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USWNT Opens Group A Play At Concacaf W Championship Against Haiti

Watch USA-Haiti, Monday, July 4 at 7 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. CT on CBS Sports Network, Paramount+ and ViX

The Concacaf W Championship is here! The U.S. Women’s National Team will officially kick off its qualifying campaign for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup and 2024 Olympics on Monday, July 4, squaring off against Haiti in the opening game of the tournament. The Independence Day matchup will kick off at 6 p.m. CT / 7 p.m. ET from Estadio Universitario in Monterrey, Mexico, with broadcast coverage available for viewers in the United States on CBS Sports Network, Paramount+ and ViX.

The new format for the Concacaf W Championship was announced last fall and the tournament serves as the region’s qualifying path for the upcoming World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the 2024 Summer Games in Paris and, for a few teams, the newly instituted Concacaf W Gold Cup. The eight-team tournament runs from July 4-18 in Monterrey, Mexico and consists of a group stage followed by a knockout round. The top two-finishers from each group will advance to the semifinal and, in the process, qualify for the 2023 World Cup. The third-place finisher in each group will advance to a 10-team intercontinental playoff tournament to determine the final teams in the expand 32-team field for 2023. Additionally, the tournament champion will automatically qualify for the 2024 Olympics with the runner-up and the third-place nations progressing to a Concacaf Olympic playoff to be staged in September of 2023.


Coming off a pair of victories over Colombia at the end of June, the USA is looking to looking to qualify for its ninth consecutive FIFA Women’s World Cup, having played in every tournament since the competition’s inception in 1991 and winning a record four titles. The USA will also have the opportunity to qualify for an eighth consecutive Summer Olympics.

 

Fans will also be able to follow the action via Twitter (@USWNT), Instagram (@USWNT), Facebook and the official U.S. Soccer App.

USWNT DETAILED ROSTER BY POSITION (CLUB; CAPS/GOALS)


GOALKEEPERS (3): Aubrey Kingsbury (Washington Spirit; 1), Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage; 5), Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars; 81)

 

DEFENDERS (7): Alana Cook (OL Reign; 10/0), Emily Fox (Racing Louisville FC; 14/0), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave FC; 2/0), Sofia Huerta (OL Reign; 14/0), Kelley O’Hara (Washington Spirit; 154/3), Becky Sauerbrunn (Portland Thorns FC; 203/0), Emily Sonnett (Washington Spirit; 66/0)

 

MIDFIELDERS (6): Lindsey Horan (Olympique Lyon, FRA; 111/25), Taylor Kornieck (San Diego Wave FC; 2/1), Rose Lavelle (OL Reign; 73/20), Kristie Mewis (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 40/5), Ashley Sanchez (Washington Spirit; 9/2), Andi Sullivan (Washington Spirit; 28/3)

 

FORWARDS (7): Ashley Hatch (Washington Spirit; 10/4), Alex Morgan (San Diego Wave FC; 192/115), Mallory Pugh (Chicago Red Stars; 73/23), Midge Purce (NJ/NY Gotham FC; 15/3), Megan Rapinoe (OL Reign; 189/62), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit; 4/1), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns FC; 16/6)

 

Unlike previous years where the rosters for Concacaf Qualifying have featured 20 players, this year roster sizes were expanded to 23, matching the current World Cup roster size. U.S. Women’s National Team head coach Vlatko Andonovski announced his 23-player roster for the final competition on June 13, bringing in a squad that includes proven veterans on the international stage as along with dynamic, up-and-coming talent.

Nine players of the 23 players on this roster for the Concacaf W Championship were part of the 2019 team that won the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup and only 10 players in total have previous experience in World Cup or Olympic qualifying at the senior national team level.

 

LAST TIME OUT

The USA played its final friendly before opening qualifying on June 28, defeating Colombia, 2-0, at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah. The Americans took a 1-0 lead in the 22nd minute after a dangerous cross by defender Sofia Huerta led to a Colombian own goal. Following a 50-minute break in play due to nearby thunderstorms in the area, the USA doubled its lead in the 77th as veteran defender Kelley O’Hara hammered home a half-volley for her third career international goal and her first since 2016.

Goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher recorded the 47th shutout of her career, highlighted by a spectacular diving save in the 55th and another fine stop in the 86th to preserve the clean sheet and extend the USA’s home unbeaten streak to 69 games in a row.

INSIDE THE SERIES: USA VS. HAITI

The USA has played Haiti seven times, winning each of the previous meetings between the teams by shutout. Five of the previous seven meetings have come during Concacaf Qualifying – three in World Cup Qualifying and two in Olympic qualifying.

