Jan. 28 will be the first game facing Haiti in Houston in their quest to make the Tokyo games, qualiying runs until Feb. 9, culminating in California. Of course, the USWNT have the opening game from this tourney that will send the best pair onto the Olympics. Next up for the defending World Cup winners will be Panama on Fri. Jan. 31, ending play in Group A with Costa Rica, Mon. Feb. 3, all US games begin at 7:30 p.m. CT. While the men have missed out on the last few Olympics, the women seek to make it to the 7th in a row and take the Concacaf Olympic top spot for the 5th time running.
Each of the 20 selected come out of the Jan. camp in Tampa, the first full one for Vlatko Andonovski as the earlier one was to get a look at younger and other players as those out of the NWSL & World Cup play got a much needed breather. An interesting requirement of the tourney is 3 goalkeepers, however many of the remaining 17 are able to and have played multiple positions.
Local players include of course Rockville Centre native, Crystal Dunn of NWSL title holders NC Courage & Carli Lloyd of Sky Blue and NJ.
18 of the 20 featured on the World Cup roster, 13 are carry overs from the 2016 Olympic qualifying. Fully a half dozen go back to the 2012 games while just a pair are from the 2008 qualifiers. The pair of players not from the World Cup are Lynn Williams who joins many of her teammates from the NC Courage after her 12 goals in 2019, and put in time this off season in Australia on a loan with the Western Sydney Wanderers along with 2018 NWSl #1 draft pick Andi Sullivan following a standout year with the Spirit.
KWIK KIXX:
-Carli Lloyd leads the team with 14 games and 12 goals, just a pair behind Abby Wambach.
-Carli Lloyd is the sole player with double digit games and goals.
-7 other players total have scored in these game, headed by Crystal Dunn & her 5 v Puerto, tying the US record for goals in a game.
-USWNT avgs. 86.7 caps, amazing and 29 years of age.
-Over these games, the USWNT have only tied once, never losing, besting Canda in pk's of the title game in 2008.