Tag: U20 USWNT

NWSL News of Note: Olympics Break Catch-Up: Balcer-Howell Swap, Katie Zelem to Angel City, Jess Carter to Gotham, and Lots More

After a seven week break for the 2024 Paris Olympics, where the USWNT once again won gold, the second-half of the 2024 National Women’s Soccer League season gets underway on Friday, August 23rd.

During the Olympic break, most of the teams were involved in player trades, signings, and other roster moves. The most notable (and shocking) trade during the break, just happened on Monday, when the Seattle Reign and Racing Louisville swapped forward Bethany Balcer for Racing’s captain, midfielder Jaelin Howell. Meanwhile, the most surprising signing was not a player, but an interim head coach: Landon Donovan, with the San Diego Wave.

Updates:

  • August 20th: Racing signs Colombian defender Ángela Barón, NC Courage loan defender Talia Staude to USL Super League side Tampa Bay Sun…

For player-related moves, as well as other developments involving all fourteen NWSL teams, including Angel City FC’s sale to Willow Bay and Bob Iger, keep reading…

Continue reading “NWSL News of Note: Olympics Break Catch-Up: Balcer-Howell Swap, Katie Zelem to Angel City, Jess Carter to Gotham, and Lots More”

U-20 WYNT: Midfielder Sam Courtwright Is Out Due to Knee Injury, Will Be Replaced By Addison Halpern

On Thursday, August 15th, U.S. Soccer announced, through their @USYNT x.com account that midfielder Sam Courtwright, who had 8 youth international caps with the United States Under-20 Women’s Youth National Team will not be representing the USA at the upcoming FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Colombia due to an ACL injury.

Halpern’s replacement will be midfielder Addison Halpern from New Jersey. Halpern, who plays for PDA, was one of the alternates named in last week’s roster announcement.

That announcement came a couple hours after Courtwright’s collegiate team, Texas Tech, posted on social media that Courtwright had suffered a season-ending knee injury (post on team’s X.com account). Courtwright’s injury came during a Texas Tech training session.

U-20 WYNT: Roster Announced for the 2024 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup

On Thursday, August 8th, U.S. Soccer announced its roster for the upcoming FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, which will be hosted by Colombia.

Update (15-Aug-2024): Midfielder Sam Courtwright suffered an ACL injury while training with Texas Tech. She will be replaced by alternate midfielder Addison Halpern.

For the first time, a significant number of the players, who range in age from 18 to 20 years old, will be professionals, as eight out of the twenty-one players will represent NWSL teams at the tournament.

Up through the 2012 cycle, the USA’s final roster for the U-20 WWC consisted exclusively of collegiate and pre-collegiate players. Until this year, only two professionals have played for the USA at the U-20 WWC: Lindsey Horan (Wikipedia) in 2014 and Olivia Moultrie (Wikipedia) in 2022.

This year’s roster is also unusual in another respect, as multiple age-eligible professional players have not been included: Jaedyn Shaw, who is currently with the USWNT at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Olivia Moultrie, and Alyssa Thompson. All three have full senior caps with the USWNT and have essentially ‘graduated’ from the U-20 WYNT after competing for the USA at the last U-20 WWC in 2022.

Continue reading “U-20 WYNT: Roster Announced for the 2024 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup”

CU20W: USA Viewing Options for the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship

Update (22-Feb-2020):  Major re-write, added section for YouTube

While all of this year’s CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship matches that involve the USA should be available unblocked via CONCACAF’s official YouTube channel, some live broadcasts of other matches have been geo-blocked in the USA.

For those trying to watch these other matches live, there are two additional options:  Concacaf Go (go.concacaf.com) and TUDNxtra.  And, if you missed a match, each match should be available for replay on YouTube (official playlist) shortly after the end of the live broadcast.

The Options:

Continue reading “CU20W: USA Viewing Options for the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship”

2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship – Final Rosters

Earlier this week, CONCACAF released the final rosters for this year’s Women’s Under-20 Championship.  Unfortunately, the rosters were only made publicly available via Issuu.com which does not allow downloads of the original PDF for documents uploaded by free accounts (and generally sucks from a usability perspective.)

Anyway, here is the full list of players as a Google Sheets file.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oOmw582dDE6XBMtWswTQZBHCFdv7jYNYmAtLPPkhBbU/edit

Continue reading “2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship – Final Rosters”

U-20 USWNT: Roster for 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship Announced

Prologue:  This has not been a normal U-20 cycle.

* * *

With Laura Harvey taking the helm of the Under-20 United States Women’s National Team, some change in player selection was to be expected, but… Continue reading “U-20 USWNT: Roster for 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship Announced”

U-20 USWNT: Provisional Roster for 2020 CONCACAF Championship Released

On Monday, February 3rd, CONCACAF released the provisional rosters (PDF) for all teams participating in the final stages of the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, giving us clues as to which players are still in the mix for new head coach Laura Harvey’s final 20-player roster, including #1 NWSL College Draft pick Sophia Smith.

