How Catarina Macario’s USWNT return and young prospects will impact SheBelieves Cup

Emma Hayes’ latest US squad lacks some of the biggest names from last summer’s Olympic triumph, but there are still plenty of intriguing selections. The Olympic gold medalists are back to competitive soccer, though the United States women’s national team might look a bit different than you remember them if the last match you saw was the final in Paris. All three of the famed Triple Espresso frontline – Trinity Rodman, Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson (née Smith) – are sitting out this competition. The first woman to cost a $1m transfer fee, Naomi Girma, is also taking a break, as is Rose Lavelle. Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher has retired from international competition, with Jane Campbell and Mandy McGlynn getting the opportunity to compete for the No 1 shirt.

This will be a very different USWNT, and a new set of players will be facing some very tough tests when they face Colombia, Australia and Japan starting on 20 February. Here are three big things to watch out for from the US during the SheBelieves Cup. Catarina Macario made two appearances for the USWNT in 2024, but it feels as if she hass been gone for nearly three years. She’s been unable to play consistently since tearing her ACL in June 2022, experiencing several setbacks since her initial recovery, and had to pull out of the Olympics with knee soreness after making the initial squad.

Recent performances have fans believing that Macario is finally back to full fitness. She’s started the last four FA WSL games in a row for Chelsea, playing as a No 10 behind a target forward. She’s setting up as many shots for teammates as she’s taking herself, with the below stunner against West Ham the best highlight so far. Macario showed off her superb playmaking and shooting ability at the same time, playing a one-two combination with Sjoeke Nüsken before calmly placing a volley into the top corner.

Macario has two goals and two assists in WSL play this season, a solid return from just 432 minutes played. Her 4.2 shots and 3.8 key passes per 90 minutes compare extremely favorably with the player she replaced in the Chelsea lineup, Maika Hamano – she averages 1.37 and 2.31, respectively. FBRef has Macario producing 0.89 expected goals plus expected assists per 90 in the last year, which is in the 89th percentile among wingers and attacking midfielders across the top nine leagues in its database.

While Macario is listed as a forward on the US roster, the composition of the rest of the squad doesn’t make it clear which position she will play. There are six other forwards and six other midfielders, all with a solid balance of skills and preferred positions. But when Macario is at her best, the specific role she’s in and shape of the team don’t particularly matter. The real value of Catarina Macario is that she’s Catarina Macario. Emma Hayes doesn’t need to build the team around her; she can shape the team to address other needs, and Macario is still going to do Macario Things.

That is, of course, the best case scenario. Sunday’s match between Chelsea and Everton also offered a stark reminder that going two years without regular football is something very difficult to recover from. In the 51st minute, Macario committed a turnover leading directly to an Everton goal. She hadn’t been playing her best up until that point either, and she was immediately substituted. No one doubts her quality, but it’s going to take more than four starts for the 2022 version of Macario to return.

The younger Thompson sister is in line to pick up her first senior caps after an impressive rookie season at Angel City. Gisele has a similar skillset to her older sister Alyssa – also in the squad with 13 caps already to her name – but they couldn’t play in the same position. So Gisele started learning fullback at a young age, and the result is one of the most dynamic attacking fullback prospects in the world.

The 19-year-old defender has been a fixture in youth national teams for several years, picking up 33 caps at that level since 2022 and participating in both the Under-17 and Under-20 World Cups. It’s felt as if she was being prepped for a USWNT fullback role for the last three years, and she’s finally got her shot. Sign up to Moving the Goalposts. No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women’s football.

after newsletter promotion. FBRef has Thompson in the 99th percentile of fullbacks with 3.37 progressive carries per 90 minutes. She’s also 97th percentile for progressive carry distance, 86th percentile for shot-creating actions, and 86th percentile for key passes. These numbers came in just 882 minutes – she had a minor injury in June, followed by a trip to the U-20 World Cup in the middle of the NWSL season – but they’re still stunning for a teenage rookie.

Thompson is still very much a work in progress defensively, but she’s still much better than you might expect for such a young player with major attacking instincts. She’s in the 94th percentile in tackles + interceptions for 90 minutes with 5.41, which is not necessarily indicative of quality, but extremely indicative of how much pressure she was under on a relatively poor Angel City side. She handled it well, winning 68% of her tackles and avoiding giving away poor fouls.