U-17 USWNT – Women's Soccer Express

USWYNTs: Vanessa Mann hired as U-15 head coach; U-18, U-20, and U-23 positions expected to be “filled in the coming weeks”

On Monday, U.S. Soccer announced that former Utah Royals assistant coach Vanessa Mann is the new full-time head coach of the Under-15 Women’s Youth National Team.

In the same press release, U.S. Soccer also provided details about other women’s youth national team head coaching positions.

Most notably, the federation will switch to alternating head-coaching cycles for the Under-17 WYNT. After this year’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, Katie Schoepfer, who is the current head coach of the U-17s, will switch to the Under-16 WYNT and stay with that age group (2010 birth year) through the 2027 FIFA U-17 WWC. Meanwhile, Ciara Crinion, who is now the head coach for the U-16s, will move up with the 2009 birth years in the second half of this year to the Under-17 WYNT.

U.S. Soccer also announced that “full-time head coaching positions for the U.S. U-18 WNT, U.S. U-20 WNT and U.S. U-23 WNT [will] likely being filled in the coming weeks”. The other current youth head coach is Carrie Kveton, who is in charge of the Under-19 WYNT. The U-19s are preparing to qualify for the 2026 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup.

U-17 USWYNT: The USA should be in Pot 1 for the draw of the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup

Last weekend, the United States, along with Mexico, Canada, and Costa Rica, all qualified for this year’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup. Those four Concacaf teams joined seven other teams that have already qualified, including the host of this year’s FIFA U-17 WWC, Morocco. Thirteen more slots remain to be filled from three confederations: CAF (Africa), CONMEBOL (South America), and UEFA (Europe).

Assuming that FIFA continues to use the same ranking methodology for this year’s tournament as it has for the past few U-17 WWCs, the USA should have either the fourth-highest or third-highest seeding coefficient, which would put the USA in the first pot of the draw that will determine the groups for this year’s FIFA U-17 WWC. Only one of the 26 teams that are still alive in qualifying, Spain, will have a higher seeding coefficient for the draw than the USA.

The primary advantage of being in Pot 1 is that the USA will not face any of the other Pot 1 teams, such as Korea DPR and Spain, until at least the Round of Sixteen, should the USA advance out of its group. However, the USA could still end up with a difficult group due to the nature of the ranking system and the distribution of teams from each confederation.

TV & Streaming: Saturday, April 5, 2025 — USWNT vs. Brazil, U-17 USWYNT vs. El Salvador

U-17 USWYNT: Roster for 2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers announced — includes two NWSL pros

Update (28-Mar-2025): Defender Izzy Dalke and forward Elayna Kocher suffered injuries (back and knee, respectively) during the preparatory camp in Florida and have been replaced by defender Gracie Milam and forward Audrey McKeen. (U.S. Soccer press release)

For its qualifiers to the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, the Under-17 United States Women’s Youth National Team will have all five age-eligible players from its squad for the previous U-17 WWC, including two professionals and goalkeeper Evan O’Steen who won the Golden Glove at that tournament.

The two professionals, who both now play in the National Women’s Soccer League, are midfielder Kimmi Ascanio of the San Diego Wave and forward Micayla Johnson of the Chicago Stars. The other two returning players are both midfielders: Jaiden Rodriguez, who is set to play collegiate soccer for Southern California later this year, and Scottie Antonucci, whose post-secondary plans remain officially enigmatic.

In addition to O’Steen, who will be playing for Florida State, and Rodriguez, four other players have reclassified and will begin their NCAA careers in 2025: Forward Ashlyn Anderson at Florida State, midfielder Riley Kennedy at the University of North Carolina, defender Cecil Pearl at Virginia, and forward Nyanya Touray at Florida State.

The USA’s qualifying path for this year’s FIFA U-17 WWC involves just three round-robin group matches, which will be played over six days from Monday, March 31, to Saturday, April 5. The USA’s opponents are Trinidad & Tobago, Honduras, and El Salvador.