The USA defeated Haiti, 10-0 in the semifinals of World Cup Qualifying in Port-au-Prince in 1991 and also registered group stage victories in World Cup Qualifying in 2010 (5-0) and 2014 (6-0).

The most recent meeting between the teams came on January 28, 2020, in the USA’s opening match of Olympic Qualifying for the later-delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics. USWNT won 4-0 in Houston, Texas behind goals from Christen Press, Lynn Williams, Lindsey Horan and Carli Lloyd, but Haiti put up an impressive battled before the USA finally put the match away. Megan Rapinoe tallied a pair of assists in the victory, which saw the USA score three times in the second half. The USA’s other win over Haiti in Olympic Qualifying came in 2004, an 8-0 victory for the Americans.

2022 USWNT MEDIA GUIDE

The 2022 U.S. Women’s National Team Media Guide is available for download. The Media Guide features all the history and statistic for the USWNT, as well as full bios on technical staff and the current top players, information on the USA’s Youth Women’s National Teams and general important information on U.S. Soccer.

ABOUT THE CONCACAF W CHAMPIONSHIP

For the first time, Concacaf will hold the qualifying for the Women’s World Cup and the Olympics in the same tournament. That puts an end to the format which has seen eight previous Concacaf World Cup qualifying tournaments and five previous Concacaf Olympic qualifying tournaments. For the 1996 and 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cups, teams qualified through their placing at the previous years’ World Cup.

The eight-team field for the Concacaf W Championship features the USA and Canada, who automatically qualified for the championship round as the highest-ranked teams in the region at No. 1 and No. 6 in the world, respectively, along with the six group winners from the Concacaf W Qualifiers. For the qualifiers, 30teams were drawn into six groups of five for the qualifying competition, and played a total of four matches across the February and April 2022 FIFA Windows to determine the group winners. Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama, Haiti and Trinidad & Tobago won their respective groups to join the USA and Canada in the field for the Concacaf W Championship, which is one of the two new major women’s summer competitions taking place in the region from 2021 through 2024.

After round-robin group play in the Concacaf W Championship, the top two finishers in each group will qualify for the competition’s semifinals and guarantee their place in the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Additionally, both group stage third-place finishers will advance to a 10-team FIFA Women’s World Cup intercontinental play-off. At the conclusion of the Concacaf W Championship, the winning nation will also guarantee its place in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games Women’s Football Tournament and the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup. The runner-up and the third-place nations will progress to a Concacaf Olympic play-in to be played in September of 2023. The winner of the play-in will also guarantee their place in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games and the 2024 W Gold Cup.

 

GROUP A AT A GLANCE

The official draw for the 2022 Concacaf W Championship was held on April 19 in Miami, where the eight participating nations were drawn into two groups of four. Group A is comprised of the USA, Haiti, Jamaica and hosts Mexico while Group B features Canada, Trinidad & Tobago, Costa Rica and Panama.

Group A commences play on Monday, July 4 with USA-Haiti at 6 p.m. local / 7 p.m. ET, followed by Mexico-Jamaica at 9 p.m. local / 10 p.m. ET. Group B plays its opening matches on Tuesday, July 5, with Costa Rica-Panama (6 p.m. local / 7 p.m. ET) followed by Canada-T&T (9 p.m. local / 10 p.m. ET).

The final standings in each group will be determined by total points (three for a win, one for a tie), with the first tiebreaker being overall goal difference, followed by most total goals scored. The top two teams from each group will advance to the semifinal round, where the winner of Group A will play the second-place team from Group B and the Group B winner will face the runner-up from Group A for a spot in the final.

 

ALL EYES ON AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

With the opening match of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup just over a year away, eleven teams have already qualified for the tournament, which has been expanded to now feature 32 teams, up from 24 in both 2015 and 2019. The nations that have already punched their tickets Down Under are co-hosts Australia and New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, China PR, Philippines and Vietnam from Asia, and Sweden, France, Denmark and Spain from Europe. This will be the first Women’s World Cup at any level for both the Philippines and Vietnam, who qualified through the AFC Asian Women’s Cup. Still to be filled are four slots from Africa, four from Concacaf, three slots from South America, seven remaining slots from Europe and three slots from the 10-team playoff tournament that will feature two teams from Asia (Chinese Taipei and Thailand), two from Africa, two from Concacaf, two from South America, one from Oceania and one from Europe.


