Temple head coach Diane Richardson has led her program to back-to-back 20 win seasons for the first time since Tonya Cardoza did it from 2014 to 2017. However, Richardson knows in order to maintain success in today’s era of college basketball, money is a major factor.
So Richardson decided to start a unique fundraising campaign to get donors excited to help the program. She reached out to Philadelphia legend and former Temple head coach Dawn Staley.
Richardson and Staley made a fundraising campaign called “Match the Momentum,” where Staley would match each donation the Temple women’s basketball team receives from Oct. 20 to 25. Both coaches want Temple to be competitive, even with Staley sitting as the head coach at South Carolina.
“Just talking with her about the way the landscape is and that, in order for us to be competitive, we need dollars,” Richardson said. “It was my pitch to her that we want to maintain or even get higher than where we are right now, and it’s going to take money.”
Staley’s area ties run deep. She was born and raised in the city and attended Dobbins Technical High School. She returned to Philly in 2000 to become the head coach for Temple, where she became a coaching legend in her nine years with the program. She guided the Owls to 172 wins and six NCAA tournament appearances before leaving for South Carolina in May 2008.
Richardson and Staley have a friendship that goes back to when Richardson was the head coach at Riverdale Baptist School in Upper Malboro, Md., and Staley recruited her players.
Once Richardson had Staley on board to set up the campaign, the fourth-year head coach took the idea to Temple’s marketing department. Staley helped the campaign gain some attention by recording a video talking about what North Philly and Temple means to her.
“Her roots are here,” Richardson said. “She understands that if we can put out a product that people can look at and aspire to, all the young girls in the Philly area can say, ‘You know what? I can see myself doing that.’ Her commitment to us at Temple, obviously, she did a lot for Temple when she was here. … She wants young girls to be able to look up to us, just like she did when she was growing up.”
Temple continued to promote the campaign throughout the week, with videos from guard Tristen Taylor, forward Jaleesa Molina, and Richardson. Taylor and Molina spoke about what it means to be an Owl, their experiences with the program, and how the donations could help the team with traveling, recruiting and nutrition.
The Owls will open their season on Nov. 3 against George Mason and were picked to finish fourth in the American in the preseason poll.
In case you missed it 📰
Temple Women’s Basketball is proud to announce the launch of the Match the Momentum campaign a weeklong giving challenge inspired by former head coach Dawn Staley’s generous contribution to the program.
“Our players have been doing a great job,” Richardson said. We’ve had back-to-back 20 win seasons, without the notoriety. So now that hopefully we have some fans and we have some donors and we have some more money, we can continue that climb.”
Richardson is also hoping the campaign will put more eyes on her program. Staley is one of the most popular figures in women’s college basketball, and both coaches want to see Temple back at the top.
“I think it puts an eye on us,” Richardson said. “Obviously football and men’s basketball is really important, but women’s basketball has really exploded. Now, with Dawn behind it, she’s got name recognition, and people would look at that and say, ‘Well, Dawn’s doing it, then let me take a look at Temple women’s basketball.’ I’m sure we will get some eyes that have never seen Temple women’s basketball, because she put her name out there, her commitment, and her belief in us. Now other people will follow.”
When a team gives up a goal on a corner kick, it’s rarely just down to one person. But when a team gives up two goals on corner kicks in one game, there likely will be alarm bells.
That’s what happened Thursday night at Subaru Park, where the U.S. women were upset by Portugal, 2-1.
Manager Emma Hayes was frustrated afterward, as were many of her players. There are few things — sometimes nothing — a soccer coach dislikes more than giving up goals on set pieces.
Nor did it help that this U.S. squad looked unusually disjointed, even for a group that hadn’t been together in four months and had just two days of practice before kickoff.
“I didn’t recognize us,” Hayes said. “ I felt that we just rushed everything. We went direct. We didn’t look like the team that we’ve been working on, but that’s what happens when you got 113 days apart.”
She admitted she had “felt it the last two days in training,” seeing “so many misconnections, just taking a bit of time for us to get on the same page.”
And she offered a few of the rhetorical flourishes that have long made her popular among fans and players.
“Sometimes you need a kick up the back side like that,” she said at one point.
“I was frustrated this evening because it felt like a game of Whac-a-Mole,” she said at another. ”I felt like I put something out, and then I was whacking that — that’s how the game felt for me as a coach. And I’ve been doing this for so long, I hate them games.”
Hayes wasn’t going to pick at individual players or positions, to no surprise. She knew, though, that the U.S. team’s decades of success have also earned it the right to be criticized, and she usually doesn’t mind that when it’s warranted.
There will be questions about the centerbacks and forwards. The latter certainly falls under Hayes’ remark that “there’s so many decisions we made” that felt like the wrong one.
“I’m like, ‘Is it the right moment to take a shot? Slip a player in?’” she said. “No, we didn’t make those decisions.”
And from up in the press box, there were questions about a position that has faced several lately.
Portugal’s Fatima Pinto (center) celebrates after scoring the game-winning goal.
Minding the net
For much of the night, goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce didn’t play badly. She was credited with two saves, the best of which was a close-range stop on Tatiana Pinto after a misplay by U.S. centerback Tara McKeown.
But Tullis-Joyce didn’t look good on either of those corners.
Again, neither solely were her fault. On the first, Diana Gomes jumped amid three U.S. players to win the header and knocked it low, beating Tullis-Joyce on the bounce.
