Eight months out from the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil, all eyes are on the four-time champion U.S. women’s national team. USWNT legend and two-time World Cup winner Tobin Heath doesn’t like what she sees.
Emma Hayes’s squad regrouped this month for the first time since June to battle reigning world champions Spain in two-consecutive friendlies on home soil. La Roja, ranked No. 1 globally, secured a 2–0 victory in the first clash last Saturday, while the No. 2-ranked Stars and Stripes managed a late comeback for a 2–2 draw three days later. Many considered the series to be a preview of the World Cup final, which is set to be played out at the hallowed Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro next July.
“I feel like you could really feel the sense that these were the top two teams in the world going against each other,” Heath said on The RE—Cap Show podcast, hosted after the first friendly alongside fellow USWNT legend Christen Press. “... But there’s still a lot more questions than there are answers for the U.S. women’s national team.”
For Heath and Press, Spain outclassed the USWNT in so many fundamental ways, all of which have been glossed over—or completely disregarded—by the current players and staff and, as a result, could prove detrimental come World Cup time.
Losing to a Starless and Disrespectful Spain
“The biggest red flag is losing to Spain 2–0 at home against a Spain team that was missing some of their biggest, most important pieces,” Heath pointed out. “And yes, you can argue that we were missing [Naomi] Girma and [Emily] Sonnett and [Catarina] Macario, Sam Coffey, but then you go down the list of who Spain was missing: [Mariona] Caldentey, [Aitana] Bonmatí, Claudia Pina, Cata Coll, Esther González, Olga Carmona, Vicky López, Mapi León, that’s a lot of players, that’s a lot of star power that Spain was missing.”
Perhaps Spain’s biggest absence was Barcelona midfielder Bonmatí, who is a three-time Ballon d’Or winner and FIFA Women’s Player of the Year (2023–2025). She also won the 2023 World Cup Golden Ball. The 28-year-old is currently sidelined as she continues to recover from a broken leg suffered last winter, but is expected to return to action in the coming months and certainly by the World Cup.
Despite missing several stars, Spain still cruised to victory in the first match, scoring both goals within the span of the first 15 minutes. Nevertheless, it wasn’t because Spain played particularly well at Audi Field. Rather, the USWNT wasn’t up to par—a reality Spain was abundantly aware of and eager to expose, no matter how disrespectfully.
“I actually thought Spain didn’t have a good game at all,” Heath added. “Not just that, Spain playing the high aggressive line that they played with, to me, was the biggest slap in the face to the U.S. team.
“To a [USWNT] front line of Alyssa Thompson, Sophia [Wilson] and Trinity Rodman, to play a high line in international football against those types of attacking players was, to me, so disrespectful. The fact that they still held us to not scoring was their coach saying, ‘How aggressive can we be against this U.S. team in terms of a back line and not get punished for it?’”
Spain’s back four were adamant to push aggressively up the field, which suggests that they didn’t see the USWNT’s forwards as a threat. It is a tactic the defenders also employed in the second friendly. The Spanish defenders ultimately had good reason to do so, as the USWNT’s star-studded front line failed to exploit the space in behind Spain for the entirety of the first friendly and for much of the second one as well.
One could look at the stat line of the first game and see that the USWNT still ended the affair with 13 total shots, 10 of which were on target—way more than Spain’s six total, and assume that the Stars and Stripes did their part attacking-wise. Even in the second friendly, the USWNT had 14 total shots, six on target. The loss was simply poor luck, and as for the draw, it easily could have been a win with a couple extra minutes. That was certainly the stance manager Hayes took; however, Heath and Press illuminated something much more damning to the storyline.
• ✍️ ANALYSIS: Are USWNT Capable of Winning the World Cup? Not if It Plays Like This
A Fundamental Problem With the Offense
“When you hear Emma speak at the press conferences and you hear the players speak after the game, it’s funny. They’re really hung up on this idea of xG and all of the chances we created,” Heath said of the USWNT’s 3.0 xG compared to Spain’s 0.68, per Hayes.
She added: “Emma says, ‘It’s all about details and execution in the final third.’ I actually don’t even think the U.S. is close to being able to talk about details and execution because I think that fundamentally, the attack is so off in what they are trying to do.”
The USWNT may have generated a lot of chances against Spain; however, they weren’t the right ones. They weren’t the ones that will win games and certainly not a World Cup. To Press, it wasn’t a surprise that none of the 10 shots on target on Saturday actually found the back of the net.
“The biggest difference is watching the Spanish attack progress the ball up into the final third, slow their bodies down, pick their heads up ... play the right pass, the right decision and the right amount of control,” Press said. “Whereas we got a lot more chances, but every single time, you see us run full speed ahead, heads down. We’re not actually picking out the right pass, we’re not picking out the right shot, we are swinging.”
“We went for one out of 10 chances, and we missed nine. Those are the odds ... We have to get higher percentage chances by making better decisions in order to execute ... The best shot you can take is the worst shot that still goes in. That’s how you play the odds.”
There was a similar frenetic energy in Tuesday’s affair. When the USWNT advanced up the field, it was treated as a chaotic rush—as if it were some miracle to have the ball. When the Spanish advanced up the field, it felt inevitable. The only time the U.S. had any sense of control was in the final 10 minutes, which was what enabled the team to knot the game at the very end.
Nevertheless, for the majority of the international window, the USWNT was fundamentally erroneous in the way it progressed up the field, leading to wasteful chances that were never going to find the back of the net. For Heath and Press, this problem extends way beyond minute details and must require a tactical overhaul offensively.
That’s not even the team’s biggest concern, though.
A Lack of Passion
The last time the USWNT had been down by two goals was over two years ago, dating back to a 2–0 loss to Mexico in February 2024 at the Concacaf Gold Cup, even prior to Hayes’s tenure. And even then, Mexico didn’t score its second goal until stoppage time. Nonetheless, the USWNT looked incredibly comfortable riding that deficit in both matches against Spain.
“You have a massive opportunity being 2–0 down against Spain to practice something you never get to practice,” Heath said. “How many times does the U.S. women’s national team get to practice coming back from being 2–0 down?
“These are in-game situations that you hypothetically think through when you are preparing for a World Cup. How do you come back against a top opponent in a quarterfinal, in a semifinal?
“The U.S. showed absolutely no idea of how to come back from 2–0 down. Tactically, tempo, belief, heart. It showed no character, no tactics, no idea of how to come back from a 2–0 down. For me, that needs to be worked on bigger than anything else, and it behooves me to think that we wasted a massive learning opportunity.”
• ✍️ ANALYSIS: Which USWNT Players Made Their Case Against Spain?
Although the USWNT inevitably came back against Spain the second time around—thanks to a 86th-minute finish by Mallory Swanson, the team had the same exact scenario to befall them, conceding two early goals.
There was a lack of responsibility defensively that affected not only the backline, but the midfield too. Spain worked harder and the USWNT seemingly had no idea who to mark and how to track runners from deep. On both goals, happening just five minutes apart, Spain’s attackers ran freely into the goal mouth.
Hayes will have her hands full trying to rectify all of the fundamental errors offensively and defensively, and she’ll have the players’ passion to contend with too.
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