The last seven months have seen continuous rotation throughout the United States women’s national team squad. Head coach Emma Hayes has assessed a deeper swathe of her player pool, calling in previously overlooked veterans and rising young prospects.
Qualifying for the 2027 Women’s World Cup — achieved by a top-four finish in the Concacaf W Championship — won’t commence until November 2026, leaving another year and a half to form a winning squad.
For the most part, this era of experimentation won’t hamper the program. Results have been strong since last summer, with only a draw at Wembley against England and a defeat against Japan in the SheBelieves Cup blemishing Hayes’ U.S. record. Double-header friendlies against Brazil, China and the Republic of Ireland, and a one-off against Canada, will provide another 630 minutes to study.
One question begs an answer sooner than the rest: Who will claim the program’s storied No. 1 shirt and lead the group as its starting goalkeeper?
It’s a distinction that carries tremendous responsibility. The USWNT has had an unusually unbroken litany in between the posts. Across all nine Women’s World Cups played, starting in 1991, only four players have served as the team’s No. 1 starting goalkeeper.
Mary Harvey began the sequence, leading the United States to the inaugural 1991 trophy. Briana Scurry started in the 1995 tournament, famously coming through in the triumphant 1999 World Cup shootout and again retaining the top spot on the depth chart in 2003. Hope Solo broke through in 2007 and succeeded Scurry (for the most part), starting again in 2011 and during the team’s third title in 2015. Alyssa Naeher was up next, overseeing a World Cup repeat in 2019 and starting again in 2023. She retired from international soccer at the end of last year after an Olympic gold medal win.
Briana Scurry lunges as she stops the penalty kick by Liu Ying at the 1999 World Cup. (Hector Mata / AFP via Getty Images)
It’s a remarkable run, a testament to each goalkeeper’s longevity. It also highlights how the state of USWNT goalkeepers looks far less stable than at any point in recent memory.
A strong No. 1 stops shots and intercepts crosses, commands the back line and brings consistency to the defense. The latter is crucial to any successful team, bringing a cautionary tale.
Less than a year after Scurry played a starring role in the 1999 World Cup, with the team ramping up its preparations for the 2000 Olympics, new head coach April Heinrichs gave 18-year-old Hope Solo her senior debut. Solo went on to earn 202 caps for the United States, more than any goalkeeper in program history.
However, it was too soon to throw her into the first team regularly, with Scurry still in her prime. Solo was left off of the 2003 World Cup squad when only 20 players (only two goalkeepers) were selected, but by 2007, she had proven herself a clear and worthy starter. Solo made the lineup for the team’s first four games, keeping three clean sheets across the group’s final two games and a 3-0 quarterfinal win over England.
Unexpectedly, head coach Greg Ryan second-guessed what wasn’t broken. With Brazil awaiting the United States in the semifinal, Ryan started Scurry and left Solo to sulk throughout a crucial clash. Scurry could not shake off the rust after failing to play a single minute in the first four games, and Brazil emphatically blew out the USWNT with a Marta double headlining a 4-0 rout.
Hope Solo watches from the bench as Briana Scurry starts the 4-0 loss to Brazil in 2007. (Mark Ralston / AFP via Getty Images)
Solo’s friction with the holdovers of the 1999 squad is now well-documented. While Solo did struggle a bit in the group opener, a 2-2 draw against North Korea, her 298 minutes of scoreless soccer were ample evidence that she had forged a functional relationship with her defense.
Hayes is unlikely to make a similar mistake, but it’s an example of a coach entering a tournament without full confidence in their first choice. Hayes’ task is to find her trusted option to build those connections over the next two years before the 2027 World Cup.
Even in a transitional 2024, there was no anointed successor to Naeher, like Solo two decades earlier. Since Naeher announced the end of her international career, Hayes has called in six goalkeepers (counting her preliminary squad and January training camp), with no clarity on who has the upper hand to start.
Angelina Anderson, Jane Campbell, Claudia Dickey, Mandy McGlynn, Casey Murphy, and Phallon Tullis-Joyce are all in contention going off Hayes’ recent selections.
Murphy has the highest cap total of the contenders, having made 20 appearances since debuting in 2021 while keeping 15 clean sheets. The 28-year-old starts regularly for the North Carolina Courage in NWSL. Since the start of 2021, the statistics suggest she has been the best shot-stopper of the hopefuls, preventing 18 goals more than expected when comparing what she’s conceded against post-shot expected goals faced. That narrowly outpaces Campbell, 30, and her rate of 16.4 goals prevented, with 28-year-old Tullis-Joyce next at 12.9 in the NWSL and Women’s Super League combined.
Hayes did hint toward a possible debut for Tullis-Joyce, who has kept 12 clean sheets across 18 league games this season for Manchester United.
“She’s very introverted, very quiet, and she’s got to build the relationships with the players around her because you have to build trust and connections,” Hayes told reporters last week. “She will do that little by little, but this will only be her third camp with us.
“She’s in contention to play one of these games but needs a bit more time to do those things.”
Phallon Tullis-Joyce could see her U.S. debut against Brazil. (Brad Smith / Getty Images for USSF)
McGlynn, 26, is arguably the best sweeper of the group, while 24-year-old Anderson has shown a similar defensive proactiveness in her first 11 NWSL starts. Dickey, 25, Murphy and Tullis-Joyce have similarly robust cross-stopping metrics. Anderson and McGlynn have a narrow edge for their long distribution stats; Anderson and Dickey have worked into the mix in part due to strong short-distance passing acumen.
None of the six has checked every box necessary to be a top goalkeeper just yet — hence the open-competition nature of the position post-Naeher. It’s entirely understandable why Hayes wants to see as many options as possible a few times before endorsing one with consistent starts over the rest.
“We have a lot of really good goalkeepers,” Hayes told reporters after the roster was released. “Who will emerge from that as the No 1? I don’t know, but they have to take their chances when they get them.”
The intricacies of the goalkeeping role mean that the urgency to find the answer is likely greater than the rest of her ongoing personnel experiments. The age of the players listed above suggests that we may be in for another competition after the 2028 Olympics — a goalkeeper’s peak usually comes between the ages of 25 and 34.
Younger alternatives are rising quickly and could crash the competition. Mia Justus, 22, is a touted prospect who signed her first professional contract with Utah Royals this winter, serving as McGlynn’s backup. Teagan Wy, 20, came up big throughout the U-20 Women’s World Cup last fall and trained with the USWNT as part of Hayes’ Futures Camp in January.
Justus and Wy may someday feature, but it’s unlikely to be at the 2027 Women’s World Cup. Strong form at the club level could vault dependable starters, such as Jordan Silkowitz, 25, of Bay FC or Katie Lund, 28, of Racing Louisville, into the mix, too.
For now, it’s an open question that was inevitable once Naeher called time. Hayes has previously told CBS she plans to have her core by June, so we’ll see if the upcoming seven friendlies provide enough evidence for Hayes to find her new top option in goal.
(Top photo: Getty Images)