U.S. women’s national team legend Carli Lloyd had some harsh words for the 2023 squad after Tuesday’s 0-0 draw against Portugal.

The two-time World Cup champion turned Fox Sports analyst called out the USWNT players and head coach Vlatko Andonovski after the “uninspiring” result, which left the defending champions as runners-up in Group E behind the Netherlands. The U.S. had won its 10 previous meetings against Portugal by a combined scoreline of 39-0.

“There’s been a shift within this team, within the federation, within the culture, the mentality,” Lloyd said on the postgame broadcast. “The importance and meaning of winning has changed. What has come from winning has become more important.”

After retiring from the national team in 2021, Lloyd made similar comments about the culture of the USWNT, which she mentioned again Tuesday. Lloyd won the 2015 and 2019 World Cup titles with the national team, and she remained with the team through the transition from Jill Ellis to Andonovski after the 2019 title.

“You never want to take anything for granted,” she said. “You put on that jersey, and you want to give it everything you have, for the people that came before you, for the people that are going to come after you. And I’m just not seeing that passion.

“I’m just seeing a very lackluster, uninspiring (group) taking it for granted, where winning and training and doing all that you can to be the best possible individual player is not happening.”

In particular, Lloyd took issue with the players’ seemingly relaxed conduct both before and after the scoreless draw. She pointed out players dancing before the match and then smiling and laughing after the final whistle.

“There’s a difference between confidence and arrogance, and I think there’s a fine line… It’s OK to be confident, but you never want to cross that line to being arrogant,” Lloyd said of the demeanor of the team heading into the group-stage finale.

And after the draw, which consigned the USWNT to second place in Group E and a tough road through the bracket, she pointed to a fiery Kelley O’Hara as an example for the team. O’Hara spoke animatedly to her teammates in the postgame huddle.

“Players are smiling. They’re laughing. It’s not good enough,” she said. “You need more Kelleys, and that’s the reason the team is in this situation right now. Because Kelley will say it how it is, whether players like it or not.”

As USWNT players greeted their family members and their fans with smiles, Lloyd offered further criticism.

“I have never witnessed something like that,” she said. “There’s a difference between being respectful to the fans and saying hello to your family, but to be dancing, to be smiling… I mean, the player of the match was that post. You are lucky to not be going home right now.”

As for Andonovski, Lloyd wanted to see better tactics, calling the team’s game plan “just too predictable and, really, just uninspiring.” And she wanted to see more passion.

“This group is a young team. I think they need a little bit of fire lit under them. I think they need a little bit of self-criticism,” she said. “And Vlatko Andonovski is not really that guy that does that.”

"There's a difference between being respectful of the fans and saying hello to your family, but to be dancing and smiling..."@CarliLloyd on the USWNT after the match 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/38zm1eC76r

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) August 1, 2023

Brazil has officially become the favorite to host the 2027 Women's World Cup after FIFA’s technical inspection team awarded them a higher rating than the joint European bid. 

After the US and Mexico dropped out of the running last month, the bid from Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands had previously been pegged to win hosting rights for the next Women's World Cup. But FIFA's latest report shows that Brazil was given a score of 4.0 out of 5 in its technical evaluation, besting the European contender's score of 3.7.

Brazil ranked higher in a number of key areas, including stadiums, accommodations, fan zones, and transport infrastructure. The country is aiming to reuse 10 of the venues used for the 2014 Men's World Cup in 2027, with the final set to take place in Rio de Janeiro. 

"The Bid Evaluation Report reflects the comprehensive evaluation model that has become a hallmark of FIFA’s enhanced bidding processes for men’s and women’s flagship events, which incorporates a variety of criteria, ranging from event vision and key metrics, infrastructure, services, commercial aspects, and sustainability and human rights," FIFA wrote in a press release.

The report also highlighted the fact that this would be the first Women's World Cup in South America, noting that the decision could "have a tremendous impact on women's football in the region."

Should the EU bid win, it wouldn't be the first WWC in Europe, as Germany played host to the event in 2011 before France in 2019. There could also be further complications for the Germany-Belgium-Netherlands bid: In its report, the evaluation team regarded the bid's legal and contractual framework as "high-risk."

FIFA has promised more planning time for the 2031 Women's World Cup. While the Men's World Cup hosts have already been secured through 2034, the WWC is only three years away with a host yet to be named.

The final vote is set to take place at the 74th FIFA Congress in Bangkok on May 17th. It will be the first time FIFA determines a World Cup host via an open vote.

