USWNT announces October friendlies – Stars and Stripes FC

The United States Women’s National Team have figured out their October international window. Today, U.S. Soccer announced that the USWNT will face Portugal in two friendlies in October, with the first taking place on October 23rd at Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania and the second coming on October 26th at Rentschler Field in East Hartford. The team will play a third friendly at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City on October 29th against a team that is yet to be determined.

The match against Portugal in Chester is the first USWNT match in the Philadelphia area in three years. There, Alex Morgan will be honored before the match for her legendary career. Morgan retired from professional soccer last fall. The match in East Hartford will serve as a tribute match for legendary goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher, the Connecticut native who retired from international soccer in December. The match in Connecticut will also be a doubleheader, with the Deaf Men’s National Team playing in a friendly before the USWNT take the field.

“Portugal is a growing team that will be highly motivated for these matches, but as always, these three games are more opportunities to work on us,” USWNT head coach Emma Hayes said in a statement. “I’m very impressed with the progress we’ve made since the Olympics and I want to give a lot of credit to the players for embracing our culture and ideas, but our staff and the players know we still have much work to do before World Cup qualifying next year.”

While the match in Kansas City is against an unknown opponent, it will serve as the first match at CPKC Stadium, the Kansas City Current stadium that opened in March 2024. The 11,500-seat stadium is the first stadium in America to be built primarily for a NWSL team. It’s expected that the opponent will be named shortly for that match. Because FIFA has eliminated the September international window from the women’s calendar, the October window allows for teams to play up to 3 matches. The USWNT, who still are #1 in the FIFA rankings, will hopefully have most of its players back healthy on the field at that point as the NWSL approaches the playoffs.