals

In the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup, the U.S. defeated Norway 1–0 in the quarterfinals but lost 3–0 to Germany in the semifinals. The team then defeated Canada 3–1 to claim third place. Abby Wambach was the team's top scorer with three goals, while Joy Fawcett and Shannon Boxx made the tournament's all-star team. In the 2004 Olympics, the last major international tournament for Hamm and Foudy, the U.S. earned the gold medal, winning 2–1 over Brazil in the final on an extra time goal by Wambach.

At the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup, the U.S. defeated England 3–0 in the quarterfinals but then suffered its most lopsided loss in team history when it lost to Brazil 4–0 in the semifinals. The U.S. recovered to defeat Norway to take third place. Wambach was the team's leading scorer with 6 goals, and Lilly was the only American named to the tournament's all-star team.

The team won another gold medal in the 2008 Olympics, but interest in the Women's National Team had diminished since their performance in the 1999 World Cup. However, the second women's professional league was created in March 2009, Women's Professional Soccer.

2010s: Olympic and then World Cup triumphs

In the quarterfinal of the 2011 Women's World Cup in Germany, the U.S. defeated Brazil 5–3 on penalty kicks. Wambach's goal in the 122nd minute to tie the game 2–2 has been voted the greatest goal in U.S. soccer history and the greatest goal in Women's World Cup history. The U.S. then beat France 3–1 in the semifinal, but lost to Japan 3–1 on penalty kicks in the Final after drawing 1–1 in regulation and 2–2 in overtime. Hope Solo was named the tournament's best goalkeeper and Wambach won the silver ball as the tournament's second-best player.

In the 2012 Summer Olympics, the U.S. won the gold medal for the fourth time in five Olympics by defeating Japan 2–1 in front of 80,203 fans at Wembley Stadium, a record for a women's soccer game at the Olympics. The United States advanced to face Japan for the gold medal by winning the semifinal against Canada, a 4–3 victory at the end of extra time. The 2012 London Olympics marked the first time the USWNT won every game en route to the gold medal and set an Olympic women's team record of 16 goals scored.

The National Women's Soccer League started in 2013, and provided competitive games as well as opportunities to players on the fringes of the squad. The U.S. had a 43-game unbeaten streak that spanned two years – the streak began with a 4–0 win over Sweden in the 2012 Algarve Cup, and came to an end after a 1–0 loss against Sweden in the 2014 Algarve Cup.

The U.S. defeated Japan 5–2 in the final of the 2015 World Cup, becoming the first team in history to win three Women's World Cup titles. In the 16th minute, Carli Lloyd achieved the fastest hat-trick from kick-off in World Cup history, and Wambach was greeted with a standing ovation for her last World Cup match. Following their 2015 World Cup win, the team was honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City, the first for a women's sports team, and honored by President Barack Obama at the White House. On December 16, 2015, however, a 1–0 loss to China in Wambach's last game meant the team's first home loss since 2004, ending their 104-game home unbeaten streak.

In the 2016 Summer Olympics, the U.S. drew against Sweden in the quarterfinal; in the following penalty kick phase, Sweden won the game 4–3. The loss marked the first time that the USWNT did not advance to the gold medal game of the Olympics, and the first time that the USWNT failed to advance to the semifinal round of a major tournament.

2020s: fifth Olympic gold

The USWNT began the new decade by winning both the 2020 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying tournament (which qualified the team for the 2020 Summer Olympics) and the 2020 SheBelieves Cup titles.

In early March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the USSF canceled previously scheduled USWNT friendlies against Australia and Brazil. Later that same month, it was announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that the 2020 Summer Olympics were to be postponed until July 2021. The USWNT played their first game in eight months on November 27, 2020, when they took on the Netherlands in a friendly match. Rose Lavelle and Kristie Mewis scored, the team winning the game 2–0.

On July 21, 2021, the USWNT lost 3–0 against Sweden in the opening round of group stage at the 2020 Summer Olympics, thus ending a 44-match unbeaten streak. The U.S. rebounded by winning their 2nd match against New Zealand, before concluding the group stage by drawing 0–0 with Australia. The team finished second in the group stage and qualified for the knockout stage. They first faced World Cup runners-up Netherlands, with whom they drew 2–2 after extra-time before winning the match in a penalty shootout. The USWNT advanced to the semifinals, where they faced Canada. However, the team lost to Canada 1–0 by a penalty scored by Jessie Fleming. They later faced Australia again in the bronze medal match in a rematch of their final group stage game. The U.S. won 4–3, making it the first time the team had won the bronze medal.

In July 2022, the team competed in the CONCACAF W Championship. The USWNT won its group, outscoring opponents 9–0 in the group stage, and then won the semifinal 3–0 against Costa Rica and the final 1–0 against Canada. It was their ninth CONCACAF championship title and earned automatic berths for the 2023 World Cup, the 2024 Summer Olympics in France, and the 2024 CONCACAF W Gold Cup.

In November 2022, the USWNT's 71-game home unbeaten streak ended, after a 2–1 defeat in an exhibition game against Germany.