The second was off an outswinging corner that Tullis-Joyce wouldn’t have gotten to in any circumstance, and Fatima Pinto’s shot bounced off two U.S. players. So it’s nitpicking to say Tullis-Joyce’s reaction time wasn’t ideal. But the standard is high, and it felt like just enough to plant a seed of doubt.
“Those were tough to take on the chin,” Tullis-Joyce said.
Asked about her play on those corner kicks, she said: “They had some driven corners into that back post area. I’m sure I’ll take a look at the clips afterward to see whether or not maybe I could play a bigger role in that, but that’s just for me to look and review afterward.”
Hayes likely will stick with Tullis-Joyce as her new No. 1 goalkeeper for a while. The 29-year-old New Yorker has generally played well for the U.S., and is playing quite well at club level for England’s Manchester United.
Still, we’ll see if anyone else gets minutes over the next two games during Sunday’s rematch vs. Portugal (4 p.m., TNT, Universo) — coincidentally Alyssa Naeher’s retirement tribute — and Wednesday’s game vs. New Zealand in Kansas City (8 p.m., TNT, Universo).
Current No. 2 Claudia Dickey presumably would be first in line for that shot. And if after that, Aubrey Kingsbury leads the Washington Spirit on a second straight run to the NWSL title game, there might be some clamor for her to get a call-up for the first time since June of last year.
“It felt really individual out there,” said midfielder Rose Lavelle, who scored the U.S.’s goal just 33 seconds after kickoff. “I think everyone was trying to maybe fix it on their own. That’s something that, when the going gets tough, we’ve got to make sure we’re sticking together, playing together.”
Sam Coffey was particularly miffed about conceding on those corner kicks. Asked how she’d assess the plays, she responded promptly: “Obviously, we got scored on them, so I wouldn’t assess them very high.”
Sam Coffey (center) on the ball in the middle of the action.
She credited Portugal, and rightly so. Though the Navegadoras are No. 23 in FIFA’s global rankings, they’ve got more talent than a few teams ahead of them — as they showed in tying reigning European champion England in February, then Italy at this summer’s Euros.
Those results are more telling than the one that naturally stuck in many American fans’ minds Thursday night, the scoreless tie Portugal pulled against the U.S. at the 2023 World Cup.
But Coffey saved most of her words for her own side, which also was the right move.
“I think whether we’re not locked in enough in those moments or we’re not doing good enough in our man-marking or being alive for a second phase [when a ball is recycled after being cleared], I think that’s an area we’ve always prided ourselves on, and that was not up to our standard tonight,” she said. “Set pieces win championships, win games. And for them to capitalize on those and win the game that way, I think is really disappointing for us, and we have to be better.”
Diana Gomes (center) celebrates scoring Portugal’s first goal.
It is obviously better to lose in an off-year friendly than in an actual tournament. And on top of any loss lighting a spark under this group, they know they’ll see the same team again a couple days.
“The lucky thing for us is we have a second shot at this,” Lavelle said. “There’s no months of time between the next time we can maybe get better from this loss. So we have three days to turn around and show up better.”
Tullis-Joyce was even more blunt: “Revenge, for sure.”
It will no doubt get attention, as this team always does.
For the first 33 seconds this time, it looked like things had changed. But by the end of the night, Portugal had the Americans’ number again — this time a 2-1 win as the visitors at Subaru Park.
It was the U.S.’s first loss in a visit to the Philadelphia area since 2004 and the current team’s first loss in seven games dating back to February.
Those 33 seconds were how long it took for the U.S. to open the scoring through Rose Lavelle. Catarina Macario set the play up with a dazzling move, running and dancing amid Portugal’s defense before feeding the assist.
It was the seventh-fastest goal in U.S. women’s team history, and it will not be recorded that Lavelle clearly was offside. But with no video review in this friendly, the goal stood, and the crowd of 17,297 — including U.S. legend Alex Morgan and many ex-teammates honoring her retirement ceremony — cheered.
Lavelle nearly scored again on a breakaway in the ninth, sprung beautifully by Alyssa Thompson. But Portugal goalkeeper Inês Pereira denied her with a charge off her line and a tip of the ball to just the right side of the post.
From there, Portugal turned the tide. In the 37th minute, Kika Nazareth spun around Lavelle, passed wide to Andreia Jacinto, and she tried a chip attempt that landed on top of the crossbar. Two minutes later, a misplay by Tara McKeown let Tatiana Pinto get free on goal, and U.S. goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce had to come off her line for a sprawling stop.
Portugal scored on the ensuing corner kick, as Diana Gomes beat Emily Sonnett on the jump.
The U.S. looked livelier early in the second half, but Thompson flubbed a chance, and Macario got caught up to on a breakaway just in time to have the ball poked from behind.
Nor could the Americans capitalize on a close-in free kick from the right wing, served well by Sam Coffey but not finished by anyone in the crowded 18-yard box.
U.S. manager Emma Hayes took her time to make substitutions, but when she did, it was a quadruple move in the 69th minute. In came midfielders Claire Hutton and Lily Yohannes and forwards Yazmeen Ryan and Emma Sears; out went Coffey, Lindsey Heaps, Michelle Cooper, and Macario.
Three minutes later, Portugal took the lead off another corner kick when Fátima Pinto trapping the service wonderfully and shooting low past Tullis-Joyce. There was a bit of a deflection, but Tullis-Joyce looked a little too frozen, and Hayes did not hide her frustration.
Jaedyn Shaw was next to enter for the U.S. in the 78th, replacing Lavelle.
The U.S. did not lack for scoring chances, but it couldn’t finish them. Outside back Avery Patterson forced a sharp save from Pereira in the 81st, and Yohannes headed right at Pereira a few seconds later.
