Even within a globally recognized U.S. women’s national team roster that is filled with celebrity superstars and World Cup winners, older co-workers can sometimes seem a bit odd to their younger colleagues.
“Some of the songs they play, [what] they’re all listening to, I have no idea what they are. They sound like … what my parents listen to,” said 22-year-old Sophia Smith, who was once given a hard time by more senior players for not recognizing a song from ’90s rapper Tupac. “Or they’ll talk about the technology they had, like the CD.”
Smith, a forward for the NWSL‘s Portland Thorns, has never used a CD player. She’s never gone to a World Cup, either.
The same could be said (at least regarding the international tournament) for the San Diego Wave‘s 23-year-old Naomi Girma. In preparation for her first-ever World Cup, the up-and-coming center-back found it amusing that veteran Alex Morgan utilized Mapquest, a website that was popular for printable driving directions in the early-2000s, in her younger days for travel.
“We were joking about MapQuest … she would pull out the actual map to get to games,” Girma said with a laugh.
At times perplexed by those older than them — Smith admitted that she “won’t watch any movie that’s ‘grainy,'” seemingly referencing a time before high-definition broadcasting — both Smith and Girma represent a broader youth movement for the USWNT.
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Of the 23 players who will be heading to the World Cup that begins on July 20 in Australia and New Zealand, a noteworthy total of 14 will take part in the tournament for the first time. Of those 14, half are 25 or younger, which means that the back-to-back winners will rely on the exuberance of youth rather than the wisdom of experience.
In the 2019 competition, the USWNT had 11 debutants, and in 2015, there were only eight. Both teams also had fewer players who were 25 or younger.
Aiming for an unprecedented third consecutive World Cup title and fifth overall, manager Vlatko Andonovski and his players met with media in Carson, Calif., earlier this month to discuss the presence of youthful talents within their roster, the key veterans who will be guiding them along the way, and most importantly, about building and maintaining an intergenerational link.
Finding common ground, on the field
Eighteen-year-old Angel City FC winger Alyssa Thompson, the youngest name on the USWNT roster, finds it surreal that she gets to be teammates with her heroes.
“I can’t believe I’m playing with players that I’ve looked up to my whole life,” said the teenager, who was selected first overall in the NWSL draft just months earlier — the first No. 1 pick ever to be selected out of high school.
Set to be one of the possible breakout stars of the World Cup, Thompson was just 17 when she made her USWNT debut last October in a 2-1 friendly loss to England. In her first camp with the national team, Thompson remembers being in awe of the soccer celebrities around her.
“I feel like I had really great teammates around me that were veterans when I came onto this team, Abby Wambach, Heather Mitts, even Lauren Cheney [Holiday], she’s only a year older than me, but she had been on the team for a while,” O’Hara said. “I’ve always tried to [help] any newcomer to make them feel welcome, to make them feel comfortable because you got to be able to feel that way to be your best self.”
Midfielder Lindsey Horan, one of the leaders for the USWNT, has taken inspiration from Becky Sauerbrunn, the longtime captain who was ruled out of this summer’s tournament last month because of a foot injury she suffered in April.
“She’s my first call or my first text, and what she does on the field and what she did for me in Portland, it’s just like, I’m going to follow her lead and I want to be that type of role model for the young ones coming up and the new players here,” Horan said. “Trying to be the best role model and a voice for these young players coming in, anytime they need advice or questions.”
That imprint left goes far beyond the confines of the field as well.
For years, USWNT players clashed with U.S. Soccer as they sought equal pay and better working conditions. After filing a gender discrimination lawsuit in 2019, the case was settled in February 2022, providing a lump-sum payment to the players for $22 million. Months later, they then agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement, which included an equal split of World Cup bonuses between the USWNT and the U.S. men’s national team.
“We actually just got our first settlement check [from U.S. Soccer] in the mail a week ago,” Morgan said last week. “Naomi was joking that she didn’t get one and I was like, be grateful you just get equal.”
Older co-workers can be a bit odd in the eyes of their younger cohorts, but there’s no denying that they know a little more about the job. And don’t make the mistake of assuming that some of the USWNT veterans are out-of-touch retirees.
“Goodness gracious. Don’t age me,” Crystal Dunn said when asked how she can connect with someone as young as Thompson. “I’m still cool and hip, I try to tell all my teammates that. … I have a kid and all of a sudden people are like, ‘Oh, did you hear about TikTok, Crystal?'”
