When the final Concacaf W draw in April set the groups of the last round of the tournament, all eyes eventually landed on Group A. As unlikely as it is to have a “Group of Death” in a two-group format, Jamaica, Mexico and Haiti would have to compete against each other and the U.S. for two automatic qualification spots to the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

As May and June passed, and the USWNT lost key players to injury while Mexico blew through much of its competition, anticipation for a group stage upset grew. Adding to the intrigue, the games were to be played in Monterrey, Mexico — a more hostile qualifying environment for the World No. 1 team than they’d seen in years.

The USWNT and Mexico, historically, haven’t been pitted in the type of rivalry we’ve seen on the men’s side, but this year seemed to be trending toward an inflection point that could set a new tone between the two programs.

What actually occurred over the last week didn’t quite meet that expected, giving us a glimpse into a region that hasn’t changed in the ways we projected. A 1-0 loss to Jamaica last Monday set them on the wrong path, and a 3-0 loss to Haiti on Thursday has pushed them to the brink of the unthinkable.

Mexico will need all three points against the USWNT on Monday night to even have a shot at the inter-continental playoff spot given to Group A’s third-place finisher.

In addition to Haiti’s big step forward, the shock in the standings comes from all the progress Mexico had made in recent years to prepare for this exact moment. In 2016, the country founded Liga MX Femenil with the intention of developing domestic talent into a formidable national team that can represent Concacaf on the biggest stages. In 2018, Mexico failed to qualify for the three available spots for the 2019 World Cup, most notably falling 2-0 to eventual inter-continental playoff team Panama.

That failure devastated fans and players alike, but belief in the process kept the team pushing forward. The Mexican Football Federation identified that the future lay in the strength of the next generation, and after strong performances as the coach of the U-17 and U-20 ranks, former player Monica Vergara was named first-team manager in January 2021.

Vergara’s tenure up until a week ago had been considered a great success. She had identified talent both in Liga MX Femenil and abroad, and she had created a free-flowing attack that scored goals with ease. She also appeared to instill a belief into the player pool that they could compete with anyone, as evidenced in the team’s two results against Olympic gold medalists Canada at home last November.

Mexico advanced through the newly established Concacaf W preliminary rounds in completely dominant fashion and entered the final stage of the tournament on a 10-game winning streak, having scored 52 goals in that span.

So, when Vergara told the media before Mexico’s first match against Jamaica that they were “going to see a Mexico that they’ve never seen before,” there was reason to believe she was right. In reality, the game felt more haunted by the team’s 2018 failure than the clean slate they had been building toward. Vergara changed her starters against Jamaica, presenting a lineup that prioritized emerging talent without the benefit of experience. Even before the first whistle, the selection changes at the last minute undermined the idea that Mexico felt secure going into the biggest games of the qualifying cycle.

On the field, the team played with a similar aimlessness, as an early goal by Jamaica’s Khadija Shaw left Mexico scrambling for an equalizer. El Tri Femenil sent cross after hopeful cross into the box, rendering the attack both endless and predictable. Against Haiti, belief began to wane as they gave up two penalties and one exceptional free kick. While goals against are expected in tournaments like Concacaf W, Mexico’s lack of attacking bite sunk them before they could even get a foothold in the competition. The team enters Monday’s game still looking for its first goal.

They also didn’t benefit from a dip in the USWNT’s form. In a cruel twist of expectations, the young and relatively un-capped U.S. team has looked as relaxed and confident as they would on home soil.

Some of the tightness the USWNT showed in the Haiti match gave way to flexibility and freedom against a tired Jamaica side, with Sophia Smith scoring one of the best goals in the tournament just four minutes into the game. Jamaica couldn’t match their energy from Game 1 against the world champions, and the USWNT ran away with a 5-0 win while rotating lineups. They clinched a World Cup berth later that day after Mexico fell to Haiti.

The first of the evening for @sophsssmith ☝️

pic.twitter.com/zpc4TQk8Oi

— U.S. Soccer WNT (@USWNT) July 7, 2022

This USWNT qualifying squad is a far cry from the roster we saw in France in 2019, and it’s also not the exact team we’re going to see in 2023, but their ability to slot new players in has been a quiet strength of the group.

Vlatko Andonovski’s roster selection came under a fair amount of criticism, with creative attacking midfielders coming at the expense of the defensive midfield. As the Tokyo Olympics made clear, Lindsey Horan is not a long-term solution at the No. 6 and Andi Sullivan hasn’t been able to carry heavy minutes for the team in some time. Losing two starting center backs also raised red flags, as the U.S. depth was clearly going to be tested throughout the tournament.

Those deficiencies, however, didn’t sink the team in their first game, and in their second, they firmly overcame them. Naomi Girma looked just as calm and collected as advertised in her third cap against Jamaica. In fact, the NWSL rookie’s vision in distribution opened the field up for Smith’s first goal. And as the USWNT took a 2-0 lead within the first 10 minutes, any hope for another Jamaica upset seemed to fade.

The storylines all lead to Monday, when instead of granting a World Cup berth, the Mexico-U.S. match might follow old patterns instead. The USWNT does not want to meet Canada in the semifinals, and will do everything it can to get all nine points and set up a likelier meeting with Costa Rica. They’re also in the home stretch of the competition, meaning that they’re less likely to rotate within games as they aim for the tournament’s single-guaranteed 2024 Olympic spot.

For Mexico, the work put into the last four years should have meant that this game against the U.S. was an opportunity, and not an ultimatum. They’ve been bested by two good teams — Jamaica is the region’s established third-best squad with a very good new coach, and Haiti is bursting with young talent — and such is the injustice of the tournament’s draw. But they’re now fighting off the inevitability of defeat and, beyond that, an uncertain future.

After their appearance in the 2015 World Cup, Mexico bought into investment patterns within women’s world football that are supposed to work after a number of years. U.S. Soccer created the NWSL to establish a solid pipeline to the first-team USWNT, and the Americans have won two World Cups within the 10 years of the league’s existence. Across the world, club dominance has since translated to strong national team presences, as the emergence of Spain, France, and England in this year’s Euros can attest.

History tells us that, eventually, Mexico’s investment in its own domestic league will pay dividends on the international stage.

Whether Mexico walks away with the result necessary to have a chance at the next World Cup or not, those in leadership should understand that this tournament is simply a reflection of how difficult the climb can be. Liga MX Femenil is an increasingly competitive market for top players, Mexican stars are doing well in other leagues, and the national team’s future remains bright even if this cycle goes sideways.

From there, a rivalry against the U.S. remains an achievable — if not delayed — dream. Diana Ordoñez and María Sánchez are establishing themselves in the NWSL, and Liga MX Femenil has already attracted top USWNT prospect Mia Fishel.

Regardless of other results, Mexico can take a big step toward its long-term goals with a win Monday night. If you’re a believer in a healthy Concacaf region, you might in fact be rooting for it.

Claire Watkins is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports covering soccer and the NWSL. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.