USA ROSTER NOTES

  • The USA has an overall combined record of 55-1-1 in Qualifying matches, with a 32-1-0 record in World Cup Qualifying and a mark of 23-0-1 in Olympic Qualifying.
  • The USA has won all five Olympic qualifying tournaments in which it has participated and has won eight of the nine World Cup qualifying tournaments in which it competed, the lone blemish coming in the 2010 Concacaf Women’s World Cup qualifying tournament, the USA fell to Mexico in the semifinal in Cancun, Mexico and Canada defeated Mexico in the championship game.
  • Eight players on the Concacaf W Championship roster were on the USWNT’s roster for Olympic Qualifying in 2020: Lindsey Horan, Rose Lavelle, Alyssa Naeher, Kelley O’Hara, Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, Emily Sonnett and Andi Sullivan. 
  • Nine players on this year’s 23-player CWC roster were a part of the USA’s 2018 World Cup Qualifying roster, with Alex Morgan and Mallory Pugh joining Horan, Lavelle, Naeher, O’Hara, Rapinoe, Sauerbrunn and Sonnett.
  • Megan Rapinoe leads the squad with a combined 23 appearances in qualifying events - 14 World Cup Qualifying appearances and nine Olympic qualifying appearances. Alex Morgan has 20 qualifying caps (11 World Cup and nine Olympic) while Becky Sauerbrunn has 18 (eight World Cup and 10 Olympic) and Kelley O’Hara has 16 appearances all-time for the USA in qualifying (six World Cup and 10 Olympic).
  • Morgan, Rapinoe and Sauerbrunn were on the U.S. team that last played in a World Cup qualifying tournament in Mexico. That was in 2010 when the USA lost its only match to Mexico, which occurred in the semifinal in Cancun. That loss forced the USA to win the Third-Place Match and then the two-leg playoff vs. Italy to qualify for the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, a tournament in which the USA advanced to the Final before falling in penalty kicks to Japan.
  • The most capped player on the roster is Becky Sauerbrunn at 203, followed by Alex Morgan (192), Megan Rapinoe (189), Kelley O’Hara (154) and Lindsey Horan (111) while the least capped players are Trinity Rodman (4), Naomi Girma (2), Taylor Kornieck (2) and Aubrey Kingsbury (1),
  • Twelve players on the USA roster for the Concacaf W Championship have 16 caps or fewer: Sophia Smith, Sofia Huerta, Midge Purce, Emily Fox, Ashley Hatch, Alana Cook, Ashley Sanchez, Casey Murphy, Rodman, Girma, Kornieck and Kingsbury.
  • Becky Sauerbrunn is the oldest player on the roster (37 years old) while Rodman is the youngest (20 years old) and was six years old when Sauerbrunn made her USWNT debut.
  • Of the 23 players on this roster, seven are in their 30s while eight players are age 25 or younger.
  • Morgan is the top scorer on the roster with 115 career goals. Rapinoe has 62 and Lindsey Horan has 25. Pugh has 23 goals for the USWNT while Rose Lavelle has 20.
  • Thirteen different players have scored for the USWNT so far in 2022 – Catarina Macario (5), Mallory Pugh (5), Sophia Smith (5), Rose Lavelle (2), Ashley Hatch (2), Ashley Sanchez (2), Jaelin Howell (1), Kelley O’Hara (1), Kristie Mewis (1), Midge Purce (1), Trinity Rodman (1), Andi Sullivan (1) and Taylor Kornieck (1).
  • The USA’s other five goals this year came via own goals, the most ever in a calendar year in program history with three on Feb. 20 vs. New Zealand, and one each on April 12 vs. Uzbekistan and June 28 vs. Colombia.
  • Eleven different players have registered an assist for the USWNT so far in 2022, led by Pugh with five assists. Lavelle (3 assists), Alana Cook (2) and Sanchez (2) also have multiple assists on the year while Kelley O’Hara, Sofia Huerta, Megan Rapinoe, Purce, Hatch, Macario and Sullivan have one assist each.
  • In total, 16 different players have been directly involved in goals for the USWNT in 2022, tallying either a goal or an assist.
  • Defender Alana Cook leads the USA in total minutes played so far in 2022 with 504 minutes of action, followed by defender Emily Fox (441) and midfielder Andi Sullivan (436).
  • Three players – Mallory Pugh, Ashley Sanchez and Kristie Mewis – have appeared for the USA in all seven matches in 2022.
  • Head coach Vlatko Andonovski is 34-2-6 in 42 games (two at the end of 2019, nine in 2020, 24 in 2021, and six so far in 2022).
  • Of Andonovski’s first 42 games, 31 have been at home and 17 have been against teams ranked in the top-13 in the world.
  • Fourteen players have earned their first cap under Andonovski, 10 of whom are on this roster.
  • Through seven games in 2022, the USWNT has had 20 goals scored by players under the age of 24. Over the course of 2019, 2020 and 2021 — a total of 57 games — the USWNT had a combined total of 10 goals scored by players under the age of 24.
  • Eight of the 12 NWSL clubs have players on the roster with the Washington Spirit having seven, followed by OL Reign with four.