Lynn Williams played hero on Wednesday night, helping Gotham to its first win over the Houston Dash since May 15th, 2021.

Coming in the eighth minute, the forward's goal was all it took for the Bats to ink the 1-0 victory. It was also her 78th across all NWSL competitions, landing her neck-and-neck with former Chicago Red Star Sam Kerr for the most career goals in league history.

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"Wow, that’s really cool. To have my name there with Sam Kerr is amazing. But I don’t get that goal, I don’t get those things, without my teammates," Williams said of her accomplishment.

Williams' effort also marked the team’s 300th club goal across all competitions. 

"I think the players executed the game plan almost to perfection," echoed Gotham head coach Juan Carlos Amorós after the match. "I am very, very proud of how they’ve been able to perform like that in such a shorter space of time."

The goal was Williams’ second in as many games, giving her two goals through five matches played this season. Gotham will next travel to San Diego to face the Wave at Snapdragon Stadium on Sunday.

The Chicago Sky showed up in a big way on Tuesday night, taking down 2023 WNBA Finals runners-up New York Liberty by an impressively wide margin. 

The Sky walked away with a 101-53 win, boasting a 48 point swing that still looms large despite the fact that it's only preseason. Perhaps the team felt extra pressure to perform — not only did WNBA League Pass follow through on their promise to stream the game for free, but Chicago Bears rookies Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze also happened to be watching on from the stands.

“I’m gonna just say — it’s about time," said Sky guard Dana Evans in response to the star-studded turnout at Wintrust Arena. "Everybody wants to watch women’s basketball. I feel like we’ve been doing a really good job of doing stuff on the court and off the court. So just having them support us is great — but keep bringing them out."

Chicago's Marina Mabrey was lights out with four threes and 20 points on the night, while training camp addition Chennedy Carter racked up 11 points and two steals. 

Sky rookie Angel Reese proved that she can do it all, putting up 13 points, five rebounds, and two steals in 19 minutes — all less than 24 hours after she walked the Met Gala red carpet in New York. The 6-foot-3 top draft pick out of LSU even knocked down a layup over 2023 WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart in one of the night's many highlights.

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"So now yall can delete them drafts & tweets saying i shouldn’t have gone to the met gala & i can’t do both," she later wrote on social media. 

While some may chalk it up to preseason coaching choices and the fact that it was the Liberty’s first real game outside of training camp scrimmages, New York head coach Sandy Brondello still voiced disappointed in her team’s result.

"We just got our butts kicked, everywhere. I mean everything. It’s an embarrassing effort, I don’t care that it’s preseason," she said in a postgame press conference. "Our starters didn't get us off to a good start. We missed a lot of layups early, but they just took us out of everything."

On a lighter note, the third-year Liberty coach had some kind words for undrafted rookie Jaylyn Sherrod, who showed real effort on defense.

"She has speed," remarked Brondello. "She could guard Dana Evans. No one else could."

As the WNBA plans to implement league-wide charter flights, the NWSL is struggling with some travel issues of its own. 

Missed flights, inclement weather, and a stretch of midweek games have spurred workload and logistical concerns for a number of NWSL teams. Last week, three games were played Wednesday night, while another three games are set to be played tonight. 

"You can't play your best XI right now because of the amount of games you have," said Red Stars head coach Lorne Donaldson after last Wednesday's 4-2 loss to Washington. Donaldson emphasized the importance of rotating through the team’s depth so as to avoid injury.

"You have to get to about 16 deep where you can," he continued. "Or else your best XI is going to be injured or walk off the field and they can’t finish the season."

Kansas City has faced some of the league's most extreme turnaround times this season. On Sunday, the Current missed an evening flight to Seattle due to a multi-hour rain delay in Houston, throwing off their training schedule ahead of their midweek match against the Reign. The NWSL eventually gave them the green light to charter a plane, but not before frustration spread throughout the team.

"We lost the whole day of the opportunity to recover," said Current head coach Vlatko Andonovski after the Current's weekend draw against the Dash. "So the schedule, it's already challenging to begin with. We have by far the worst schedule in the league, and this just made it even worse.

"We don't have a hotel, we got to figure out a hotel. We don't have flights for tomorrow, we got to figure out flights. We had trainings for some players that we believe needed training time to be able to perform on Wednesday.”

While the team was given permission to charter a plane, navigating such approvals has proven difficult in the past. This past July, the NWSL fined Kansas City $55,000 over the unauthorized use of a charter flight.