As the U.S. searched for an equalizer, Sears sent a well-placed pass through the 18-yard box in the 93rd that no teammate caught up to. And in the last seconds, Thompson shot when she could have passed — one of a few less-than-ideal decisions she made on the ball — and Yohannes lofted a cross that Pereira caught.
That felt like the night in a nutshell, right as the final whistle blew to end it.
There are a few ways to measure who the players of the moment are for the U.S. women’s soccer team.
One is in the box score, as usual: goals, assists, saves, and so on. Another is measured before kickoff, and with a decibel meter.
Most of the time, the winner of that contest is a veteran, and that might happen again when the Americans play Portugal on Thursday at Subaru Park (7 p.m., TNT, Peacock). Sam Coffey is an obvious favorite, as is electric playmaker Rose Lavelle.
But keep an eye — or an ear, in this case — out for two of the U.S. squad’s younger players who are quickly becoming fan favorites. Midfielder Lily Yohannes and winger Alyssa Thompson have all the skills and charisma to be national team mainstays, and their bandwagons are filling up fast.
Lily Yohannes (center) working out during the U.S. women’s soccer team’s practice Tuesday morning at the Union’s facilities.
Yohannes plays club soccer for Europe’s most decorated team, France’s OL Lyonnes (formerly known as Lyon). The 19-year-old from D.C.’s Virginia suburbs joined in July, as OL retooled its squad to seek a record-furthering ninth Champions League title.
She hasn’t needed long to settle in. Last Wednesday, she scored a stunning goal from nearly 45 yards out in her team’s European season opener, a 3-0 win over Austria’s St. Pölten. The play went viral instantly, heightening the anticipation of her first U.S. appearance since June.
“So many world class players and such a high standard, high level every day in training,” Yohannes said. “Every day is super-intentional, and you just have to, like, stay switched on every day. And I think that’s something that’s super good for me and for my development to have.”
LILY YOHANNES WITH A MOMENT OF MAGIC 🪄
The @USWNT and OL Lyonnes young star with an absolute worldie for her first #UWCL goal ✨
She has two American teammates at the club, midfielders Lindsey Heaps — the national team’s longtime captain — and Korbin Shrader. Heaps had already taken Yohannes under her wing in U.S. camps, and has done so more now.
“I think she’s just such a quality player and such a footballer,” Heaps said. “And to have her in Lyon, to now be there and learn from all the players that are there, is such a an incredible experience for her. But I think she just fits in our team so well, as she started out.”
Heaps blazed the trail 11 years ago for American teens who skip college to turn pro in Europe, and Yohannes is one of many who’ve followed her. But even the veteran had to rave about that long-range goal, calling it “absurd when you think about an 18-year-old taking a chance like that.”
Thompson joined Chelsea, England’s biggest team, this summer from the NWSL’s Angel City. The Blues have never won the women’s Champions League, and have never been shy about craving it.
So it turned heads when they not only brought Thompson to London, but did so for a $1.3 million transfer fee — not small by women’s soccer standards, but well below expectations for a 20-year-old.
She has also started quickly. At the same hour as Yohannes’ goal, Thompson notched a goal and an assist in Chelsea’s 4-0 rout of France’s Paris FC.
“I really wasn’t thinking about leaving Angel City, and then when I got the offer, like, a week before the transfer window, I felt like immediately that I wanted to go,” Thompson said. “I’ve always wanted to play in Europe, and I felt like this opportunity, I don’t know when it would come again, and Chelsea is such an amazing club, known all over the world.”
“I was like, I really want to go and experience a different place — I’ve lived in L.A. my whole life,” she said. “I feel like this should be just so good for me, like, as a player, obviously, but as a person too, just developing things that I’ve never had to think about before.”
There have also been moments of levity. A reporter from The Athletic got the best answer out of Thompson on the day, asking about off-the-field adjustment.
“They have less AC … I really like it cold when I’m sleeping, so that’s annoying sometimes,” Thompson said, joining a long tradition of Americans lamenting England’s lack of air-conditioning. “And I haven’t tried any of the English food. I don’t like beans in general, so I just wouldn’t try it.”
Alyssa Thompson (right) working out in a drill during Tuesday’s practice.
Neither player is new to the national team at this point, or to its devoted fan base. Yohannes debuted in June of last year (and scored that night too) and has played seven games; Thompson has 22 caps, three goals, and three assists, and was on the 2023 World Cup team.
Thompson narrowly missed making last year’s Olympic squad, but that was always likely to be just a short setback. Now she’s in form, and will likely see a lot of playing time in this month’s games.
“Alyssa, she fits in seamlessly to to Chelsea’s game,” Heaps said. “She just got her first goal, and I think that’s something that she’s wanted since she’s set foot there in Chelsea. So, very happy for her.”
A historic day in Chester
Tuesday marked the return of the U.S. women to the area for the first time in 3½ years, and also something never seen around here.
For a few minutes in the late morning, the national team and the Union were practicing in the club’s training complex at the same time, with one squad at each end of the three grass fields along Seaport Drive.
It was the first time the Union shared the space simultaneously with another professional squad, and it likely won’t be the last.
A view from above the fields on Tuesday morning, with the Union in the foreground and the U.S. women in the background.
“The appetite for soccer here is incredible,” said longtime Union captain Alejandro Bedoya, who will attend Thursday night’s game with his daughter. “There’s so much talent when you look at the men’s national team, for the women’s national team, for the Union academy, the players that have come through here. … It’s amazing. And what this sportsplex means, it was a great initiative to get this built.”
