The best things come in threes and the U.S. women’s national team front three is no exception. On Tuesday in the Olympic Games semifinal, it was Sophia Smith who scored the winning goal. But collectively, Smith, Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson have contributed to 10 of the team’s 11 goals this tournament.

“Honestly, I don’t remember anything that just happened,” Smith told NBC after the match. “I know Mal played me a perfect through ball. I know I had to step up in a big moment for this team.”

By now it’s clear U.S. women’s national team head coach Emma Hayes wants to stick with her chosen starting XI as far as they can go. The team had some forced rotation when defender Tierna Davidson returned from injury and midfielder Sam Coffey returned from a yellow card suspension. However, Davidson only played one half and was substituted for Emily Sonnett at halftime. Another key player, midfielder Rose Lavelle, came off in the 60th minute for forward Lynn Williams, perhaps nursing some foot or ankle tenderness from a hard block in the quarterfinal against Japan.

For their part, Germany didn’t look fresh either, which seemed to manifest in a highly physical game with plenty of shoves and barges. Was it by design to frustrate the U.S. and break up any attempt at…

The U.S. women’s national team of a summer ago is gone. The current group has found its scoring shoes.

At the 2023 Women’s World Cup, the USWNT scored four goals in 390 minutes and was eliminated on penalties in the round of 16 against Sweden. On Sunday, the team scored four — the first to do so against Germany in a competitive match since 2008 when Brazil did it in the Olympics semifinals, according to Opta. Forward Sophia Smith scored a brace, while forwards Mallory Swanson and Lynn Williams added a goal each as the U.S. took down Germany 4-1 to guarantee a place in the quarter-finals.

Jeff Rueter and Steph Yang dissect how the U.S. took the top spot in Group B with one game to go.

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What is the key to the USWNT’s front-line success?

If there’s only one thing you can write down in a tactical binder, it should be, “Make sure Swanson and Smith look connected and you’ll profit.”

Swanson and Smith looked like a dynamic duo again on Sunday, reading each other’s movement and providing opportunities for each other in front of goal. Swanson crashed the box for the second U.S. goal, catching Smith’s rebounding shot off Germany goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger. Then Swanson almost put Smith through a few minutes later, picking her out through traffic in front of goal….

The German national team is ending its long-standing partnership with Adidas and has signed a deal that will see Nike make its kits from 2027.

Adidas last signed an eight-year contract with the Germany Football Federation (DFB) in 2018, meaning the men’s 2026 men’s World Cup will be one of the last times the German team’s kit is manufactured by the country’s most famous sportswear company.

During Adidas’ partnership with Germany, which has spanned more than seven decades, the team has won four men’s World Cups, three men’s Euros, two women’s World Cups and eight women’s Euros with the collaboration responsible for many iconic shirts during the 1980s and 1990s.

The DFB’s contract with Nike will run until 2034. “We are grateful to be able to look forward to an economically stable future again as an association thanks to Nike’s commitment,” DFB treasurer Stephan Grunwald said.

“The award to the future supplier partner Nike is the result of a transparent and non-discriminatory tender,” DFB chairman Holger Blask added.

“Nike made by far the best economic offer and also convinced with its content vision, which also represents a clear commitment to the promotion of amateur and popular sports as well as the sustainable development of women’s football in…

The United States and Mexico have confirmed their joint-bid to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup.

Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands have also submitted a joint European bid to world football’s governing body FIFA, while Brazil lodged their offer a day before the December 8 deadline.

South Africa had been in the initial running, only to withdraw their interest last month to instead focus on the 2031 tournament.

The U.S hosted the tournament in 1999 and 2003, while Germany were the host nation in 2011.

The 2023 World Cup — hosted by Australia and New Zealand, and won by Spain — was the first women’s tournament to be held across two countries, but a competition across Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany would be the first hosted in three countries.

Brazil would make history if they were selected, with the Women’s World Cup having never previously been hosted in South America.

What happens next?

After officially confirming the bidders, FIFA will next organise on-site inspection visits to bidding countries in February.

The hosts are then expected to be appointed when the FIFA Congress meets on May 17, 2024.

The bids

U.S./Mexico

The United States and Mexico announced their bid on April 19 just before the kickoff of an international friendly between the U.S. men’s national team…

Germany Women boss Martina Voss-Tecklenburg has left her role.

The DFB (German FA) announced the decision, it said, following a meeting on Friday with Voss-Tecklenburg in which the team’s performance at this summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was analysed.

Germany were among the tournament favourites after reaching the final of the 2022 Euros. However, they suffered a shock exit at the group stage after winning only four points from their three matches.

Voss-Tecklenburg remained in her role after the World Cup and oversaw three wins from four Nations League matches in the two international breaks since.

But, with club football returning this weekend, the DFB and Voss-Tecklenburg have agreed to part ways. The 55-year-old German was appointed to the role in 2019, having previously spent six years as Switzerland Women head coach.

“I would like to thank Martina Voss-Tecklenburg on behalf of the DFB and also personally for her work over the last few years,” said DFB president Bernd Neuendorf.

“During this period, important impetus has been given to women’s football. Getting to the final at the European Championship in 2022 in England gave women’s and girls’ football a huge boost.