At the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, the USWNT were in Group E along with Netherlands, Portugal and Vietnam. They had gone in hoping to be the first men's or women's team to pull off a three-peat at the World Cup. The USWNT opened with a 3–0 win over Vietnam, followed this up with a 1–1 draw against Netherlands and finished up with a 0–0 draw against Portugal, to finish second in the group, avoiding elimination after a shot from Portugal struck the goalpost in injury time. This marked the fewest points the team has ever gained in a group stage (they won at least two group games in every other tournament including 1991 when only two points were awarded for a win) and set them up for a round of 16 match against Sweden, where they played out a goalless draw and lost 5–4 after a penalty shootout. This marked the first time since the 2016 Summer Olympics that the United States did not reach the semifinals of a major tournament. It also marked the first Women's World Cup the United States would not finish in the Top 3, and their earliest elimination in either the Women's World Cup or the Olympics. On August 17, 2023, Andonovski resigned as head coach and Twila Kilgore became the interim head coach. That August the team dropped to third in the FIFA Women's World Ranking, their worst ever position.

Team image

Media coverage

U.S. television coverage for the five Women's World Cups from 1995 to 2011 was provided by ESPN/ABC and Univision, while coverage rights for the three Women's World Cups from 2015 to 2023 were awarded to Fox Sports and Telemundo. In December 2021, a deal was signed to broadcast TV coverage of other USWNT games between TNT and TBS and streaming on HBO Max through the end of 2030. The USWNT games in the 2014 CONCACAF Women's Championship and the 2015 Algarve Cup were broadcast by Fox Sports. NBC will broadcast the Olympic tournament through 2032.

The 1999 World Cup final set the original record for largest U.S. television audience for a women's soccer match, averaging 18 million viewers. It was the most viewed English-language U.S. broadcast of any soccer match until the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup final between the United States and Japan.

The 2015 Women's World Cup Final between the United States and Japan was the most watched soccer match, men's or women's, in American broadcast history. It averaged 23 million viewers and higher ratings than the NBA finals and the Stanley Cup finals. The final was also the most watched US-Spanish language broadcast of a FIFA Women's World Cup match in history.

Overall, there were over 750 million viewers for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, making it the most watched Women's World Cup in history. The FIFA Women's World Cup is now the second-most watched FIFA tournament, with only the men's FIFA World Cup attracting more viewership.

In popular culture

A narrative nonfiction book covering the entire history of the team from 1985 to 2019 called The National Team: The Inside Story of the Women Who Changed Soccer was named one of Vanity Fair's best books of 2019 and made NPR's 2019 year-end books list. A book about the team's 1999 Women's World Cup campaign, Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women's Soccer Team and How It Changed the World was released in 2001 and in 2020 Netflix announced a film based on the book. In 2023, Netflix released a four-episode documentary series titled Under Pressure: The U.S. Women's World Cup Team which followed the team's progress at the 2023 Women's World Cup.

In 2005, HBO released a documentary called Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team. In 2013, a documentary about the 1999 World Cup-winning team called The 99ers was produced by former player Julie Foudy and ESPN Films.

Attendance

The 1999 World Cup final, in which the United States defeated China, set a world attendance record for a women's soccer event of 90,185 in a sellout at the Rose Bowl in Southern California (until it was broken on March 30, 2022, with 91,553 people at the Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain in the second-leg of a UEFA Women's Champions League match). The record for Olympic women's soccer attendance was set by the 2012 Olympic final between the USWNT and Japan, with 80,023 spectators at Wembley Stadium. The USWNT's attendance record for a home friendly (50,644) was set on April 6, 2024, in a 2–1 SheBelieves Cup win over Japan at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

Legal issues

Pay discrimination

Since 2016, the players of the U.S. team had waged an escalating legal fight with the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) over gender discrimination. Central to their demands was equal pay. The players pointed to their lower paychecks as compared to their male counterparts despite their higher record of success in recent years.

In April 2016, five U.S. team players filed a wage-discrimination action against the USSF with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The group consisted of Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Becky Sauerbrunn.

One year later, in April 2017, the U.S. team agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the USSF. The agreement stated that the U.S. team players would have an increased base pay and improved match bonuses. These changes could increase their previous pay from $200,000 to $300,000. However, the CBA did not guarantee equal pay compared to the men's team. The CBA's five-year term through 2021 ensured that the next negotiation would not become an issue for the team for the 2019 World Cup and the 2020 Olympics. On top of this CBA, the USSF had agreed to pay the players for two years' worth of unequal per-diem payments.

On March 8, 2019, 28 members of the U.S. team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the USSF. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, accused the USSF of "institutional gender discrimination." The lawsuit claimed that the discrimination affected not only the amount the players were paid but also their playing, training, and travel conditions. In May 2020, several key parts of the case were dismissed, with federal judge R. Gary Klausner noting that the team had agreed to take higher base compensation and other benefits in their most recent CBA instead of the bonuses received by the men's team.

On March 8, 2021, the second anniversary of the team's pay discrimination lawsuit, Congresswomen Doris Matsui and Rosa DeLauro introduced the Give Our Athletes Level Salaries (GOALS) Act to ensure the team members "are paid fair and equitable wages compared to the U.S. Men's team." The GOALS Act threatened to cut federal funding for the 2026 World Cup if the USSF did not comply.