The closest previous occasion was earlier this summer, when Chelsea borrowed some of the Union’s fields but did most of their work inside Subaru Park. The nearest thing to an overlap was when the English club invited a few Union reserve squad players to come over from their practice to fill out a scrimmage.
Next year, the complex will be a base camp for one of the teams in the World Cup. But it will be mostly reserved for that, with MLS planning to shut down its schedule during the tournament.
In the mind’s eye, October 2010 might still feel recent. But there are a few ways to measure how long it has really been since Alex Morgan scored her first U.S. women’s soccer team goal.
One is that back then, the future superstar was in college at the University of California. She was a senior set to graduate a semester early, but she still wasn’t a pro yet when she took the field at what then was called PPL Park.
The other is that her historic night in Chester had just 2,505 witnesses in the stands.
That was partially because the Phillies had a home playoff game that evening, one that turned out to be Roy Halladay’s no-hitter. But it was also nine months before the moment that sparked a new boom of interest in women’s soccer that has carried into the present: Megan Rapinoe’s legendary cross for Abby Wambach’s goal in the 2011 World Cup quarterfinals.
LAST MINUTE EQUALIZER 🤯
At No. 2 in our memorable moments in FIFA Women’s World cup history is Abby Wambach’s late equalizer for the @uswnt in the 2011 quarterfinals 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/8M0eKEp2sE
Before all that — before two World Cup titles, an Olympic gold, two U.S. league titles, a Champions League title in Europe, and so much more — there was this moment.
And before Morgan grew her girl-next-door personality into a hammer that pounded soccer’s old guard, a 21-year-old entered a game as a substitute with her team down, 1-0.
“It was a really tense night before that goal,” Morgan told The Inquirer ahead of her national team retirement ceremony Thursday at the U.S.-Portugal game at Subaru Park (7 p.m., TNT, Peacock). “We had a really long unbeaten streak on home soil, and so coming in in that moment and being called upon, it was like, ‘OK, are you sure you’re calling upon me?’”
Just over 10 minutes after Morgan took the field, Heather Mitts hit a long ball forward from the midfield line. Wambach was first to it, knocked it down, and, two bounces later, Morgan thumped it in the net.
“It was a big sigh of relief,” Morgan said, “and it was a great moment that I’ll always remember.”
She also remembered the small crowd. That was a fairly common sight back then, with the glow of the 1999 era long faded. The U.S.’s 2008 Olympic gold, led by Carli Lloyd, briefly rekindled the flame, but there was no top-level domestic league in this country from 2004 to 2008.
In June 2011, Morgan, Lloyd, and company played their World Cup send-off game at the former Red Bull Arena (now Sports Illustrated Stadium) in North Jersey before a crowd of 5,852. Six weeks later, their world changed forever.
“We come back [after] we lose in the final, and all of a sudden, everyone’s paying attention more,” Morgan said. “We gain momentum, we win an Olympics in 2012, and in that final in 2012, we have 80,000 people watching at Wembley [Stadium] in London. … Everything kind of turned, all in that moment.”
For over a decade, Morgan was the star of stars. But time comes for every athlete, and after the Olympics in 2021, it started to for her. Then-U.S. manager Vlatko Andonovski started to bring in the next generation, and Morgan did not play for the national team from that October until June 2022.
She was recalled for Concacaf’s World Cup and Olympic qualifying tournament, as the national team faced many injuries and she was on a tear in the NWSL. But she insisted on taking nothing for granted.
As she spoke now, she again summoned the weight of the crest she wore 224 times.
“I never took playing for the national team for granted,” she said. “I knew that one day you could be there, and the next day you won’t, if you don’t continue to make a case for yourself. I think that was really the mentality that the previous generation — Abby, Shannon Boxx, Christie Rampone — set in stone for this team, and maybe it was the previous generation that also instilled that in them.”
Morgan knew she was perceived — and still is — as the golden girl, attractive to marketers for more reasons than just her skills. But people in the soccer world who know her well knew she put in the work.
“For me it was like, you don’t walk into this team and wear this jersey with the assumption that you deserve to be there day in and day out without working for it, sunup to sundown,” she said. “A lot of people think with me it was an easy ride, and I was a real shoo-in on the team for 13, 14, 15 years, and that’s just not the case. I fought to be there every single day.”
The most famous of Alex Morgan’s many goal celebrations: drinking tea after flattening England in the 2019 World Cup semifinals, on her birthday no less.
And though she has given countless interviews in her career, she had not forgotten that one from 2022 and the circumstances that surrounded it.
“I had injuries, and I was out on maternity leave, and I needed a break after grinding and having my daughter, and this is exactly when we talked,” she said. “[I] was being omitted from the team for a certain amount of months because I needed a little bit of an extra break because I hadn’t stopped since having my daughter.”
When Andonovski expressed his displeasure, Morgan was ready.
“I said, ‘This is how you’re going to get the best out of me, is if I take this break,’” she said. “I’m glad I’d made that decision at the time, but I had to grind to get back into it.”
Vlatko Andonovski (left) dropped Alex Morgan from the U.S. squad after the 2021 Olympics but brought her back in 2022 and kept her involved through the 2023 World Cup.
She was ready for that, too.
“That mentality is not one that I created on my own,” Morgan said. “It’s one that this team had from the very start, from the very first time that I entered into the team: one of not making assumptions, and one of working for everything that we earned, and knowing that we can never take anything for granted. I hope that players now continue to live by that — certainly, certainly I did.”
