Alyssa Naeher will be a key veteran leader on the USWNT backline that is now without Becky Sauerbrunn. (Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
For the entirety of the U.S. women’s national team’s World Cup-winning campaign in France in 2019, Alyssa Naeher had very little trouble staying locked in.
“I don’t even think I turned my phone off airplane mode,” she said before Red Stars training on Thursday, the day after being named to her third-straight World Cup squad.
Naeher is going to need a similar amount of focus this year. She was a part of the USWNT’s last two World Cup-winning teams, first as a backup in 2015 and then as the team’s starter in 2019. This year, she’s bringing a crucial veteran presence to a backline that will be missing captain Becky Sauerbrunn for the first time since 2007.
“I’m very disappointed for Becky, obviously,” Naeher said. “I have the greatest amount of respect in the world for Becky, who she is as a person and who she is as a player, so she will definitely be…