On February 22, 2022, the USSF agreed to settle the lawsuit for $24 million, contingent upon the U.S. team agreeing to a new CBA. $22 million would go to the players named in the case, and $2 million would contribute toward players' post-playing career and other women's soccer charitable efforts. On May 18, 2022, the U.S. team agreed to a new CBA that would run through 2028 and would equalize compensation, bonuses, and other work conditions between the women's and the men's national teams friendlies, therefore finalizing the legal settlement. The new agreement mandates that men and women split prize money from international competitions equally, making it the first such instance in the world.

Artificial turf

Along with their lawsuit for pay-equity, the US Women's Soccer players have fought FIFA on policies regarding artificial turf. This battle to eliminate its use in major women's games heightened around the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada; during this tournament, the US played eight of their ten games on artificial turf. Prior to the 2015 World Cup, Abby Wambach headed a discrimination lawsuit with other global soccer stars including Marta of Brazil and Homare Sawa of Japan. Due to the tournament's quick approach, the suit was dropped as players were denied an expedited hearing.

Staff

Head coach history

As of June 9, 2026, after match against Brazil

Below is the record of each head coach in the national team's history. The winning percentages given are per U.S. Soccer, with draws counted as ½ wins.

Notes

Players

Current squad

The following 26 players were named for the friendly matches against Brazil on June 6 and 9, 2026.

Caps and goals correct as of June 9, 2026, after the match against Brazil.

Recent call-ups

The following players have also been called up to the squad within the past 12 months.

Results and fixtures

The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.

Legend

Win

Draw

Loss

Fixture

2026

USWNT Schedule

USWNT Results

USA: Fixtures and Results – FIFA.com

All-time results

As of June 9, 2026

Sources

Individual records

Player records

As of June 9, 2026

Players in bold are still active with the national team.

The women's national team boasts the first six players in the history of the game to have earned 200 caps. These players have since been joined in the 200-cap club by several players from other national teams, as well as by seven more Americans: Kate Markgraf, Abby Wambach, Heather O'Reilly, Carli Lloyd, Hope Solo, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Alex Morgan. Kristine Lilly, Carli Lloyd, and Christie Pearce are three of the four players in international soccer to earn more than 300 caps, the other being Canada's Christine Sinclair.

In March 2004, Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers were the only two women and the only two Americans named to the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living soccer players chosen by Pelé as part of FIFA's centenary observances.

Notes

The following players were chosen as the USWNT All-Time Best XI in December 2013 by the United States Soccer Federation:

Goalkeeper: Briana Scurry

Defenders: Brandi Chastain, Carla Overbeck, Christie Rampone, Joy Fawcett

Midfielders: Kristine Lilly, Michelle Akers, Julie Foudy

Forwards: Mia Hamm, Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan

Head coach records

Most appearances: Jill Ellis: 132

Most wins: Jill Ellis: 106

Team records

Biggest victory: 14–0 vs. Dominican Republic, January 20, 2012

Biggest defeat: 0–4 vs. Brazil, September 27, 2007

Longest winning streak: 18 games, 25 July 1990 to 25 May 1991

Longest unbeaten streak: 51 games, 8 December 2004 to 22 September 2007

Longest losing streak: 3 games, 30 August 1991 to 4 October 1991; 12 March 1993 to 7 April 1993; and 7 October 2022 to 10 November 2022

Longest winless streak: 5 games, 17 December 2000 to 11 March 2001

Competitive record

FIFA Women's World Cup

The team has participated in every World Cup through 2023 and won a medal in each of the first eight editions until 2023, when they lost to Sweden on penalties in the round of 16.

*Denotes draws include knockout matches decided via penalty shoot-out.

Olympic Games

The team has participated in every Olympic tournament through 2024 and reached the gold medal game in each until 2016, when they were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Sweden. The team won a record-extending fifth Olympic gold medal in 2024, their first since 2012.

*Denotes draws include knockout matches decided via penalty shoot-out.

CONCACAF W Championship

1 The U.S. team directly qualified for the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup as hosts of the event. Because of this, they did not participate in the 1998 CONCACAF Championship, which was the qualification tournament for the World Cup.

*Denotes draws include knockout matches decided via penalty shoot-out.

CONCACAF W Gold Cup

*Denotes draws include knockout matches decided via penalty shoot-out.

Minor tournaments

The SheBelieves Cup is a global invitational tournament for national teams in women's soccer hosted in the United States.

The Tournament of Nations was a global invitational tournament for national teams in women's soccer hosted in the United States in non-World Cup and non-Olympic years.

The Algarve Cup was a global invitational tournament for national teams in women's soccer hosted by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF). Held annually in the Algarve region of Portugal since 1994, it has been one of the more prestigious women's soccer events other than the Women's World Cup and Olympic tournament, and it has been nicknamed the "Mini FIFA Women's World Cup." Since 2016, the SheBelieves Cup replaced it on the U.S. team's schedule.

FIFA World Ranking

Last update was on December 31, 2025

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