U-17 USWYNT: Draw Results and Match Schedule for 2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers

screenshot of Concacaf's PDF schedule for the Final Round of the 2025 Women's Under-17 Qualifiers

In order to qualify for the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, the USA only needs to top a four-team group that also includes El Salvador, Honduras, and Trinidad & Tobago.

The United States Under-17 Women’s Youth National Team’s shorter qualifying path compared to previous cycles is due to a new qualification format introduced by Concacaf this year. That format now involves a final stage which only consists of three concurrent round-robin groups. In previous cycles, when the FIFA U-17 WWC was held every two years, qualifying included a traditional tournament with a group stage and a knockout stage.

Additionally, with the expansion of the FIFA U-17 WWC from 16 to 24 teams, Concacaf now has an additional slot, so four teams — the top team from each group plus the best overall second-place team — will qualify for the tournament, which will be hosted by Morocco and runs from October 17th to November 8th.

On Monday, February 24th, Concacaf conducted the draw for the Final Round of the 2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers.

The full draw results are as follow:

Group A: Mexico (host*), Haiti, Costa Rica, Bermuda
Group B: Canada, Puerto Rico, Panama (host*), Nicaragua
Group C: USA, El Salvador, Honduras, Trinidad & Tobago (host*)

The Final Round’s matches will be played from Monday, March 31st to Sunday, April 6th. Groups “A” and “C” will play its matches on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, while Group B will play its matches on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Thus, teams will only have one off-day between their first two matches and two off-days between the second and third matches.

The Final Round will be played in three different nations:

Group A: Mexico, at the headquarters of the Federación Mexicana de Fútbol in Toluca
Group B: Panama, at Estadio Rommel Fernández in Panama City
Group C: Trinidad & Tobago, at Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva, Trinidad

U-17 USWYNT: Second training camp of 2025 gets underway, just two weeks after the first

With Concacaf qualifying for the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup less than six weeks away, the United States Under-17 Women’s National Team is holding its second camp of the year. The previous camp ended on Sunday, February 2nd, while this current camp began on Tuesday, February 18th, meaning that there were just 15 off days between the two camps.

From that last camp, only nine players return. Five of those players also attended the first camp of the cycle, back in September 2024. Additionally, none of the four veterans of last year’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup who attended the last camp were called in for this camp.

Off the 24 players selected by head coach Katie Schoepfer, none are professionals. One player, Claire Kessenger, who is originally from Colorado (Instagram post by her former youth club), relocated with her family to the Barcelona area of Spain several years ago and currently plays for the CE Europa U-19 team. Previously, she was in the youth setup of RCD Espanyol (www.fcf.cat).

All but four of the players on this camp’s roster have announced their NCAA commitments. Two players are official commits for the 2025 fall season: forward Nyanya Touray and defender Miya Alamares, who will play for Florida State And UC Davis, respectively.

2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers: Costa Rica and Puerto Rico among eight teams that advance to the final round

With the first round of the 2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers in the books, the names of all 12 teams that will face off in the final round are now known.

Joining the four teams that received byes to the final round — the USA, Mexico, Canada, and Haiti — are six group winners: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Puerto Rico.

Two second-place teams, Bermuda and Trinidad & Tobago, also advanced (Concacaf news item). The six groups were unbalanced, with two groups having just three teams instead of four, so a weighted points system (points divided by matches played) was apparently used (the regulations document is silent on this matter, but it has been used in the past). However, due to a quirk in that ranking system, one or both of those teams may have advanced more on the luck of the draw rather than on sporting factors.

For the final round, which is scheduled to start on Monday, March 31st, the above 12 teams will be divided into three round-robin groups of four. The top team from each group, along with the best second-place team from among those three groups, will advance to the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup.

U-17 USWYNT: First camp of 2025 announced — Four players from 2024 U-17 WWC return, just nine return from previous camp

For the first United States Under-17 Women’s National Team camp of 2025, head coach Katie Schoepfer has recalled four players from the USA’s squad for the 2024 FIFA U-27 Women’s World Cup, including recent Chicago Stars signee Micayla Johnson, goalkeeper Evan O’Steen, midfielder Scottie Antonucci, and midfielder Jaiden Rodriguez.

