TWG Minisode: USWNT U-20 World Cup Reaction

0:00Hi, it's Sam Muiss, host of the Women's Game, which is proudly supported by New Balance. It's been great to work with a partner who is equally dedicated to growing women's soccer in this country. They work with some of the best talent in the game, Michelle Cooper and Jordan Heidema, and have three incredible models of cleats for all types of players. The Fioran is crafted for speed, the Tekela provides superior touch and control to bring your vision to life, and the classic 442 is meant for any pitch and any weather. Go to newbalance.com slash soccer to find out which pair is perfect for you or the soccer player in your family. You're listening to the MIB Media Network, and this is the Women's Game. The US has been knocked out of the U-20 Women's World Cup. This was a tough tournament in a lot of ways. First, key players weren't released by their clubs. Then the group stage was pretty rough with the US barely making it out, and then we lost

1:01to Brazil in penalty kicks in our first knockout game. Becky, what's your first reaction to this? Should the US be worried? I've been noodling on this for a while now. Why are our youth teams not finding as much success in these world tournaments? We haven't won since Sam, your generation won in 2012. There have been a lot of youth tournaments since then. I decided to do a little bit of a boop boop boop dive into the rosters of the teams that we played against in the group stage. To remind everybody, we played Italy first, and we lost to them two to one. We then played Japan who we tied to two, and the New Zealand we ended the group stage we beat 9-0. I'm looking at these rosters, and I am noticing that a vast majority of these players are playing professionally in their respective domestic leagues, and all for about the same three to four teams. I look at the US roster, and we've got players that are playing collegially all over the nation

2:04on various NWSL teams. We even had a player in the USL, and it got me thinking that the strength of our country as a sporting nation is that we have so many people in such a deep player pool, but I also think it's our biggest challenge. I'm thinking, how do you find a team identity and build team cohesion on and off the field within this very limited amount of time that is scheduled for the youth national teams? You imagine that players are being cycled in and out because you have to give them their looks, but then you're also taking time away from building a core group that has a core identity. For me, my worry is how do we answer that question? How do we find alignment and an identity within such a vast playing pool? I'm so glad you brought this up. I think this is such a good point, and it's one I actually didn't think of that much

3:04before this. It makes me think about other countries' youth systems. So a country like Spain, Spain has an academy system, and a lot of their young players are coming up through Barcelona, playing on Spain's youth World Cup teams together, and then eventually making the Spain senior national team. That chemistry is being built at club in the youth teams. They're like a tighter knit group, and I am interested that you point out our talent is so widely dispersed. They might not have those same opportunities. Even people always ask why North Korea is so successful at these youth tournaments. It feels like North Korea is constantly winning these or doing really well in them. Even in my U-17 World Cup, we lost in the finals in North Korea. It's because their system looks so different than ours. Those players are together all the time. They're getting reps together literally all the time that they just grow that chemistry, and I think kind of like that team camaraderie. But I think the other main issue here, and one of the obvious reasons why the US didn't form in this tournament, was because this tournament wasn't inside of a FIFA window,

4:07which basically just means that players don't have to get released from their clubs. So the US was missing players like Claire Hutton, Lili O'Hana, Jordan Bug. I know that some English players also weren't released from their club teams. Like Eric Meag Parkinson, who plays for the courage, England is actually out now too. I, knowing we have these several reasons, I want to know how you think not having access to some of our best U-20 players impacted this tournament. I think first I want to zoom out a little bit on that and just say like, I feel like this is really unfortunate that this became the noise around the tournament. And I thought it was kind of unnecessary, and also probably did not help the confidence of the players that were actually on the roster, or us viewing the team about to compete and being like, well, they don't have their best players. Like, nobody wants to be feeling that before going into a tournament. You want to be feeling like this is the best team that we've got and we've got every chance in the world to win this. And so I just want to stay right there like unnecessary noise that's unfortunate.

