USWNT’s Paris Olympics Squad Focuses on Youth, Versatility

With Alex Morgan not included in Emma Hayes’s roster, the new coach hopes a younger group can win gold this summer.

The Paris Games will be Hayes’s first tournament in charge of the USWNT. / Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports

The U.S. women’s national team’s Olympic squad is set. New coach Emma Hayes announced her first major tournament roster with the USWNT on Wednesday, revealing the 18 players and four alternates who will be heading to Paris.

#Paris2024 ready 🇺🇸

— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) June 26, 2024

The biggest headline from Wednesday's announcement: Alex Morgan will not be competing in her fourth Olympics. The three-time Olympian will miss the Games for the first time since 2008, failing to make Hayes’s roster. The 34-year-old has been working back from an ankle injury this spring and hasn’t quite found the form many USWNT fans are accustomed to seeing from the San Diego Wave star. The depth of the U.S. forward pool, which features the likes of Mallory Swanson and Trinity Rodman, only made Morgan’s task of making the team harder. With the Olympic roster confined to just 18 spots, Hayes elected to call in players with more positional versatility, as Morgan operates primarily as a true No. 9.

“It was a tough decision of course, especially considering Alex’s history and her record with this team but I felt I wanted to go in another direction and selected other players,” said Hayes, speaking with media members after Wednesday’s roster reveal. “Having a roster that could adapt is essential. We have a tight turnaround between games. So of course, having players on the roster that could play more than one position mattered with squad depth.”

The USWNT coach also opted for youth, naming nine first-time Olympians to her roster, including defender Jenna Nighswonger, midfielder Sam Coffey and forward Jaedyn Shaw. Just 10 players from the U.S.’s 2023 World Cup campaign will be on the plane to Paris, and only eight holdovers remain from the ’20 Olympics.

“One of the biggest things for me ever since I got the job was I want to provide opportunities for less experienced players. There was such a big gap from the top experienced and the rest, and we really have to bring that up,” said Hayes. “The volume of players that haven’t played more than 30 caps was really, really noticeable for me. So the last eight months have been about giving experiences to bridge that gap because there is a correlation between caps played and success in international tournaments.”

Crystal Dunn is among the few veterans on the team, but she will be filling a much different role at the Paris Games than she has in previous World Cups and Olympics. Moving up the pitch and into the attack, Dunn adds variability to the front line as a player who has spent most of her USWNT career playing at outside back. It’s a testament to Dunn that she has consistently been named to major tournament rosters in a position that is not her preferred place on the pitch (nor her best). The 2024 Games provides the 31-year-old with a massive stage to showcase the attacking prowess she’s exhibited at the club level for nearly a decade.

If there were any other surprises on the roster, it would be the inclusion of midfielder Korbin Albert, who many considered a bubble player heading into the Olympics. She’s been receiving consistent call-ups into USWNT camps since late 2023 and has racked up 11 appearances with the squad. Considering Hayes’s emphasis on versatility and flexibility, however, it’s not a total shock that the PSG star made the roster, as she can play all three midfield positions.

Albert’s time with the USWNT hasn’t been without controversy though, with the 20-year-old coming under fire in March for liking and sharing anti-LGBTQIA+ posts on social media. She later apologized for her social media activity, while then-captains Lindsey Horan and Morgan issued a statement on the incident.

“Korbin making the team is on merit in terms of what she offers for us in the midfield positions,” said Hayes. “I think when it comes to the situation I came into, there is no denying there has been a lot of work that's been going on in the background to work with Korbin.

“My experience with her has been … she is a young person who’s understood fully the implications of her social media activity.”

The clock is already ticking for Hayes, who has a very short window to bring this relatively young and inexperienced team together. Only joining the U.S. in late May–after concluding an illustrious career with the Women’s Super League’s Chelsea—Hayes has just two friendlies under her belt as head coach. The back-to-back multi-goal shutouts against South Korea in June were a promising start, and Hayes will have two more in-game opportunities to cultivate chemistry before taking off for Paris.

The USWNT will hold two send-off friendlies on the East Coast next month—the first against Mexico on July 13 and the second against Costa Rica on July 16—with Hayes likely to solidify her starting lineup less than a month before the team’s first Olympic matchup.

While it’s clear that Hayes’s ultimate directive is developing the pool of young talent for the next World Cup cycle, the U.S. is still used to taking home silverware. The Paris Games will be an opportunity for Hayes to best the team’s bronze-medal performance from the Tokyo Olympics, and right the ship after a disappointing 2023 World Cup.