 

IN FOCUS: HAITI | FIVE THINGS TO KNOW


Current FIFA World Ranking: 60

Concacaf Ranking: 7

FIFA Country Code: HAI

World Cup appearances: N/A

Olympic appearances: N/A

Record vs. USA: 0-7-0

Last Meeting vs. USA: January 28, 2020 (4-0 USA win in Olympic Qualifying; Houston, Texas)

Coach: Laurent Mortel (FRA)


HAITI WOMEN’S NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM ROSTER BY POSITION

 

Goalkeepers (3): 1-Madelina Fleuriot (Exafoot FC), 12-Nahomie Ambroise (Anacaona SC), 23-Lara Larco (Georgetown, USA)

 

Defenders (7): 2-Chelsea Surpris (AS Yzeure, FRA), 3-Jennyfer Limage (Grenoble Foot 38, FRA), 5-Maudeline Moryl (Exafoot FC), 14-Claire Constant (University of Virginia, USA),18-Estericove Joseph (Exafoot FC), 20-Kethna Louis (Stade de Reims, FRA), 21-Ruthny Mathurin (University of Louisiana-Lafayette, USA)

 

Midfielders (4): 4-Tabita Joseph (Stade Brestois, FRA), 6-Melchie Dumornay (Stade de Reims, FRA), 13-Betina Petit Frere (Stade Brestois, FRA), 15-Florsie Joseph (Exacfoot FC)

 

Forwards (9): 7-Batcheba Louis (FF Issy Les Moulineaux, FRA), 8-Meghane St-Cyr (Aigles Ahuntsic, CAN), 9-Sherly Jeudy (Grenoble Foot 38, FRA), 10-Nerilia Mondesir (Montpellier HSC, FRA), 11-Roseline Eloissaint (FC Nantes, FRA), 16-Milan Pierre (George Mason University, USA), 17-Mikerline Saintfelix (Montauban FC, FRA), 19-Dayana Pierre (AS Tigresses), 22-Roselord Borgella (FF Issy Les Moulineaux, FRA)

 

HAITI ROSTER NOTES

  • Haiti advanced to the 2022 Concacaf W Championship by winning its pre-qualifying group over the February and April FIFA windows earlier this year. Haiti racked up 44 goals in winning four games, 6-0 over Honduras, 11-0 over Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a remarkable 21-0 over the British Virgin Islands and 6-0 over Cuba.
  • Forward Roselord Borgella, who plays for Issy in France’s Division 1 Féminine, led Haiti with 11 goals during the qualification phase, including five goals in the victory over the British Virgin Islands. Fellow attacker Batcheba Louis, who also plays her club soccer for Issy, was second on the team in scoring in the Concacaf W Qualifiers with eight goals.
  • Haiti’s Under-20 WNT qualified for the 2018 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, its first FIFA event for its women’s team. Haiti lost all three games at that tournament, but it was a massive accomplishment for Haitian women’s soccer and seven players from that U-20 team are on this qualifying roster:

    Goalkeeper Madelina Fleuriot, defenders Ruthny Mathurin, Midfielder Melchie Dumornay and forwards Sherly Jeudy, Nerilia Mondesir, Roseline Eloissaint and Milan Pierre.
  • The speedy Mondesir scored all three goals for Haiti in the World Cup, the lone score in the 2-1 loss to China PR and twice in the 3-2 loss to Germany.
  • At the 2018 Concacaf U-20 Women’s Championship, Haiti lost to Canada 4-0 in group play, but made the Semifinals where it lost to the USA in penalty kicks. In the Third-Place match, Haiti famously beat Canada, 1-0, on a goal from Jeudy to earn a berth to the U-20 World Cup.
  • In a sign of the growth of Haitian women’s soccer, 19 of the 23 players on the roster are playing outside of the country with 12 playing in France (one of Haiti’s official languages is French) and four at universities in the United States: former U.S. youth international Claire Constant is at the University of Virginia, Florida native Lara Larco is a goalkeeper at Georgetown, defender Ruthny Mathurin  is at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and forward Milan Pierre, who hails from Florida, plays at George Mason.
  • Meghane St-Cyr attends college in Canada.

 

Go Deeper

WNT2022 CONCACAF W Championship