When Trinity Rodman stepped onto the field in Carson, Calif., on Saturday night for the U.S. women’s national team’s game against Paraguay, she had the captain’s band wrapped around her arm. At 23, Rodman became the youngest player ever to captain the national team — until about an hour later, when she passed the band to 20-year-old Claire Hutton as she was subbed off in the second half.
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A few days later, when the national team faced Chile in Santa Barbara, 26-year-old Emily Sams wore the captain’s band as she made just her ninth international appearance for the United States. Across the two January friendlies, the young leaders performed. Rodman scored two goals (one in each match), Sams netted her first international goal, and both Hutton and Sams logged more minutes than almost anyone else on the roster.
Head coach Emma Hayes’ tenure with the national team has been marked by giving young players a chance. In just a year and eight months, she’s handed 15 players their first caps and called up over 23 newcomers to the senior team. Even with some veterans absent, this new-look USWNT has held strong — they haven’t conceded a goal in five games and haven’t lost since October. And the January friendlies proved more than the fact that the young players can compete; they showed these players are prepared for the leadership requirements that come with wearing the USWNT crest, too.
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Rodman was the obvious choice to lead the young team in the late January games. Her high-profile NWSL contract and existing experience made her the marquee name on the roster, but Hayes emphasized she brings more than goals.
“Leadership shows up in many different ways,” Hayes said, when she was asked why she gave the captain’s band to Rodman. “With Trinity, she’s someone who’s chosen by actions.”
Hayes also shared a motivational locker room moment Rodman led: “I said to the players, let’s go out and lift the roof, and then I realized [Harder Stadium] didn’t have a roof,” Hayes recalled. “But as Trinity reminded me, we didn’t need a roof to lift something.” Rodman is clearly evolving into more than a dynamic, goal-scoring forward; she’s a unifying thread for the team, adding motivation, experience, and even the occasional dance move.
Sams is stepping up in a similar way. Wearing the captain’s band against Chile, she played the full 90 minutes and set the tone for the game.
“Emily Sams without question leads by example,” Hayes said. “She’s a great teammate, thoughtful, caring, and kind. She values training, she puts the team first, and she quietly holds the program together. She certainly has some of the most experience of any player out there … There’s a quiet kind of leadership to her.”
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Hayes also highlighted the US under-23 program for shaping players like Sam Meza, Jordyn Bugg, and Riley Jackson. The program’s focus on adaptability, versatility, and applying training lessons in-game has, in Hayes’s view, paid off, turning these young athletes into confident game players who are ready to step up when given the opportunity.
And then there’s Hutton. Less than a month after turning 20, she became the youngest USWNT player ever to wear the captain’s band — a fitting milestone for Hayes’s youth-driven approach over the last 18 months. “Claire, I’ve already said, is a future captain in the making,” Hayes commented. The young Hutton is being identified not only as a player who brings depth to the roster, but also as one who can lead the team for years to come.
The young USWNT roster is reaching the end of this experimental phase. With the SheBelieves Cup approaching and all mainstays available (barring injury), members of the January camp will need to fight for their spots. But Hayes’s recent matches made it clear that many players can rise to the challenge — not just as scorers, but as the team’s next big leaders.
