How Catarina Macario’s USWNT return and young prospects will impact SheBelieves Cup | OneFootball

The Olympic gold medalists are back to competitive soccer, though the United States women’s national team might look a bit different than you remember them if the last match you saw was the final in Paris.

All three of the famed Triple Espresso frontline – Trinity Rodman, Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson (née Smith) – are sitting out this competition. The first woman to cost a $1m transfer fee, Naomi Girma, is also taking a break, as is Rose Lavelle. Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher has retired from international competition, with Jane Campbell and Mandy McGlynn getting the opportunity to compete for the No 1 shirt.

This will be a very different USWNT, and a new set of players will be facing some very tough tests when they face Colombia, Australia and Japan starting on 20 February. Here are three big things to watch out for from the US during the SheBelieves Cup.

Return of the Mac

Catarina Macario made two appearances for the USWNT in 2024, but it feels as if she hass been gone for nearly three years. She’s been unable to play consistently since tearing her ACL in June 2022, experiencing several setbacks since her initial recovery, and had to pull out of the Olympics with knee soreness after making the initial squad.

Recent performances have fans believing that Macario is finally back to full fitness. She’s started the last four FA WSL games in a row for Chelsea, playing as a No 10 behind a target forward. She’s setting up as many shots for teammates as she’s taking herself, with the below stunner against West Ham the best highlight so far. Macario showed off her superb playmaking and shooting ability at the same time, playing a one-two combination with Sjoeke Nüsken before calmly placing a volley into the top corner.

Macario has two goals and two assists in WSL play this season, a solid return from just 432 minutes played. Her 4.2 shots and 3.8 key passes per 90 minutes compare extremely favorably with the player she replaced in the Chelsea lineup, Maika Hamano – she averages 1.37 and 2.31, respectively. FBRef has Macario producing 0.89 expected goals plus expected assists per 90 in the last year, which is in the 89th percentile among wingers and attacking midfielders across the top nine leagues in its database.

While Macario is listed as a forward on the US roster, the composition of the rest of the squad doesn’t make it clear which position she will play. There are six other forwards and six other midfielders, all with a solid balance of skills and preferred positions. But when Macario is at her best, the specific role she’s in and shape of the team don’t particularly matter. The real value of Catarina Macario is that she’s Catarina Macario. Emma Hayes doesn’t need to build the team around her; she can shape the team to address other needs, and Macario is still going to do Macario Things.

That is, of course, the best case scenario. Sunday’s match between Chelsea and Everton also offered a stark reminder that going two years without regular football is something very difficult to recover from. In the 51st minute, Macario committed a turnover leading directly to an Everton goal. She hadn’t been playing her best up until that point either, and she was immediately substituted. No one doubts her quality, but it’s going to take more than four starts for the 2022 version of Macario to return.

Gisele Thompson arrives, and she’s not leaving

The younger Thompson sister is in line to pick up her first senior caps after an impressive rookie season at Angel City. Gisele has a similar skillset to her older sister Alyssa – also in the squad with 13 caps already to her name – but they couldn’t play in the same position. So Gisele started learning fullback at a young age, and the result is one of the most dynamic attacking fullback prospects in the world.

The 19-year-old defender has been a fixture in youth national teams for several years, picking up 33 caps at that level since 2022 and participating in both the Under-17 and Under-20 World Cups. It’s felt as if she was being prepped for a USWNT fullback role for the last three years, and she’s finally got her shot.

FBRef has Thompson in the 99th percentile of fullbacks with 3.37 progressive carries per 90 minutes. She’s also 97th percentile for progressive carry distance, 86th percentile for shot-creating actions, and 86th percentile for key passes. These numbers came in just 882 minutes – she had a minor injury in June, followed by a trip to the U-20 World Cup in the middle of the NWSL season – but they’re still stunning for a teenage rookie.

Thompson is still very much a work in progress defensively, but she’s still much better than you might expect for such a young player with major attacking instincts. She’s in the 94th percentile in tackles + interceptions for 90 minutes with 5.41, which is not necessarily indicative of quality, but extremely indicative of how much pressure she was under on a relatively poor Angel City side. She handled it well, winning 68% of her tackles and avoiding giving away poor fouls.

Olympic final starters Crystal Dunn and Emily Fox are still in the squad, while Jenna Nighswonger will also offer regular competition for playing time at fullback. But Gisele Thompson has looked ready for this role since she was 16 years old, and I predict she’ll be first choice by the time the 2027 World Cup rolls around.

Four young forwards fight for one place

With Triple Espresso sitting out, a set of less experienced players have been called into the team in their place. Yazmeen Ryan, Emma Sears, Ally Sentnor and Michelle Cooper all have fewer than five national team caps. They’ll probably enter this tournament knowing they’re in competition with each other to stay on the team.

Who sticks might have just as much to do with what Hayes is looking for in a 23rd player on the squad as it does with their quality. Ryan is the most versatile of the bunch, having yet to nail down a position in NWSL, where she’s played on virtual all-star teams in Portland Thorns and Gotham FC and been asked to fill whatever position was needed from game to game. Ryan was recently traded to the Houston Dash – last season’s worst NWSL team – where she’ll likely have an opportunity to have an attack built around her skills for the first time in her career.

Sentnor has starred in the US U-20s and in college for North Carolina, but was thrust into a difficult situation as a rookie for the Utah Royals. The team made a mid-season coaching change, and she shifted between an attacking central midfield role and the left wing. She’s shown flashes of quality as a cut-inside shooter off the left, but her stats suffered from a combination of bad decision-making and being on a bad attacking team. Her 0.06 xG per shot is very poor, sixth percentile among attacking midfielders and wingers.

While those two players might be able to find roles independent of the other newcomers, Sears and Cooper are in a very clear “there can only be one” situation. They’re both being deployed as classic right wingers, expected to run at the fullback and hit a cross from the byline. They’re both great at drilling a cross between the top of the six-yard box and the penalty spot for a teammate to smash in.

They’ve gotten to this point via very different paths. Cooper was a star striker for the U-20 national team who struggled in her rookie season with Kansas City. A move to right wing has transformed her career, and she’s now one of the best in NWSL at her role. Sears was a second-round draft pick who had just four goals and three assists in her senior year of college, but quickly won a starting role for Racing Louisville. These players have very similar qualities from the same position, and it’s tough to envision both of them cementing a regular national team place.

Header image: [Photograph: Adam Davy/PA]