Two of those players will be graduating a year early and have officially committed to NCAA teams for the 2025 fall season: Evan O’Steen and Jaiden Rodriguez, who are set to play for Florida State and Southern California, respectively. The 24-player roster for this camp also includes two other players who have reclassified for 2025 with official commits: Midfielder Pearl Cecil and forward Nyanya Touray, who will play for Virginia and Florida State, respectively.

This is the second camp of the current cycle for the U-17 USWYNT. The first camp was held back in September 2024 and did not involve any 2024 U-17 WWC players. From that roster, only nine players return, including just one goalkeeper, Josie “JB” Biehl, plus three defenders, one midfielder, and four forwards. One of the defenders from the previous camp, Pearl Cecil, is listed as a midfielder for this camp.

This U-17 camp, which exclusively has players with 2008 birth years, is being held concurrently with an Under-16 USWYNT camp that primarily features players with 2009 birth years. Both camps get underway on Monday, January 27th, in Mesa, Arizona, and run through Monday, February 3rd. The camps were scheduled to be held outside of San Diego, California, in Chula Vista, but were moved due to wildfires (USYNT x.com post).

The U-17 USWYNT is preparing for the Concacaf qualifiers to the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, which is now an annual event and will be hosted by Morocco. Unlike the previous two-year cycles, the qualifying event will not be a standard tournament. Instead, the USA, which received a bye to the final stage, will be placed in one of three four-team round-robin groups. Only the top team from each group, along with the best second-place team, will qualify for the FIFA U-17 WWC. (2025 Concacaf press release; Concacaf Instagram post) The final stage of Concacaf qualifying is scheduled to be played from Monday, March 31 to April 6, 2025 (2024 Concacaf press release).

Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang pledges to give $30 million over five years to U.S. Soccer in support of women’s soccer development

On November 19th, in a joint press conference with U.S. Soccer, Michele Kang, majority owner of the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, announced that she has pledged to give a total of $30 million over the next five years to U.S. Soccer. Kang’s pledged gift has three stated purposes:

First, to double the number of youth women’s national team camps.
Second, to ramp up women’s youth talent identification by expanding U.S. Soccer’s digital talent identification platform.
Third, to double the number of licensed female coaches and female referees.

Beyond the stated purposes of the pledged gift, there were not much details about how the $30 million will be spent.

The first stated purpose of “doubl[ing] the number of” women’s youth “national team camps” from their current level is noteworthy because the number of WYNT camps held in 2024 is about half the number of camps compared to several years ago.

U-17 WWC 2024: The USA claims Third, O’Steen wins Golden Glove, Fuller takes home the Silver Boot, Korea DPR triumphs again

On Sunday, the 2024 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup came to a close with the Third-Place Match and Final both being played on the same day. In the earlier match, the USA blanked England via a 3-nil scoreline that could have easily been more lopsided against the Young Lionesses.

Meanwhile, in the final, Spain looked to have the advantage over Korea DPR, at least in the first half. Spain briefly went ahead in the second half, but Korea DPR equalized a few minutes later. With the score level at the end of regulation, the match went straight to penalties, and Korea DPR prevailed 4:3.

As their Under-20 counterparts did in September, the Under-17 United States Women’s Youth National Team took home bronze medals. Two USA players also received individual tournament awards: Evan O’Steen was given the Golden Glove as the best goalkeeper, and Kennedy Fuller earned the Silver Boot as one of the top goalscorers.

Korea DPR won their third FIFA U-17 WWC title, after previously winning the inaugural edition in 2008 and again in 2016. This is also the second time that Korea DPR has won both the U-17 WWC and U-20 WWC in the same year, having previously done that feat in 2016, and was prevented from doing so in 2008 by the USA. Only one other country, Spain in 2022 has also won both FIFA women’s youth tournaments in the same year.

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