2024 in review: Did our bold USWNT predictions come true?

It’s New Year’s Eve Eve, and we are starting to close out what was an incredible year for the United States Women’s National Team. The year saw Emma Hayes officially take over after five months of Twila Kilgore leading the USWNT on an interim basis, and the success was present from start to finish.

The USWNT went 18W-1L-4D in 2024, with the biggest wins coming over Japan, Brazil, and the Netherlands. Their lone loss was in the group stage of the Concacaf W Gold Cup against Mexico. Back in January, we issued some predictions for what we thought would happen to the USWNT. It’s now time to see how we did with them.

The USWNT will win the silver medal at the Olympics.

This prediction was wrong, but for the best reason possible! The USWNT, a year after their Women’s World Cup run met an abrupt end in the Round of 16, won every match at the Olympics and beat Brazil 1-0 in the final to win their fifth gold medal.

The USWNT will win the W Gold Cup.

They took a stumble in the group stage against Mexico, but they won the first ever Concacaf W Gold Cup by beating Brazil in the final, again by a 1-0 score.

6 players from the Women’s World Cup roster will be off the USWNT by year’s end.

2024 signaled the changing of the guard for several USWNT veterans that were on the Women’s World Cup roster. Alex Morgan and Kelley O’Hara both retired from professional soccer (as did Becky Sauerbrunn, who missed the Women’s World Cup due to injury). Alyssa Naeher retired from international duty earlier this month. Kristie Mewis, Alana Cook, Sofia Huerta, and Savannah DeMelo are players from the 2023 Women’s World Cup roster that did not see the field for the national team in 2024. That marks at least 7 players from that roster who did not play in 2024, with 3 of them retired from at least international duty.

The USWNT will win 2 road games.

The USWNT had exactly 2 road matches in 2024 outside of the Olympics, which were played in France. They drew against England at Wembley on November 30th but then won against the Netherlands a few days later in The Hague. This was a miss, but barely.

The USWNT will end the year at #1.

The USWNT are back on top! After dropping as low as 5th in the FIFA world rankings, they moved back to #1 after winning Olympic gold and kept that #1 ranking for the rest of the year.

2 players will score 10+ goals for the USWNT.

While there were a ton of players who bagged a lot of goals for the USWNT, no one was able to get to double digits. Sophia Smith was closest with 9 goals, leading all USWNT scorers.

The United States & Mexico will lose the hosting rights for the 2027 Women’s World Cup.

The United States and Mexico announced their bid for the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cups back in April 2023, and they were believed to be one of the frontrunners to land the 2027 tournament. However, a year later, they decided to withdraw their 2027 bid to focus on the 2031 bid, mainly due to the numerous sporting events that the region was already hosting (2026 World Cup, 2028 Olympics in LA). The 2027 Women’s World Cup will be played in Brazil.

So there it is. There were some predictions that were right on the money and some that just missed. Let’s hope 2025 can be another successful year for the USWNT.