And so, on cue, to the present generation of players whom Morgan will watch from the stands on Thursday. Some of Morgan’s teammates are still going, surrounded by a fleet of young risers aiming for the 2027 World Cup.
“To be there and to be able to see the players and kind of be in that environment for a little bit is really fun and nostalgic,” Morgan said. “But I think that this team is in a really good place. You want to be in this place where you’re giving players chances a couple of years before you kind of narrow in on that core group when it comes to the World Cup year.”
They likely will be on display at Subaru Park: 18-year-old Lily Yohannes, 19-year-old Claire Hutton, 20-year-olds Olivia Moultrie, Jaedyn Shaw, and Alyssa Thompson — the last two of whom already have major tournament experience.
“There’s a lot of young players that already have incredibly valuable experience, with either the previous World Cup or Olympics,” Morgan said. “There’s also a lot of opportunity to become leaders on this team. … I feel like all these younger players are making names for themselves, and, yeah, I’m really excited to see [them].”
Just as they will be excited to see her, the one who set the bar they all want to reach.
*that* goal (you know the one)
Exactly a decade ago at London 2012, @alexmorgan13's game-winning header vs. Canada sent the @USWNT to the gold medal match.
NEW YORK — After months of speculation and waiting, the United States’ big bid to organize the 2031 women’s World Cup across the continent became official on Monday.
The U.S. launched its effort with Mexico, Costa Rica, and Jamaica, with one eye on the tournament’s expansion to 48 teams and another on giving women’s soccer in the Concacaf region a big boost.
“We’re proud to lead this bid, and we chose to do it together with our Concacaf partners because this moment is bigger than any one country,” U.S. Soccer Federation president Cindy Cone said at a news conference with officials from the three other countries and a number of former star players.
More than 30 U.S. cities have expressed interest in getting involved, including Philadelphia. The city was a host the last time the women’s World Cup was in the U.S., in 2003, and will host the men’s tournament for the first time next year.
Mia Hamm (left) led the United States’ win over Nigeria at Lincoln Financial Field in the 2003 women’s World Cup.
“We are excited for the possibility to host the women’s World Cup and learning the bid process, and we’re definitely interested to learn more,” PHL Sports deputy executive director Brea Stanko told The Inquirer. “We hosted the women’s World Cup in 2003 — it’s grown exponentially. It was a great event for us, and we’re excited to see what we could bring here.”
The World Cup would come a year after Philadelphia’s WNBA team launches, continuing the growth of women’s sports in the city.
“You can see the growth of the sport, as we heard tonight,” said Maria Grasso, chiefs sales officer for the Convention and Visitors Bureau. “I think that’s truly exciting for us. We have a tremendous relationship with FIFA, as well as U.S. Soccer, which just gives us all the reasons we [are] really excited about this, like the rest of this room.”
The official bid book is due in November, and this bid is expected to be the only one worldwide. While it’s not official yet, it’s likely just a formality. And though the due date is a month from now, the host cities don’t have to be officially set when the bid book goes in.
U.S. Soccer Federation CEO JT Batson in January.
Cone and U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson said the selection process won’t happen until after next year’s men’s tournament is done, given how much work is going into that. (For comparison, North America’s 2026 men’s bid won a vote in 2018, and cities were picked in 2022.)
“As the only bidders for the FIFA 2031 women’s World Cup, I admit I like our chances,” Cone said with a laugh. “When we are officially selected, we’ll work with FIFA to deliver the biggest, most impactful women’s sporting event in history.”
FIFA’s vote is expected next April at the global governing body’s congress in Vancouver, the host city of the 2015 women’s World Cup final and one of the many hosts of next year’s men’s tournament.
“Our confederation’s commitment to women’s football has never been stronger, and hosting the FIFA women’s World Cup [in] 2031 will build on this momentum,” Concacaf president and FIFA vice president Victor Montagliani said in a statement. He was unable to attend in person.
U.S. Soccer president Cindy Cone
Cone said when she pitched the multi-country idea to Montagliani, “he didn’t hesitate for a second. He jumped in immediately, offered his full support, and has been one of the strongest advocates for our vision from day one.”
It will be the third time the U.S. hosts the tournament, after the groundbreaking 1999 edition and the on-short-notice 2003 edition. Mexico hosted a world championship for women’s national teams in 1971 before FIFA officially launched a women’s World Cup 20 years later, and the country will become a three-time men’s World Cup host next year — 1970, 1986, and 2026.
Costa Rica and Jamaica, meanwhile, will host a senior-level FIFA tournament for the first time.
“One of our goals of an inclusive 2031 women’s World Cup was [to be] an instigator for investment, obviously in our countries, but also across the region and ultimately the world,” Batson said. “And for Jamaica and Costa Rica to show the world that they can host a Women’s World Cup and obviously field great teams, that is a great motivator to programs and countries all across the world.”
Mexico hosted an unofficial women’s soccer world championship in 1971. In modern times, FIFA has officially recognized the event’s significance in growing the sport.
The proposed venues in the other countries aren’t official yet, nor is how many games each country will get. Mexico will have choices to make, with Monterrey, Guadalajara, and Mexico City set to be host cities next year. Monterrey in particular has become a hotbed for the women’s game in recent years.
Costa Rica and Jamaica will presumably use their national stadiums: the former’s 42,000-seat modern venue in San José, and the latter’s historic 35,000-seat venue in Kingston.
“To realize that there’s a chance that globally, people can experience this on this great of a scale, and for the U.S. to recognize the beauty of that, and to be in partnership with us, it means so much,” said former Jamaican national team player Cheyna Matthews, who played in the 2019 and 2023 World Cups and for seven years in the NWSL.