The tournament, which will be hosted by the Dominican Republic and runs from February 22nd to March 8th (full schedule), will be used to decide the two – yes, just 2 – at-large qualification slots from CONCACAF for this year’s FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica and Panama.

Continue reading “U-20 USWNT: Provisional Roster for 2020 CONCACAF Championship Released”

CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Costa Rica and Panama Out, Bermuda and Barbados In

Oh, and there’s a schedule change, too.

So, it seems that CONCACAF has quietly pushed back the start of this year’s CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship a week, so that the tournament now starts on February 22nd, instead of February 15th.

That detail went unhighlighted in a January 13th article posted on CONCACAF.com, titled “Concacaf Announces Changes to the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Under-20 Championship,” which confirmed that the co-hosts of this year’s FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, Costa Rica and Panama, would both have automatic bids, and, alas, that only two at-large qualifications slots would be available for the rest of CONCACAF. Continue reading “CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Costa Rica and Panama Out, Bermuda and Barbados In”

CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Subtraction Through Addition

The CONCACAF.com article started out so promising…

Following confirmation from FIFA that Costa Rica and Panama will co-host the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, in August of 2020, and that Concacaf has been awarded one additional slot…

An “additional slot”?  Awesome.

But, then came the parenthetical…

 (four in total)

Uh, that doesn’t sound good.

And, then, there was the next paragraph, that started:

The Concacaf Council has determined that Costa Rica and Panama, as host countries of the World Cup, will automatically qualify to the World Cup and will no longer participate in the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Under-20 Championship.

Wait…  A confederation can “determine” whether the host country/countries will automatically qualify or not?  Well, that is worth a clarification.

Anyway, moving on for the moment…

The two remaining slots in the World Cup will be determined via the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Under-20 Championship.

Well, fu…….n.  Yeah, “fun.”  That’s the word.

Oh.  And, then there’s this bit of news that was slipped in as well:

 …the Confederation announced changes to its World Cup Qualifying tournament, to be hosted in the Dominican Republic between Feb 22 – Mar 8, 2020.

Uh, that’s not what was announced back in November…

So, instead of three at-large qualification slots from CONCACAF for the 2020 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, there are just two available slots, meaning that the semifinals will be must-win all-or-nothing affairs.  (Unless CONCACAF or FIFA decides to throw another curveball.)

But, hey, at least there’s another week to prepare for the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, since the tournament was pushed back a week, so that it now starts on Saturday, February 22nd instead of the 15th.

But, wait, there’s more… Continue reading “CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Subtraction Through Addition”

Youth USWNTs: 2020 Calendar Update – Camps, Trips, and Tournaments

Updates:

  • 05-Feb-2020:  U-17 USWNT – Added details for CONCACAF Women’s Under-17 Championship
  • 11-Feb-2020:  U-23 USWNT – Added details for Portland Thorns Spring Invitational
  • 17-Feb-2020:  Minor updates/clarifications
  • 02-Mar-2020:  Added March U-15 USGNT camp entry
  • 13-MAR-2020:  U.S. SOCCER HAS CANCELLED MOST YNT CAMPS THROUGH THE END OF APRIL, DUE TO COVID-19 CONCERNS. (U.S. SOCCER)
    • NO NEWS ABOUT THE CONCACAF WOMEN’S UNDER-17 CHAMPIONSHIP, WHICH IS SCHEDULED TO START ON APRIL 18TH IN MEXICO.

While U.S. Soccer’s dysfunctional website* does not often include much information about future youth team camps and/or matches, that is not the case with a number of other associations’ websites.  In addition, youth USWNTs regular participate in annual friendly tournaments at the La Manga Club in Spain, which regularly publishes online its upcoming schedule of hosted matches.

*A subject for a future post.  Or three…

So, after much browsing and searching…

…Here are some things that were news to me:

  • Confirmation that a USA team is scheduled to participate in the April U-23 WNT friendly tournament at La Manga Club in Spain.
  • News that the USA will be sending a GNT to the annual soccer tournament in Montaigu, France.  The USA will be in a four-team U-16 GNT mini-tournament with France, Japan, and Norway.
  • A June U-15 USGNT camp or trip involving the U-15 GNTs of Germany and the Netherlands.
  • The host and dates of this year’s U-23 WNT Nordic Tournament:  Norway, September 14th to the 22nd.  (USA participation not confirmed.)
  • Also, the CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, which was originally scheduled to start on Saturday, February 15th, was quietly pushed back to February 22nd.

(Update 02-Feb-2020):  Clarified the descriptions of the U-14 events.

In addition, a U-14 Girls identification regional mini-camp roster with dates for two more regional mini-camps plus a normal national U-14 USGNT identification camp was published on Thursday, which gives a good picture of what that age group is doing up through late May.

Continue reading “Youth USWNTs: 2020 Calendar Update – Camps, Trips, and Tournaments”