Video: Lionesses celebrate UEFA European Women's Championship with parade in London
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Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Video: Lionesses celebrate UEFA European Women's Championship with parade in London
The Lionesses, England's national women's soccer team, celebrated their second consecutive victory in London with scores of fans lining the streets for a jubilant parade. The women's team came from behind in the UEFA European Women's Championship to beat Spain 3-1 on penalties and retain the title.
New York Times
13 hours ago
- New York Times
The NWSL is back, six days after the Euros final. Are players getting enough rest?
Last Sunday, England defender Jess Carter helped the Lionesses to a second consecutive European Championship. Their victory over World Cup winners Spain in Basel, Switzerland, was celebrated widely in the days that followed. There was a homecoming parade, a royal reception and a performance by head coach Sarina Wiegman's favorite artist, Burna Boy, as the nation basked in the euphoria. Advertisement Carter, though, instead opted for a one-way ticket to the United States to rejoin her club, Gotham FC, ahead of the resumption of their 2025 NWSL campaign. 'I feel like there hasn't been any time to reflect,' a smiling Carter, 27, said Thursday, on the eve of Gotham's match against the Chicago Stars. 'I was just itching to get back.' The NWSL returns Friday after a month-long pause for the Euros, WAFCON and Copa América Femenina. Carter was one of 39 NWSL players called up by national teams for these competitions, with nine players still in Ecuador for the Copa América final between Brazil and Colombia in Quito on Sunday. Some, like Spain's Golden Boot winner, Esther González, have chosen to have a break, but Carter is now in Chicago, some 4,500 miles from where England won the final at St. Jakob-Park, speaking with journalists over Zoom. She says returning to football so soon was by choice. 'We speak a lot, especially in the national team, about that post-tournament decompression and figuring out what the right thing is for the players,' Carter said. 'For me, I struggle sometimes to have time off and then have to go again. So, I always find it easier to come back and get going.' But with increasing numbers of international players in NWSL and the international match calendar becoming more crowded, the conversation around players' time off is becoming trickier to navigate. Players returning to the NWSL after tournaments have no guaranteed time off, with any vacation taken after a consensus is reached between a player and their club. Each NWSL club has its own approach and every return is different, depending on minutes played in a tournament, the amount of travel or how they're feeling mentally following the highs and lows of tournament football. These decisions are often guided by the team's medical and performance staffs, with the player ideally at the center of the conversations. Advertisement Angel City FC, for example, signed Icelandic forward Sveindís Jónsdóttir a few weeks before the start of the Euros. She joined the club after taking some time off following Iceland's group stage exit. Other teams, such as the Houston Dash, offered players time off. After Venezuela's Bárbara Olivieri and Nigeria's Michelle Alozie returned to Houston – Olivieri following Venezuela's group stage exit, and Alozie as a WAFCON champion — they competed in a friendly before each taking a week off. Gotham have six players competing in the three competitions, the most of any club. They gave every returning player the option for time off, with the duration of their breaks determined on an individual basis. 'I think it's very important that players, with how long and demanding is this season in the NWSL, that they have some time for themselves, the same way that we had with the break in the league' Gotham head coach Juan Carlos Amorós said in July. This weekend, Gonzalez and Ghana's Stella Nyamekye will be absent in Chicago. Germany's star goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger, who had a heartbreaking semifinal loss to Spain in the Euros, and Danish midfielder Josefine Hasbo, whom Gotham signed in June, are all back, along with Carter. Carter says she is confident her club will give her time off when she needs it. 'I felt like I had enough support from Gotham to be able to manage what I needed over the coming weeks,' she said. 