“I just think about the impact that this is going to have for young girls in Jamaica,” Matthews continued. “I think even young boys who aspire to be part of the Reggae Boyz [Jamaica’s men’s team], I think that this just provides an opportunity for them to see it. Because some can’t travel, some have never left Kingston. … I think that it will obviously inspire, but it’ll continue to have that dividend later on.”
A quiet Saturday morning in Kensington was graced with a bit of soccer stardust.
U.S. Women’s and Gotham FC centerback Tierna Davidson visited the Safe-Hub complex, adjacent to the Scanlon Recreation Center, to help to run a clinic for young girls from across the city.
“It’s such an honor to be asked to do something like this,” she told The Inquirer. “I always love being able to connect with the next generation and inspire, even if it’s not to play soccer. If it is, fantastic, but if it’s even just to be inspired in any other realm of life, that’s something that I strive to do as well.”
Along with a few rounds of drills, Davidson sat down for a Q&A session with the kids. She spoke about her journey in the sport and as a person, including some powerful words about the importance of seeking help when needed along the way.
“I think that’s something that I wish I heard younger, how important it is to ask for help and how it is not something that you should be ashamed of,” she said. “It’s actually something that you should be proud to be able to do, and it requires humility and confidence to do it.”
Tierna Davidson (center) speaking with some of the girls who took part in Saturday’s clinic.
Those younger days were when she made her senior U.S. Women’s debut while still in college at Stanford. Either of those things would be hard enough on its own.
“For a long time, I thought that I needed to be excellent at everything by myself, and if I had help, then it meant that I wasn’t that good at it,” Davidson said. “And that’s just not how you get good at things. You have to ask people for help, whether it’s an expert in that field, whether you just need kind of some emotional support, whatever it might be. It is the way that you get better at something, it is the way that you get through hard things.”
Now the 27-year-old centerback’s mantle is full of trophies: the 2017 NCAA championship, the 2019 World Cup (where she was the U.S. squad’s youngest player), last year’s Olympics, and this year’s Concacaf women’s Champions Cup.
The girls in attendance Saturday were drawn to Davidson’s presence, no matter how much experience with soccer they’d had.
Tierna Davidson (right) and Safe-Hub program development director Samantha Swerdloff (left) working with some of Saturday’s participants.
“To have her come to Philly, and specifically to Kensington and Safe-Hub, is a really powerful message,” Safe-Hub coach and program development director Samantha Swerdloff said. “It shows the girls in this neighborhood that they matter. … So it was great for them to hear from her about what it takes to be successful, and I really appreciated her reflections on [how] she’s more than just a soccer player.”
Davidson praised the players for being “excited and engaged” and said “it warms my heart to see the group of girls that we have here today be such stewards of the next generation.”
The day was also a reminder of something less positive: Davidson isn’t playing right now because of the second torn ACL of her career. She suffered the injury in late March and is making her way through the long rehab process. It was merely a coincidence that she came to town a few days before the U.S. women’s team’s game against Portugal at Subaru Park on Thursday (7 p.m., TNT, Peacock).
She’s one of the few big names on the injured list for the team’s October games. Fans also won’t get to see centerback Naomi Girma or superstar striker Trinity Rodman. But at least Davidson will be in the stands, joining what’s expected to be a slew of legends attending Alex Morgan’s retirement ceremony.
Tierna Davidson (right) helped the U.S. beat Marta’s Brazil in last year’s Olympic gold-medal game.
Manager Emma Hayes’ roster has its share of familiar faces, including longtime captain Lindsey Heaps and Rose Lavelle, Davidson’s Gotham FC teammate. There also are many young players whom fans will want to get to know, and Davidson is an expert on one of them: defender Lilly Reale, another Gotham colleague.
The 22-year-old was one of Gotham’s first signings after the NWSL abolished its college draft, allowing college players to be pursued as free agents. Reale was a four-year starter at UCLA and was last year’s Big Ten defender of the year. After turning pro, she converted from centerback to left back.
Davidson praised Reale for doing “an excellent job adapting” to the new role.
“Doing it at a very high level as a rookie in this league is very difficult to do, with the kinds of forwards that you have to be handling,” she said. “She’s really taken it in stride. And on top of that, aside from being an exceptional player, she’s also a great teammate and a fantastic locker-room personality to have.”
Lilly Reale made her senior U.S. women’s national team debut in June.
As for Davidson’s recovery timeline, she said she hopes to be back on the field, at least in training, by January. That would allow her to travel with Gotham to that month’s inaugural FIFA Women’s Champions Cup final four in London.
Gotham will play the winner of South America’s Copa Libertadores, Brazil’s Corinthians, in the semifinals. The winner would then likely would play England’s Arsenal for the title, with that side of the bracket still to unfold.
“To be able to potentially play an exceptional team, a Champions League winner from Europe, is something that we’d be really excited about — but, of course, we have to take care of business in that semifinal game,” Davidson said. “I think that we have a lot of fantastic, well-experienced international players on our team, but we also have a good group of players that haven’t been in this sort of situation. And I think it’ll be really, really great for the whole team to experience that level of exposure, and pressure, and quality of game.”
Between adapting to college coursework, independent living, and the freshman flu, a college freshman faces plenty of challenges in their first semester.
La Salle’s Sofia Nordbeck faced those challenges while also adapting to life in the U.S. and racing in the 2025 Ironman World Championship on Oct. 11 in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.
