HARRISON, N.J. — The United States women’s national team sealed the 2026 SheBelieves Cup title with a 1-0 win over Colombia on Saturday. Alyssa Thompson scored the game-winner in the 82nd minute. It is the team’s eighth time winning the friendly tournament, which U.S. Soccer started in 2016 as an alternative to the Algarve Cup.
The U.S. began the match on their front foot, making plenty of probing passes in Colombia’s half. But once Las Cafeteras got their sea legs after about 15 minutes, the balance of the game totally changed. The U.S. started to stumble, and the game devolved into a frenzy of tackles.
This was not exactly a surprise, considering the teams’ history as frequent and fierce foes. In a memorable 2024 Gold Cup match, Alex Morgan and Trinity Rodman had multiple fiery disagreements with Colombian players. Hayes predicted that this game wouldn’t be any different. “I think if we thought there was provocation in the game against Argentina, I think it would be ramped up in this game,” she told reporters on Friday.
In the first half, the physicality of the affair seemed to shake the U.S.’s focus. The team had trouble taking advantage of open spaces, and when they finally found those pockets, they rarely strung together more than a couple passes before Colombia was hot on their heels. After the match, Hayes said, “I thought we were sluggish the first half. Everything we did was a step off.”
Lily Yohannes, for example, looked uneven. She had a fair amount of her characteristic brilliant moments, but they lived side-by-side with some sloppy errors and ineffectual defensive gestures. Following the game, Hayes said of the youngster, “She’s got so many natural abilities with the ball. … She’s got a great swagger and grace to her play. … I think she’s getting more tenacious in her defensive recoveries. She knows it’s an area she has to keep growing in.”
The USWNT’s noncommittal attack paled to Colombia’s offense, which was at once less judicious and more incisive. Even though the U.S. controlled more than two-thirds of the possession in the first half, Colombia had far more genuinely dangerous chances. Unsurprisingly, those chances were most often architected by Leicy Santos and Linda Caicedo.
The USWNT continued its toothless threats into the second half, but at the hour mark, Hayes dramatically changed the match. She sent in a cascade of four subs, which shifted the game’s momentum immediately. Rose Lavelle, Yohannes, Ally Sentnor, and Rodman made way for Lindsay Heaps, Olivia Moultrie, Jaedyn Shaw, and Emma Sears. After the match, Hayes said this was a way to “keep offering another version of ourselves.”
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The four joined up with an energized Tara Rudd, who had replaced Naomi Girma at halftime due to calf pain. Each brought a tenacity and connectedness to the match, which the players they replaced were more or less lacking.
Conversations that happened at halftime and before the subs went in seemed to matter a great deal. Thompson said that Hayes had told the team at the half, “‘We need to up our level,’ and we all knew that.”
For her part, Rudd said, “It was kinda nice to be able to watch the first half and see what they were giving us, and see where we could have provoked them a little more.”
And, per Hayes herself, she “felt that gaps were starting to appear between Colombia’s back line and midfield. … I said to Jaedyn and Olivia, ‘Stay in those areas.’”
With the new crew on the pitch, the team’s combinations were longer. They pulled the field wider and their finishes improved. Avery Patterson and Sam Coffey’s already standout playing was now reflected in the players around them, and Emily Fox and Thompson also leveled up with the rising tide. “Today we won the game from the players coming from the bench,” Hayes reflected.
The growing momentum finally manifested on the scoreboard when Thompson and Shaw combined for a one-two combination. For the first time all game, Thompson got her shot off quickly, and what a shot it was. It curled into the bottom of the crossbar and into the back of the net. Keeper Katherine Tapia had no chance.
With just eight minutes plus stoppage time left in the game, the U.S. was happy to play keepaway. Colombia had a couple of strong chances, but ultimately Hayes’s side continued its shutout streak from the end of 2025.
Colombia should be largely happy with their performance on Saturday. They played an excellent counter-attacking game, and came out with a much-improved scoreline from their opening SheBelieves game, a 4-1 loss to Canada. Firmly the second-best team in South America, Colombia is always nipping at the heels of the Goliath that is Brazil.
In the 2025 Copa America final, Colombia almost beat Marta’s Brazil in a 4-4 thriller in which they led three times, only to lose in penalties. But Las Cafeteras have bested giants before. In the 2023 World Cup, Colombia won group H, having beaten both Germany and South Korea in early games. They lost 2-1 to eventual runners-up England in the quarterfinals.
In the 2024 Olympics quarterfinals, Colombia tied World Champions Spain in regulation but were defeated in penalties. The Colombian side is a major threat to any team and only looks to be gaining speed. And they have passionate fans. At the match in New Jersey, a sizable contingent was sprinkled throughout the stands, including at least one supporter who waved around a neon yellow Leicy Santos Washington Spirit jersey.
Colombia gave the Americans real trouble. Hayes’s side especially struggled with finishing, which she partly attributed to the NWSL players being in preseason. But Thompson, who is in the full swing of the WSL season with Chelsea, has no such excuse. The winger told reporters after the game, “Something I want to get better at is my decision-making in the final third.”
But ultimately, it was this difficulty that made Thompson’s perfect shot that much sweeter. Heaps described the shot Thompson took as her “bread and butter.”
It was fitting that Christen Press was in attendance for her wife, Tobin Heath’s, retirement ceremony—Thompson’s former Angel City teammate was known for taking similarly audacious shots. “I looked up at them after I scored because I was just so happy,” Thompson said, adding that Press and Heath have been huge inspirations and supports for her in her young career.
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For the U.S., the SheBelieves win represents the latest benchmark in a yearslong return-to-form. The program was at a low point after earning bronze in the 2021 Olympics and an early exit from the 2023 World Cup. The introduction of Hayes as head coach was shortly followed by a 2024 Olympics gold medal, but considering that tournament took place in just her third month at the helm of the program, plenty of questions remained about how she’d build a consistently strong team.
On Saturday, Hayes reflected on the state of the team during the Olympics. “Depth might have been there,” she said. “But it hadn’t been developed.”
Now, she feels she’s developed real depth across the pitch. At the Olympics, the focus was on Mallory Swanson, Sophia Wilson, and Rodman. “Now,” she said, “we talk about all the other players.”
Hayes’s dramatic reshaping of the player pool hasn’t come easy. In the last SheBelieves Cup, the USWNT was thoroughly outplayed by Japan, who took the tournament title. Winning this year’s tournament—with a roster that is a crystallization of the experimentation Hayes did since the Olympics—marks major progress for the squad as it gears up for World Cup qualifications. And Hayes is glad this final game was challenging. “That game was exactly what we needed: something that was a little bit spicy,” she said. “There’s stuff we’ve been doing in the background to make sure that discipline is an edge for us.”
The USWNT’s next camp will be another test, and another opportunity for a full-circle moment: they are slated to play Japan three times in April. After the match, Hayes said the SheBelieves tournament “sets us up nicely for playing against Japan, who I think are another level.”