'Because I'm well aware it's going to hit me at some point. I'm not gonna be able to keep (going) 'go, go, go' so I know that they'll support me whatever way I need, going forward.' Scott Epsley, Gotham's director of player health and performance, explained to The Athletic how the club had a whiteboard in their offices that, for several months, helped visually track where players were and when they would be returning. Communication with the players' federations, he said, was crucial, as was having accurate information on how often they trained with those teams. Advertisement A player's reintegration into the club's environment is tailored to their needs. Staff take a holistic approach, reevaluating a player's strength, range of motion, past injuries and other relevant factors. For example, Carter trained this week, working closely around her travel and sleep schedule, while the rest of her Gotham teammates recovered. 'When you're just playing and you're not really training, which is what these tournaments are, you can actually detrain in certain areas,' Epsley said. Stakeholders with competing interests continue to fill the calendar, with players often stuck in the middle between international windows mandated by global governing body FIFA and the demands of their domestic teams. 'We are concerned about the inadequate rest periods between FIFA windows and regular-season games,' Meghann Burke, the NWSL Players Association's executive director, told The Athletic. 'The problem is we don't have a great answer, because FIFA just keeps grabbing more and more days (for FIFA windows), making it difficult for us to be able to play our regular season.' After announcing the new match calendar in March 2023, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said: 'FIFA promoted a truly global approach to the discussions on the International Match Calendar, which considered the perspectives of all key stakeholders. Our fundamental objective is to have clarity on this topic, and to have meaningful football matches while protecting the well-being of the players and recognising that many regions need more competitive football.' The Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RTSP) govern when players must be released by clubs for international duty, and vice versa. FIFA only requires that players be released the morning after a team's last match in a tournament. From there, players coordinate with their clubs. 'The reality is, when you look at the grueling demands of this past window (in July)… it's very clear that players need a rest, and that's a decision that, at this point, needs to be made by the team,' Burke said. Advertisement The NWSLPA's scope here is limited. The international match calendar is decided by FIFA. The union is pushing for more input, so is the NWSL. The league has expressed its own desires to work with FIFA more closely over calendar concerns, hiring Sarah Gregorius, a former professional player and exec at FIFPro, the international players' union, last year to help facilitate talks with stakeholders. NWSL players also face unique challenges. The vast geography of the U.S. means club travel is akin to international travel in Europe. There are also a growing number of competitions, while the increasing number of international players in the league adds another layer to player welfare concerns. 'The NWSL Players Association represents all of our members, with respect to their club role, and we're deeply concerned about their work conditions when they go to play for the national team,' Burke said. 'We've had members go away to a national team and come back with an injury that impacts their ability to perform work for their club. So, we've expanded our scope to be concerned about working conditions for our members who are competing for national teams in other countries.' The NWSLPA has, however, found tangible ways to address player workload management. The union partnered with BreakAway Data last year to give players access to their physical data and pushed in its CBA for teams to hire professionals that can help players manage growing demand. 'Our approach so far has been to advocate for things like applied sports scientists, which were not a requirement until our first collective bargaining agreement came along,' Burke said, 'and advocating for experts in the space to manage workload responsibly and make sure that it's tailored to meet that individual player's needs.' The NWSLPA also negotiated a mid-season break for players this year. That CBA-mandated break from June 23-29 was 'crucial,' Burke said. However, the league scheduled it during this recent FIFA window, keeping international players from benefiting. Burke is optimistic that, next year, a break would be more inclusive. 'Because the league (the NWSL) has to take a break during the men's World Cup (June 11-July 19), it's the first real opportunity the league has had to schedule the midseason break outside of a FIFA window,' Burke said. 'We've made that ask. That decision's not been made yet. I'm hopeful they will see the wisdom of giving the international (players) that break.'
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
Would a still-developing US women's team have won Euro 2025?
