In a highly-anticipated matchup, Rose Lavelle scored to put her team up 1-0 at PayPal Park. Sound familiar? The veteran’s goal in the ninth minute of the U.S. Women’s National Team’s match against Japan on Saturday, which came five months after she scored the NWSL Championship winner on the same pitch, reminds us yet again why she is so vital to Emma Hayes’s squad. The USWNT went on to win the match — the first in a three-game series against Japan — 2-1.
Lavelle started alongside Lindsey Heaps and Sam Coffey in a veteran-laden midfield and stood out all game. The first goal began with a looping free kick from Coffey, which was then tapped into the mix by Trinity Rodman. Lavelle correctly interpreted that the chaos in the box required her to focus more on precision than power, and she deftly placed the ball into the side netting using the outside of her foot.
The goal signaled growth for the team, who have struggled on set pieces in recent years. “We have to improve our goal scoring chances from dead balls, and I think there’s been real progress made by the team this year,” Hayes said after the match.
Throughout the match, the best attacks came through either the wide areas or Lavelle, who was playing centrally. She combined time after time with her teammates, patiently working through Japan’s low block. It wasn’t a surprise, then, that she was intimately involved with the second goal, too. After Gisele Thompson put heavy pressure on Hana Takahashi, practically walking her backward deep into Japan’s half, her older sister Alyssa combined with Lavelle, who ultimately served up a dainty pass to a holding Heaps. Heaps made no mistake of putting it away. Lavelle’s handiwork had brought the U.S. a two-goal lead by the 48th minute.
“When you play top teams you need really calm heads, and Rose has that in abundance. It’s why she’s one of the best players in the world,” Hayes said.
Gisele Thompson also had a standout match. The 20-year-old fullback really seems to have come into her own, on both sides of the ball. She made multiple impressive blocks, including a tackle from nowhere that stopped a Manaka Matsukubo breakaway. She also ate up tons of space in the wide areas, contributing to the attack with crosses and lightning-fast combinations along the touchline.
Another player who can be proud of her night was Sophia Wilson, better known as Gigi’s mom. The former NWSL MVP made her first appearance for the USWNT since October 2024 after giving birth in September. The striker has appeared in each of the Portland Thorns’s games this NWSL season, but wearing the national team crest is another honor, and challenge, altogether. She showed her signature hunger throughout the 67 minutes she played on Saturday, and the modest amount of rust she has acquired — some missed opportunities here, some late steps there — looks sure to be shaken off in due time.
“That’s the first time Soph’s had to play in a level of game like that since the Olympic gold medal final. Like, no small feat,” Hayes said. “So I’m proud of her to come into that, and it takes a bit of time to find that rhythm, and I think she gave it everything she could.”
It wasn’t all roses for Hayes’s side. Japanese interim manager Michihisa Kano used two sub windows in the second half to make a deluge of changes, including the introduction of Riko Ueki, the West Ham forward who had won the Golden Boot at the Asian Cup in March. Ueki was a significant threat all throughout the second half and managed to break the USWNT’s nine-game clean sheet streak. In the 61st minute, Ueki punished a momentarily disorganized USWNT backline. The goal reflected more a lapse in focus than anything else and the U.S. will look to be more consistently ruthless on defense in its wake.
“Second half, we started so strongly and so dominant and so on the front foot, score the second and then we concede against the run of play,” Hayes said. “And it just shows you how quickly in a football match you can be in complete control, and looks like we’re gonna go and get the third, and all of a sudden it’s 2-1 out of nothing, and momentum shifts.”
For the rest of the match, Ueki continued to press the U.S., but Claudia Dickey made some nice saves to secure the win. “I think 12 months ago we might have drawn this game. I think the progress is in staying in the game and not conceding a second goal,” Hayes said.
The U.S. had 61 percent of the possession, which has proven to be key for beating the tightly-organized Nadeshiko. They’ll look to continue the winning ways over the next two friendlies. For the second of the series, Hayes says she’ll be putting out a less experienced starting lineup to “see the progress that we have made in the last 12 months, knowing it’s not going to be the first time they’ve faced Japan.” The last time the U.S. faced Japan was a loss in the 2025 SheBelieves Cup, which Hayes and many young players have pointed to as a turning point for the squad.
But Saturday night was about reestablishing relationships between tried-and-true veterans, many of whom have temporarily dipped out of the national team picture at some point since the Olympics. “We have to prepare ourselves for [World Cup] qualifying,” Hayes said. “We don’t have a lot of windows left, so we need to get some of these players playing back together again. I think it’s important.”
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