With the Women’s World Cup on the immediate horizon this June, there’s no time like the present for the U.S. Women’s National Team.
That doesn’t mean that the U.S. Soccer Federation isn’t searching for the stars of tomorrow for the USWNT, as the U.S. U23s recently returned from a successful trip to La Manga, Spain for a trio of games against international competition.
Steve Swanson, who doubles as the head coach of the U23s and an assistant on the full team, was unavailable to guide the team in Spain, so assistant coach Janet Rayfield stepped in to lead the trip to three wins from those three matches.
“From my perspective and certainly I hope is U.S. Soccer’s perspective, the goals we had were trip we accomplished pretty well,” Rayfield said of the trip. “We had a mixed group of veterans with youth international experience and then several young women who were new to that level and new to that experience. I think the goal was to compete in an international arena and to get playing time for all of the athletes that we brought with us. I think we were successful in doing both of those things.”
The La Manga sojourn is an annual trip for the U.S. U23s, offering up premium international games to expose experienced college talent to another level of play. Eight of the 22 players called in hailed from the college ranks, with the others are set to compete in the NWSL this year.
