Few would argue that the United States -- with a population of more than 340 million people and relatively high participation rates for girls in sports -- has an abundant player pool for future professional women's soccer players. Yet, there is a constant sense of crisis around player development, with leading figures in the sport warning that the run of U.S. women's national team dominance and World Cup titles is over.
The U.S. women's national team reached its nadir at the 2023 World Cup with a round of 16 elimination. Many autopsies blamed the fractured youth system and how it failed players in their formative years.
Those same conversations are louder since last week, when the U20 USWNT was eliminated in the round of 16 from the U20 World Cup, extending the Americans' title drought in the competition to 14 years and counting. After another poor result at a youth World Cup, does this signal future struggles for the senior USWNT?
The easy argument is that the U.S. talent pipeline is drying up. That the gold standard in women's soccer no longer produces the players to win. That what was good enough to win four World Cups and five Olympic gold medals -- including the most recent in 2024 -- won't be good enough anymore.
There is no drought when it comes to talent, however. The problem is more like a series of clogs in an intricate pipeline. Fixing that entire system in a country as vast and diverse as the U.S. is Sisyphean labor for the U.S. Soccer Federation.
USWNT senior head coach Emma Hayes believes the main line that needs to be addressed is at the top of the youth pyramid.
"We need to get this 17-to-21-year-old category right," she told ESPN last month. Hayes told ESPN ahead of the U20 World Cup that she was "massively worried" about U.S. player development at that age. The U20 USWNT -- without several top players who were withheld by their clubs -- followed with portentous performances, including a lackluster loss to Italy (now a semifinalist) in the opening match.
The U.S. women last won the U20 World Cup in 2012, when the now-retired Crystal Dunn and Julie Ertz (then Johnston) headlined a team a future stars and senior World Cup winners. Four years prior, a U.S. team that included Alex Morgan, Sydney Leroux, Alyssa Naeher and Meghan Klingenberg and coached by the late Tony DiCicco won the U20 title. The Americans also won the inaugural U20 event in 2002.
Those generations that enjoyed so much success at the youth level became the core of the USWNT's back-to-back senior World Cup triumphs in 2015 and 2019.
Lately, though, the Americans have struggled at the U20 World Cup, with a third-place finish in 2024 looking like an anomaly. The USWNT was bounced in the group stage in back-to-back tournaments in 2018 and 2022. They have never won a U17 World Cup and have twice failed to qualify for that event.
What has changed drastically over the years is the presence of professionals in the 17-20-year-old age group. Each of the past two USWNT U20 World Cup rosters featured eight professional players, the most in history. Those three U.S. teams that previously won the competition were composed entirely of amateur players in or heading to college.
There are more professional teenage players than ever as the women's game matures and provides stable, more lucrative employment. Midfielders Claire Hutton, Olivia Moultrie and Lily Yohannes, defender Gisele Thompson and sister Alyssa Thompson all cracked into the senior USWNT as teenagers after becoming professionals. Sophia Wilson and Trinity Rodman left college early or skipped it entirely to turn professional.
Fourteen years ago, that pathway didn't exist. A young Lindsey Heaps (then Horan) left Colorado after high school to join Paris Saint-Germain, becoming the first American woman to turn professional out of high school. The floodgates did not fully open to the trend until Moultrie sued the NWSL in 2021 for the right to sign with the Portland Thorns as a 15-year-old. The NWSL created a special roster mechanism for teams to sign U18 players in 2022.
A youth revolution has followed in the NWSL, allowing the most talented players to leave high school or college early and join the professional ranks. Such practice is commonplace in global men's soccer and in European countries with competitive women's national teams.
Professional opportunities for these young players come with tradeoffs, however. More professional players do not necessarily make a better player pool if they are not in an environment that will develop them. This is a problem at the intersection of both the USWNT and the NWSL.
The NWSL has not created meaningful opportunities for young players to earn risk-averse minutes to develop. NWSL rosters are still only 22-26 players, there are no cup competitions to complement the cutthroat regular season, there is no centralized academy system to develop players, and a proposed second division by the NWSL has not made meaningful progress toward fruition since it was publicly dangled 18 months ago.
That has left many young professional players stuck in limbo -- and on the bench.
The exceptions stand out, of course. Elite players, from Hutton to Moultrie and Jaedyn Shaw, have broken through to become bona fide stars. Other players like San Diego Wave forward Melanie Barcenas have eventually found their rhythm. Barcenas was age-eligible for this U20 World Cup but did not feature for the United States, instead remaining with the Wave for their playoff push.
Barcenas recently established a starting role and has six goals and an assist this season. This is her fourth season in San Diego after signing as a 15-year-old. She missed the U20 World Cup, which falls outside of FIFA international dates, meaning clubs are not required to release players.
Those minutes in meaningful games are what players need -- but the problem is that not every young player has found such an ideal setup. As Heaps now says ad nauseum when she is inevitably asked about players turning pro early or going to Europe, the right answer to "where?" always depends on the individual. The NWSL, Europe, college -- whatever the answer, it must include competing regularly.
Right now, the flaw in the professional system for young players is a lack of meaningful competition. That is neither entirely on the clubs nor the federation -- and the NWSL has a large role to play.
Roster sizes in the NWSL must expand. Teams need competitions other than high-stakes regular season games in a league where coaches are hired and fired every couple of years (and even shortly after winning trophies). A player who isn't getting first-team minutes is reduced to training sessions, and even those are insufficient in stretches of three-game weeks when NWSL teams hardly train.
The NWSL is still addressing this issue in small steps. Multiple sources told ESPN that the NWSL recently implemented a new player development rule that will allow teams to identify and develop young players, with the possibility of signing them for a reduced salary-cap hit (or being compensated if they sign elsewhere) in the future.
Hayes said she would like to see a more robust loan system between the NWSL and the USL Super League, which is also sanctioned as a first division women's league. Playing regularly on a top NCAA team might still be a better option for some players, even with the truncated college season.
Hayes said her message to young players has been clear, including at the January "Futures Camp" that featured top U23 players: play meaningful games.
"I don't care where you are playing, but you need to be playing," Hayes said.
She frequently discusses the gap between the U20 level and the senior national team. With the federation's financial support, Hayes has scheduled more U23 training camps and matches than any predecessor.
"The young players have to make the decisions to go to places where they are going to play and play first," Hayes told ESPN. "If you go to Norway, Germany, Spain, England, they are all playing at younger ages. That's a fact. Of course, going into the pro environment is a fabulous situation, but not if you're going to sit on the bench for two or three years. In fact, I'd prefer they went to college and played."
U.S. youth national teams must also play with more cohesion and a clearer identity when they are together. The biggest difference between the USWNT and other top teams like Japan and Spain is not technical ability, but connection -- at the senior and youth levels.
Results were ultimately poor for the U20 USWNT this month, but what really lacked was any cohesion on the field. The moments of brilliance in the 2-2 group stage draw with Japan came from brilliant individual efforts. The defensive breakdowns in that game and the 2-1 loss to Italy came largely from individual efforts in which players lacked connection.
Those same criticisms held true of the USWNT's 2023 World Cup team, which looked rigid in its ideas and had too many players in isolation. Hayes and a new generation of players have overhauled that identity in the years since, but without meaningful improvements to player development in the 17-23 age group, early exits could await the senior team in future competitions, too.
