The SheBelieves Cup is over, the awards are handed out, the confetti is swept away, and the post-match press report is filed and published. Japan was the victor in 2025, the US Women’s National Team (USWNT) coming in second, which is not a disaster but not exactly the hierarchy one would hope to see.
There was a time when the USWNT might be relied on to steam over tournaments, heaping up trophy cabinets with a sense of destiny that rendered the whole exercise nothing more than going through the motions. But football, as it does with so much else, has an annoying habit of pressing on. Challengers emerge anew, tactics adapt, and that which once so readily came in the past must now be grappled with after a little effort.
The issue, if it can be described as that, is not a lack of talent—anything but. The US still has a team full of class. Instead, the problem lies with cohesion, with identity, and with the tiny but vital issue of having exactly the right idea of how to get all the moving pieces working together.
A Shift in Power? Not Quite, But…
There is a feeling of unease when a team so accustomed to being at the top is having to play catch-up. The USWNT is not so much in decline, but it is transitioning, a term that does a lot of heavy lifting in football. It suggests…
