Turnaround complete: USWNT sends message with Olympic soccer gold

PARIS — From their lowest low to the top of the podium in less than 13 months.
Emma Hayes may not call herself a miracle worker, but it’s hard to think of a better description.
“I love America,” a tearful Hayes told NBC after the U.S. women’s national team won the Olympic gold medal with a 1-0 victory over Brazil. “It made me.”
In return, Hayes has remade the USWNT.
When the final whistle sounded, Hayes bent backward and roared. Trinity Rodman tackled captain Lindsey Horan and Crystal Dunn, Lynn Williams and Casey Krueger soon joined in while Horan sobbed. The rest of the team mobbed their brick wall, err, goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher.
By winning the Olympic gold medal Saturday – its fifth, for those keeping track – the USWNT sent a message to the rest of the world that last summer’s World Cup debacle, and the sluggishness at the Tokyo Games, were aberrations. There is still work to be done, to quote one of Hayes’ favorite mantras, but they are very much back on the right track.
The game has changed, yes, with more quality programs across the globe and more sure to come as investment increases. The days of the USWNT winning three Olympic titles in a row, as they did from 2004 to 2012, or consecutive World Cups, as they did in 2015 and 2019, might not be able to be replicated.
But Hayes has the U.S. women believing in themselves again. And there is nothing more daunting than confident Americans.
The trio of Rodman, Mallory Swanson and Sophia Smith are downright diabolical, shredding defenses without mercy and destruction in their wake. A USWNT squad that couldn’t buy a goal last summer is now scoring them in abundance.
The USWNT led the Olympic tournament with 12 goals, with Swanson, Smith and Rodman combining for 10 of them. Swanson’s goal in the 57th minute, which gave the USWNT the only score it needed for the 1-0 win over Brazil, was her fourth. Smith and Rodman finish the Olympics with three apiece.
To put that in perspective, Spain is the reigning World Cup champion and world’s No. 1 team. The USWNT’s triple threat outscored Spain on their own, 10 goals to nine.
Not to be overlooked is the defense, which again was unrelenting. Swanson’s goal only mattered because Naeher had stopped Brazil, Ludmila in particular, cold several times in the first half. She came up big in the second, too, including a one-handed rejection of Adriana’s shot in stoppage time of the second half that preserved the win.
The Americans tied Canada with just two goals allowed, but the USWNT played two more games than their neighbors to the north. The USWNT didn’t concede a goal after the final group-stage game, a span of 330 minutes.
All this, and this was only Hayes’ 10th game in charge. Hired in November, she’s officially been on the job for just three months. Give her another three years, which is when the next World Cup is, and the USWNT is likely again to be the standard by which the rest of the world is measured.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
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