“This success is and will remain associated with Martina Voss-Tecklenburg. We…

When Arsenal signed Kai Havertz back in July, manager Mikel Arteta proclaimed, “He will bring a huge amount of extra strength to our midfield.”

It’s relatively unusual for Arsenal to be so specific about how and where a player will be used at their unveiling — especially when it comes to one as versatile as Havertz. Yet the German international was also plonked emphatically into the “midfield” category on the Arsenal website’s squad page.

It had the air of a rebranding exercise — an attempt to separate this Havertz from the one who had underwhelmed as a forward at Chelsea. It felt as if we might see the 24-year-old lean forward like the guy in the Bleu de Chanel advert to tell the assembled media, “I’m not going to be the person I’m expected to be anymore”.

And yet, thus far at Arsenal, Havertz has largely been that person. As Arteta seeks to bed him into his new-look midfield, he has resembled what in Germany they call a ‘Fremdkorper’ — an alien lost on the wrong planet.

The 1-0 win over Manchester City provided cause for both encouragement and concern. Havertz emerged from the bench to set up Gabriel Martinelli’s winner, undoubtedly his most important moment in an Arsenal shirt to date. It is also telling, however, that in Arsenal’s biggest…

A day after a historic disaster, there were still precious few answers.

Captain Alexandra Popp told reporters shortly before boarding a commercial flight home it would take a few more sleepless nights before anyone could get to grips with Germany’s worst-ever showing in a Women’s World Cup.

The German FA had been so certain of progress beyond the group stage that no charter plane had been booked to be on standby for Friday, the day after the team’s final group match. The governing body’s chairman, Bernd Neuendorf, hadn’t even set foot in Australia by the time Germany were eliminated. His plan had been to join the team as the tournament started in earnest with today’s arrival of the knockout phase.

Going out at the hands of Morocco, Colombia and South Korea had felt utterly inconceivable before the World Cup began, a one-in-a-million freak accident that didn’t warrant much worrying over, not even after the last-minute defeat by Colombia in the middle group game had ramped up the pressure. “Germany is not a nation that needs to tremble,” midfielder Lena Oberdorf had said after that 2-1 loss.

Such confidence proved misguided. The precise…

Put simply, it might be the biggest shock in Women’s World Cup history.

Germany were perhaps the side least likely to slip up in the group stage considering their squad and the nature of their opposition. Germany, remember, were the team who produced the biggest win of the opening round of fixtures, thrashing Morocco 6-0. After that result, it was highly unlikely they would be eliminated in the group stage and almost unthinkable that Morocco would progress at their expense.

But that’s what has happened. Germany, bizarrely, have a goal difference nine better than Morocco’s. That counts for nothing when they have two points less.

World Cup shocks on this scale tend to be about one-off results, but Germany have failed twice. They fell to an exciting but inexperienced Colombian side who combined physical pressure with technical brilliance to defeat them in Sydney last week. Now, against a South Korean team who had offered very little going forward in the competition, Germany started poorly — perhaps reeling from the Colombia defeat — and never got going in attack.

It was a bizarre way for Germany to exit, for many reasons. For a start, their opponents South Korea knew a draw would be completely useless for them and yet they defended their lone point in this competition with…

The 2023 Women’s World Cup gets under way in Australia and New Zealand on July 20, with the U.S. hoping to navigate an expanded 32-team tournament to become the first country to win football’s biggest prize three times in a row.

They are the favourites, but will the four-time winners actually pull off the ‘three-peat’? What of England, European champions but decimated by injuries to key players as they attempt to win the tournament for the first time? Will Germany bounce back from losing the final of the Euros to lift the game’s biggest prize?

How will the likes of France, Spain and Canada perform after their preparations have been disrupted by disputes with their federations over the past few months?

And can we expect any surprises from any of the eight countries — Haiti, Morocco, Panama, Philippines, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Vietnam and Zambia — making their World Cup debuts?

Our expert writers give their verdicts on what they think will happen over the next five weeks.

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Flo Lloyd-Hughes, women’s football reporter

Winner: Germany. This is a very open tournament and there are four or five teams that have a good chance of winning the title. Germany are often the masters of their own downfall, but given their disappointment at the Euros last summer and their…

Let’s start with a few fun facts. 

Asisat Oshoala has been African women’s footballer of the year five times. She has won the Africa Cup of Nations three times. She has two Golden Boots and two Golden Balls at international tournaments: two each at AFCON and the Under-20 World Cup. 

She was the top scorer in Spain in 2021-22 and last season, notched a personal-best 21 goals for Barcelona — accompanied by three assists, which was comfortably more than her team-mates.

In 2019, she became the first African woman to score in a Champions League final. Two years later she became the first African woman to win a Champions League title. A year after that, she became the first African woman to be nominated for the Ballon d’Or. 

We could go on. There will certainly be better players at this World Cup, but there won’t be many as exciting to watch, or indeed many with a more interesting career story, than Oshoala. 

Born in Ikorodu, a coastal city about an hour’s drive from the Nigerian capital Lagos, Oshoala wasn’t exactly encouraged to pursue her sporting dreams as a child. Her parents would frequently not give her any food if she disobeyed them and went to play football, considering it a waste of time. They wanted her to become a lawyer instead. 

But when she was…