Nordbeck, who moved to the U.S. from her native Sweden to join the Explorers’ triathlon team this fall, completed the 140.6-mile IWC race in 13 hours, 9 minutes, and 45 seconds. She finished 51st among women aged 18-24 in the ultraendurance triathlon.
“There were so many times during the race where I thought it wouldn’t happen,” Nordbeck said. “I was very shocked, and I’ve been shocked for a few days now. I still can’t really wrap my head around what I’ve done.”
Nordbeck, a 20-year-old freshman, is an experienced triathlete. When coach Sage Maaranen recruited Nordbeck to join La Salle’s triathlon program, which is in its first season, Maaranen knew Nordbeck had qualified for the Ironman World Championship and intended to run it.
“It was definitely, ‘I want to come, but I’m going to do this Ironman. Can I come and do Ironman?’” Maaranen said. “She knows it’s a huge accomplishment to qualify for Kona, and there’s no guarantee that she’ll qualify again. So I was definitely very supportive of it.”
An Ironman race is very different from the sprint triathlons in which La Salle’s team competes. The Ironman consists of a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bicycle ride and a 26.2-mile run. Sprint triathlons, half of the Olympic triathlon distance, typically are a 0.47-mile swim followed by a 12-mile bike ride and a 3.1-mile run. Running an Ironman is a solo task, while La Salle’s sprints are a team event. Triathlon is among the NCAA’s emerging sports for women program, which aims to create more athletic opportunities.
The differences between the formats leads to disparate training needs. For an Ironman race, one needs endurance training and mental fortitude, while sprint triathlon calls for more strength training and higher-intensity bursts of effort.
“They’re both triathlons, but they are two completely different sports,” Nordbeck said. “Ironman, yeah, it’s longer, but that’s not the big difference. The difference is you’re all alone. You’re not allowed to race with a team. … So you’re kind of stuck in your head with yourself, with your demons, the whole race.”
Maaranen, who was named the first head coach of La Salle’s triathlon team in July 2024, worked to accommodate the training needs Nordbeck had while preparing for the Ironman race.
“It’s incredibly difficult to train for an ultraendurance event like that while also doing the extreme opposite,” Maaranen said. “And so trying to balance those few needs, train her for short-course racing while she was still maintaining the endurance she needed for Kona, was quite the challenge. I think Sofia handled it incredibly well.”
Iron family
Nordbeck was born into an Ironman family. Her parents, Carl and Lotta, met at triathlon events in Sweden. Nordbeck grew up following them as they competed at triathlon and Ironman events “all over the world.”
As Nordbeck got older, she started to take interest in triathlons. She competed in shortened versions of the Ironman designed for children, then progressed to sprint triathlons once she turned 14. When she turned 18 and met the Ironman age requirement, she set out to take on the full race.
She started Ironman Sweden in 2023, but did not finish. She returned to the race in 2024, finishing the course in 12 hours, 23 minutes, and 20 seconds. The race qualified Nordbeck for the 2025 Ironman World Championship.
Nordbeck had been to Hawaii before, as her father competed at the 2017 Ironman World Championship in Kona, finishing in 12 hours, 16 minutes.
“He said he would never do the race again because it was so hard,” Nordbeck said. “He would probably never be back [to Kona].”
But with Nordbeck and her mother qualifying for the 2025 race, the Nordbecks made the trip out to Hawaii. Since the Kona race was an all-women’s event in 2025, Carl served as the family’s bike mechanic while Sofia and Lotta raced. Lotta finished in 15 hours, 52 minutes, and 12 seconds, 202nd in the 50-54 age division.
In addition to his role as bike mechanic, Carl also served as a documentarian for Sofia, posting videos from her race to her Instagram account, @sofianordbeck. Nordbeck said she gained around 3,000 followers during the race, more than doubling her follower count.
“I don’t do the social media part for my followers, I mostly do it for me,” Nordbeck said. “It’s kind of my notebook. It’s just so fun that I’ve gained so many followers and people are actually interested. I’m a bit shocked, still.”
Nordbeck faced challenges in the weeks leading up to her race in Hawaii. She contracted strep throat, and on the day she flew from Philadelphia to Hawaii, Nordbeck had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic she had been prescribed.
Her ailments combined with hot, humid, and windy race day conditions on the Big Island made Nordbeck nervous at the starting line.
“You don’t really know how your body will react in that heat, and when you’ve been sick before, too,” Nordbeck said. “So, I was extremely nervous.”
Nordbeck was able to push through the challenges posed by the Hawaiian elements and her own immune system to finish the race.
“It was the hardest race of my life, and probably the worst race of my life, too,” Nordbeck said. “But, I would definitely do it again, 100%. I want to [go] back and I want to be competitive.”
It may be the first of many Ironman World Championship races for Nordbeck. Her ultimate goal is to pursue a professional career in Ironman after her sprint triathlon career at La Salle.
“If I keep combining them both and focus on sprints at the same time, I will be more than ready to, hopefully, be good enough to become [a] professional when I graduate college,” Nordbeck said.
Nordbeck returned to La Salle on Wednesday after some postrace sightseeing in Hawaii. Her body is still recovering from the grueling race, but she intends to compete in La Salle’s next event. The Explorers enter the postseason at the East Regional Championship on Oct. 25.
Last week at the Vatican, two Villanova legends finally came together: Pope Leo XIV and former basketball star Maddy Siegrist.
Siegrist took a short trip to Rome to visit the big landmarks, including the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum and spent a day with Villanova at an Augustinian conference, where she got to meet the pope.