5:10On the other side, like, of course you want your best players available. And by putting the tournament in a FIFA window, like full stop, all your players are available. They have to get released. But I will say even with the notable absences, the team and this roster, I do believe should have performed better. Yeah, I mean, and that's the expectation for any US women's national team at any age group. And I think that's why it has been so stark and so disappointing to see the youth teams not win and not really perform that well in recent years. I do think it was important to this whole point about the FIFA window that there was an open letter written that current and former players wrote to FIFA during this tournament to ask that in the future FIFA considers making this tournament part of the international calendar. Players like Alex Morgan, Crystal Don Marta, even Claire Hutton, who is one of the players who could have been at this tournament. And we think didn't get released by BFC signed on to the letter. Claire is a player who has captained the senior US women's national team already is still

6:12eligible in this age group. And of course, would have made a huge difference if she was at a tournament like this. Plus, I think the idea of seeing Claire and Lili O'Hana's playing together, representing a US team in the midfield, knowing that they could be paired together at some point during the senior women's world cup next summer, I just think would have been so valuable. And that thought brings me to Emma Hayes, who actually has been very vocal about this tournament and the lack of opportunity for some players to play in it. She recently said to ESPN, when I speak about this subject, I am sending a warning sign that I am worried. I am massively worried about the direction for and the lack of all those experiences for American players. She's being very clear about this. What do you think her reaction has been to this early exit for the US? I think she's probably viewing it through like two different lens, like one a long term and one a short term. So long term, she's probably thinking that this is such a missed opportunity for these players to gain crucial international experience. A key part of player development for the future of these individual players, but also for

7:17the program's future. And we have spoken extensively Sam about how we benefited so much from our youth world experiences and how they helped prepare us for the senior team and for the potential senior tournaments that we were eventually going to play in. And then she's viewing these players also in the short term as potential senior team players, maybe as soon as 2027 if they're truly special. So she's not getting to see some of these players as they advance more through the tournament. And as you know, the more chances that you get to play in front of the big boss, the more chances you get to shine. And so she's also probably seeing this as a short term like we want to win now, we want into the future. But like winning now, like how great would it have been to it? Like you have said, seeing Claire Hutton and Alilio Hannes play together because they're more likely to be on the senior team sooner than later. I know. I think in so many ways this is disappointing. Like the team losing is unfortunate for US soccer. I think they have to kind of look in the mirror about these youth national teams not performing well.

8:18It's obviously also disappointing for senior national team fans who wanted to see opportunities like this for these players that we know are going to be on the full team someday. And I think most of all, I'm so bummed for the players. Like I lost two of these youth tournaments. I was so devastated each time this run, this thing that they've been building up in their heads for years is over. And it's over before they wanted it to be. And it's ultimately been a really disappointing couple of weeks for them. I also think it's so hard for me to criticize all of these systems and decisions and to criticize this early loss and to call it an early exit without criticizing the players themselves. Like I know they're feeling bad and sad and terrible and blaming themselves. Like so from a personal level, I just want to like encourage them. I feel for them. They're so young. And so I hope that with this loss, they are also getting a lot of support so that they can bounce back quickly individually and return to their club teams or their college teams and not suffer from this for too long.

9:19Yeah, this does not define the players that they are or that they will become. And like you said, we've been a part of these locker rooms where we've lost in major tournaments. And it's so tough. These players feel like they're responsible for the loss. Maybe it's a missed PK or a missed tackle or header in the box. And then on the flip side, you've got players that are like feeling a little hard done by. Like they didn't get the playing time that they were really hoping. They didn't get a chance to show in front of and the haze, you know? Like how many times do you get the big boss getting to watch you in a tournament like this? And so I agree with you that the message for these players is like, this doesn't define you. You never know who's watching. You just got to learn from everything that happened. Keep that disappointment or that fire or both like burning and use it because you don't get to the senior team. You don't get to winning a World Cup or an Olympics without these kind of losses and these challenges. And if you want to calm failures, that's okay too.

10:21Like use the failure, use that flame, make it something positive. I love that so much Becky that is such great advice. I'm so glad that we could hop on quickly and dissect this. We'll chat more about it on our next podcast. Thanks Becky. Thanks Sammy.