Sunday in Switzerland, England's Lionesses clawed their way to a second straight Euro title after defeating the reigning world champions, Spain, 3-1 in a penalty shootout. With a record 1.35m watching stateside, at least one wondered if, in some alternate universe in which they could play in the Euros, they would have won it. Asked that question on a recent episode of The Women's Game podcast, US captain and OL Lyonnes midfielder Lindsey Heaps suggested that they could. While debriefing England's wild quarter-final comeback against Sweden with retired World Cup champion Sam Mewis, Heaps began by noting the difficulty of comparing Emma Hayes' program in transition to mid-tournament teams: 'It's so hard because we're obviously missing a lot of players,' she said. 'But we have a lot of new, young players, inexperienced players, that are doing so well. I think it would be so hard to say. Also, Emma would fully prepare us for a tournament, and tournament mode. So it'd be a little bit different than what we've been doing, and how we've been playing.' But nodding to the team's psyche, she added: '[It] goes back to mentality. I will always say, like, we would be, we would be killing it and winning.' The internet, of course, was quick to point out what happened two years ago in Melbourne, with some fans seemingly aghast that the team's belief remains intact after an ignominious World Cup exit against European opposition. Others, of course, noted last summer's triumph in Paris, when Emma Hayes led the program to its fifth gold medal just 76 days after her first training session in charge of the team. Related: NWSL and US Soccer's lack of transgender policy targeted by conservative lobby groups This summer's USWNT team isn't the team it was in 2023, when they suffered their earliest-ever departure from a competition they'd dominated. For that matter, it's also not the team it was last year in Paris, or the one it likely will be by the next World Cup. So, with the players presently available, in this iteration of the USWNT, would they have broken hearts in Switzerland? Probably not. They may not have been far off, though. Head-to-head comparisons are imprecise because of changing dynamics for the US and their UEFA counterparts over the past few years. But the US's recent record against Euro '25 contenders isn't as bleak as one might think, given the still-lingering taste of bitter defeat on the sport's grandest stage. The US has played six of the 16 teams that battled to reach Basel during or since the 2023 World Cup. That includes Iceland (twice in friendlies), Portugal (2023 World Cup), Germany (twice at the Olympics), England (one friendly), the Netherlands (once in a friendly and once at the World Cup), and of course, Sweden. Of those nine tests against Euro '25 competitors, the US won five, drew three and lost once in a penalty shootout. Four of those wins came against Iceland and Germany, with the other secured against the Dutch. That's not too bad, though half of those teams lost in the group stage in Switzerland. Of this summer's eight quarter-finalists, the USWNT has played four and beaten just one of them (Germany) stretching back to 2022. Unfortunately, while the Olympics were a redemptive run for the felled giants, Germany (who they beat twice) were the only Euro team they faced, and thus their only opportunity to test a renewed mettle against Uefa opponents. That said, they did go on to beat Brazil, who sent France and Spain packing in the preceding rounds. It seems probable, given the recently-proven talent of the US against competitors like Ireland and Canada (missing players and all) that they could reach the knockout phase of this summer's Euros. But as they reached toward the final rounds, or perhaps even the final, they might feel the difference between the team available for friendlies this June, and the one that won the gold medal. Most notably, that includes the formidable force propelling the team to glory at both ends of the pitch. Along the frontline: 'triple espresso' and their combined ten goals. At the other end: Alyssa Naeher. Related: Emma Hayes' USWNT revolution gathers pace in dominant summer window | Megan Swanick Naeher's 22 saves at the Paris Olympics were inseparable from success, as they included a record four shutouts (the most for any US keeper at the Games), 12 knockout round saves and seven against Germany alone in a hotly contested semi-final. There are hopeful contenders to fill those enormous shoes, including Manchester United goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce. But at this moment, the team is far away from having the tried and trusted hands of Naeher available to support them. Especially given the plethora of penalties that in many ways defined this Euros (for goalkeepers and penalty takers alike), the present keeper pool is too untested on that type of stage to say confidently they're ready to pull through like Naeher did at the Olympics. At the other end of the pitch, Swanson, Rodman and Smith were not simply goalscorers that were fun to watch. They were big moment players capable of changing the game individually, with big tournament pressure and all the world's eyes on their back. Their prolonged absence has forced the opportunity to find new ways and players to score, and in recent windows a number of names have shown their skill in the final third (that somehow includes defensive midfielder Sam Coffey, who ended the June window with three goals in five games while cementing her name in Emma Hayes midfield). Beyond Coffey, it's been encouraging to observe new combinations of attackers work on ways to break down opponents and score goals. The skill is there, but the finished product is a work in progress. And the gamechanging greatness of triple espresso in Paris is a hard spark to immediately replace. (By 2027, they may not have to). Emma Hayes delivered gold 76 days after her first training session. Today, 14 months into her long-term project, the US is certainly on track to compete with the top competitors from this summer's Euros. If they were thrown into the fray in Switzerland this summer, they'd have been competitive, but are likely a few years off from being a team ready to take the top prize.
