The United States women’s national team finished their series of September friendlies against Nigeria this week, with one dominant performance and one much closer scoreline.

With all eyes on the World Cup next summer, the U.S. took some important steps forward while also showing their hand for the months ahead, including a crucial friendly against Euro champions England on Oct. 7. Here are our biggest questions coming out of the USWNT’s most recent results:

Is the player experimentation period over?

During the Concacaf W Championship, the USWNT roster struck a balance of veteran leadership and new faces due to both unforeseen absences and a desire to add youthful creativity to the squad. That group expertly navigated World Cup qualifying, winning the title over rivals Canada without conceding a single goal in the tournament.

While qualifying was by all quantifiable measures a success, roster tinkering is still expected as the team moves into its final year of World Cup preparation. At the top of the priority list for the U.S. are identifying defensive midfield strengths, making decisions at outside back and addressing goalkeeper depth. The question of the center forward position also remains eternal, as the team waits for generational talent Catarina Macario to return from an ACL injury.

With a number of NWSL players unexpectedly rising in form, and other U.S. nationals performing well outside of the domestic league, September seemed like a good opportunity for coach Vlatko Andonovski to tweak the group of players on the bubble. Instead of bringing new players into camp, however, he made very few changes between the July and September rosters.

Andonovski’s ideology seems to prioritize chemistry over sheer form, despite a renewed commitment by U.S. Soccer to operate otherwise. That chemistry was on scintillating display at times this past week, but the USWNT did ultimately leave players off of September’s roster who have been performing well, and brought in players with high ceilings who have been underperforming for their clubs.

Andonovski showed his preference for the World Cup qualifying group over former champions Abby Dahlkemper and AD Franch. He also called up midfielder Sam Coffey, the 24th person in for Concacaf, while leaving North Carolina Courage outside back Carson Pickett at home.

These small roster moves create a bigger picture that indicates the USWNT might be done evaluating new players, and is more committed to cohesion while waiting for other key contributors to return. With the World Cup still months away, and the team not necessarily dominating competition, that level of tunnel vision could be a mistake. One simply has to look at the way Macario’s injury upended the team’s attack right before a crucial part of the calendar, highlighting how a lack of versatility can undermine the depth of the player pool.

Is the formation set?

Andonovski has been married to the 4-3-3 formation ever since taking over the team in 2019 and hasn’t experimented much with other formations outside of emergencies. Sticking strictly to one system isn’t always conducive to national team play, since simply getting the best players on the field at once can be paramount. Especially if the U.S. isn’t bringing new players into camp, they could stand to develop the versatility of their style of play.

Against Nigeria, the starting XI mirrored that of the Concacaf W championship game, but the team appeared to employ slight formational changes.

With the current 4-3-3, the USWNT at times struggles to shore up its spine down the middle while creating room for all of its best attacking talent. While Lindsey Horan and Rose Lavelle can run box-to-box, the U.S. midfield frequently plays in what you might envision as an upside-down triangle, with one defensive midfielder holding court and two attacking midfielders pushing forward into the final third. All too often, however, that midfield gets bypassed in favor of the center backs distributing the ball either out wide or up to the forwards.

In the games against Nigeria, it appeared the team was experimenting with different ways to create overloads and get the midfield more involved. At times, Sophia Smith would drift behind Alex Morgan when the U.S. had possession, allowing Lavelle to shift to the right and creating an overload on that side. Together, they opened up channels that we didn’t see from the USWNT in Monterrey, and they resisted the impulse to slow down unnecessarily when their center backs were distributing the ball.

One touch is all it takes for @sophsssmith!

🎥 @FOXSoccer pic.twitter.com/vq6rzk92AM

— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) September 3, 2022

Smith performed well in the role, scoring a brace in game one, but Andonovski could also be saving that underlying striker option for Macario’s return. Macario and Morgan play the No. 9 position very differently, giving the U.S. a chance to present opponents with varied starting looks when both are healthy.

But with a player underneath her, Morgan actually has the room to employ her full skill set, including her off-the-ball work that has flown under the radar for years. It opened up scoring opportunities in both of the games against Nigeria, including Lavelle’s game-winner on Tuesday when Mallory Pugh was filling the underlying striker role.

Those slight changes don’t necessarily reflect the wholesale experimentation fans might be looking for, but they do at least present the next step in building roster cohesion from a sometimes tepid attack in July. The starting group looked in sync against Nigeria, and they’ll need that level of creativity to unlock England in October.

What does this week say about next year’s roster?

Despite the lack of overall roster rotation since Concacaf, the U.S. appears to have both a settled core and number of questions still to answer.

The USWNT’s preferred starters in the first Nigeria match performed well on every line. That group controlled the match comfortably, and if the game was a simulation of a World Cup group stage match, they executed in a way you’d expect from the No. 1 team in the world.

The second half of that match — and much of the second game — showed just how much uncertainty there is about the rest of the squad. Getting Coffey acclimated to the defensive midfield at the international level appears to be a priority, with the 23-year-old playing a full 90 in her USWNT debut. Sofia Huerta was excellent in game one, but a missed-timed header in game two created space for Uchenna Kanu’s equalizer and laid bare her lingering defensive discomfort.

Midfielder Taylor Kornieck, called up for both World Cup qualifying and September friendlies, saw no playing time this week and does not seem to be high on the current depth chart. Megan Rapinoe is a preferred 60th-minute sub, and she showed why after earning the assist on Lavelle’s game-winner on Tuesday. Hailie Mace, brought in after an injury to Kelley O’Hara, got time at left back in both games, but Emily Fox has appeared to cement her starting spot at the position.

73 SECONDS.

That's all it took for @mPinoe to find @roselavelle to give us the lead! #USAvNGA x @Allstate pic.twitter.com/yDFzCOJ5Pg

— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) September 6, 2022

Ultimately, this week was about the starters more than it was about determining depth. Roster stability is important, but it would still be fair for USWNT fans to look at the team 10 months away from a major tournament and say, “Is this it?”

The answer is both yes and no. Crystal Dunn is very close to returning to play, and it couldn’t come at a better time for the USWNT. Dunn is not only a positive locker room force, but she also can play the No. 8, push forward in the attack, or even take over either outside back position. Her presence in camp this week served as a reminder that there are very talented players still working their way back to the team.

And if anything, this summer has shown that there’s room for them on the roster. It’s hard not to look at the current USWNT defense and wonder what it might look like with Tierna Davidson at the height of her powers, or what the midfield with Sam Mewis could become. Macario, Christen Press, Lynn Williams, Trinity Rodman and others will give the USWNT coaching staff much to consider when selecting the final attacking group.

What we also learned from the USWNT’s path to the 2019 World Cup roster is that it’s still too early to count anybody out. USWNT-capped players like Jaelin Howell, Dahlkemper, Franch, Julie Ertz and even Tobin Heath could all see their numbers called depending on the needs of the team.

England will present the U.S. with the sternest test it’s seen this year, and if that game doesn’t go the USWNT’s way, there are plenty of players waiting in the wings.

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.