Last year, the Villanova women’s basketball team took a group trip to Italy and the Vatican, but Siegrist, still in the middle of the WNBA season, couldn’t attend. This time around, after the Dallas Wings were eliminated from playoff contention, Chrissy Quisenberry, who helps organize alumni trips at Villanova, reached out to let Siegrist know they were planning another trip and that they might get an audience with the pope, also a Villanova graduate.
“People always joke because he [went to] Villanova, like, ‘Is he going to do the wedding?’” said Siegrist, who’s engaged to Stephen Perretta, an assistant women’s basketball coach at Drexel and the son of former Wildcats coach Harry Perretta. “When it did happen, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy.’ We have a family group chat of all my cousins and aunts and grandparents. I sent the picture, and they’re like, ‘Are you joking?’ It was kind of a last-minute trip, so I didn’t really tell anyone because I didn’t know — when they said audience, it could be 1,000 people outside, which would have been unbelievable, but I didn’t realize I was actually going to have the opportunity to shake his hand.”
The group attended mass at St. Peter’s Basilica and toured the catacombs before meeting with Pope Leo. Siegrist got a photo shaking the pope’s hand — which she did have to pay for, like a Disneyland ride photo — and said it was a bucket list moment, which “rejuvenated” her Catholic faith.
Pope Leo XIV wears a Villanova hat gifted to him during a meeting with an Italian heritage group in June.
Pope Leo frequently goes viral for his White Sox fandom and has been pictured in Villanova hats on multiple occasions since assuming his new role. But even with a group from Villanova in the building, Siegrist said he was careful to stay impartial.
“He’s not biased at all,” Siegrist said. “I’ve seen a few pictures of Villanova hats and stuff. I think he addressed that. Dr. [Barbara] Wall was on the trip, she was one of his professors, so that was pretty cool to be with her during that moment. He knew there was a small group from Villanova at the conference, I think about 20-25 people. Such a cool experience. I really don’t even remember what I said in the moment. You just get so starstruck. You’re so nervous.”
Penn believes it has all the right pieces to be a competitive women’s basketball program in the Ivy League.
Now the Quakers just have to put it all together.
After a season in which Penn lost in the first round of the conference tournament for the third straight year, the Quakers find themselves only a month away from opening tip at the Palestra with plenty of questions still left to answer.
Having to reinvent the offense to make up for the loss of first-team All-Ivy forward Stina Almqvist — who led the team in total minutes, points, and rebounds — coach Mike McLaughlin recognizes that the starting rotation needs a lot of ironing out .
Penn will miss the production of Stina Almqvist, who led the team in total minutes, points, and rebounds.
“I think we need a little more in the post. … We need to see who’s going to be three, four, and five in that rotation,” McLaughlin said. “ … That is the area that I need to see more of because that’s been inconsistent so far.”
Katie Collins, last year’s Ivy League Rookie of the Year, is the only other front court player to log significant minutes for Penn — and is preparing to adapt to playing next to a more traditional center in Tina Njike.
“Little different from last year with Katie and Stina,” McLaughlin said. “They could both play inside and out. Katie is going to need to adapt a bit because Tina’s ball skills away from the basket are not where Stina’s were.”
With McLaughlin believing Njike to be capable of playing only 20 minutes a game because of her physical style of play, the team will have to find valuable minutes from players eager to make an impact.
Katie Collins (center), last season’s Ivy League Rookie of the Year, will be relied on even more in her sophomore season.
Kate Lipatova, a 6-foot-3 stretch forward from Moscow, rounds out the frontcourt group alongside fellow international freshman Ari Paraskevopoulou (Greece).
“[Lipatova] hasn’t played, unfortunately, she got hurt 10 minutes into practice, and will be out at least a couple more weeks, which is going to impede her growth,” McLaughlin said. “She had a nice preseason. … This is definitely a setback.”
Figuring out the rotation
Point guard Mataya Gayle is set to take center stage for the first time with the Quakers. After being a strong No. 2 to Almqvist in 2024 and former first-team All-Ivy forward Jordan Obi in 2023, Gayle will be Penn’s go-to player when it comes to scoring.
“This kid is ready,” McLaughlin said. “She’s going to have a huge year. She’s going to score it, she’s going to assist it, you’re going to see her rebound the ball better, you’re going to see her in big spots being significantly further along.
“I think for someone with her stature after the first two years, she’s taken massive growth, [and] I just love where the kid is mentally — I just think she’s doing it the right way.”
Which players get to fill out the rotation, besides Gayle and Collins, is still up in the air. Stalwart guards Saniah Caldwell and Abby Sharpe, who played significant minutes last year, are battling injuries already — leaving the door open to establish a larger rotation of guards.
“If we can add 10 players that can actually get out there and play at our level every day, I think this team has a chance” of competing for a championship, McLaughlin said.
Roster overturn and injuries will always lead to uncertainty. Gayle, though, is confident that this is the roster that will bring Ivy glory back to the Palestra.
“This is the most excited I’ve been about a season — I see us taking this to the next level,” Gayle said. “We’ve had a lot of team conversations, internal work, and I think we are all on the same page this year, which is obviously winning an Ivy League championship.”
Penn guard Mataya Gayle (right) enters as one of the team’s leaders on offense.
With the season growing closer by the day, McLaughlin feels as though this squad has the ability to rise to the occasion by the end of the season.
“If a couple of these kids take a bigger step before we get to league play, anything can happen from there,” McLaughlin said. “ … We have a ways to go to get to where we were last year, but our ceiling couldn’t be higher.”
