The Chicago Stars have landed a head coach, with the NWSL confirming on Wednesday that Hammarby manager Martin Sjögren will join the team when the top-flight Swedish league's season ends in November.
Under Sjögren, Hammarby currently sits second in the Damallsvenskan, with a 2025/26 UEFA Champions League play-in opportunity set for later this month.
No stranger to the global stage, the incoming Chicago Stars coach led the Norway women's national team from 2016 to 2022, leading the Grasshoppers to two group-stage exits at the 2017 and 2022 Euro tournaments as well as a World Cup quarterfinal appearance in 2019.
Calling the NWSL "the most competitive league in the world," Sjögren told The Athletic on Monday that he wants "to build [the Chicago Stars] in a different way," by combining European-style tactics with US soccer's physicality.
"We want to create something sustainable that could be successful," Sjögren explained. "You can always choose to put a lot of money in and buy the best players, but when the money runs out, then you don't have a team anymore."
With just one win on the season, the Stars currently sit 13th on the 2025 NWSL table, with interim managers Masaki Hemmi and Ella Masar splitting coaching duties after Chicago fired head coach Lorne Donaldson in April.
Prior to Sjögren taking the reins ahead of the 2026 NWSL season, his longtime assistant Anders Jacobson will join the Stars "in the coming weeks" to serve as interim manager, with current interim head coach Masar then shifting back into an assistant capacity.
Jacobson will subsequently join Masar as an assistant when Sjögren arrives.
"Martin has been someone I've known and highly respected for almost 10 years," said Masar in a club statement. "Chicago is in good hands."
Legendary USWNT attacker Tobin Heath officially announced her retirement from soccer on Thursday, nearly three years after playing her final professional match.
"Over New Year's, I actually came to the full acceptance that I wasn't going to be playing," the 37-year-old explained on her podcast, The RE-CAP Show.
In her 13 years with the senior national team, Heath — widely regarded as one of the most technical players in US history — earned two World Cup titles (2015, 2019) and three Olympic medals (gold in 2008 and 2012, and bronze in 2021).
Across her 181 USWNT caps, the 2016 US Soccer Athlete of the Year logged 36 goals and 42 assists, making her final appearance for the States on October 26th, 2021.
At the club level, Heath spent seven seasons with the Portland Thorns, helping the team to NWSL Championships in 2013 and 2017, as well as the 2016 NWSL Shield.
While her career also included European stints with the Première Ligue's PSG as well as WSL sides Manchester United and Arsenal, Heath ended her pro run with the 2022 NWSL Shield-winning Seattle Reign, playing what would be her final soccer match on August 14th of that year.
Injury ends Heath's soccer career
The end of Heath's career is not what the creative, nutmegging winger anticipated.
"I thought I was literally going to be peeled off the field," Heath told The Athletic on Wednesday.
However, a 2022 serious left knee injury left Heath unable to play soccer — even at a casual level — ultimately forcing her retirement.
"I tried f---ing everything to get back, I spent tens of thousands of dollars and [had] two surgeries, one crazy surgery," Heath said on her podcast. "And the whole time I believed I was going to get back."
"Football is a 360-degree sport, and I can't do it," she told The Athletic. "So that part is the hardest part. The actual playing of soccer is gone."
Heath still working to lift up women's soccer in retirement
Despite coming to terms with the end of her on-pitch career, Heath isn't leaving the world of soccer anytime soon, helping lead the newly launched World Sevens Football and joining FIFA's technical study group for the men's Club World Cup.
Elevating football — particularly the women's game — is a pursuit that began for Heath with the Portland Thorns.
"[Portland] showed what women's sports could be," she explained. "I was dreaming of the world that I wanted to create."
The 2019 World Cup run then solidified that mission, with the USWNT adding a fourth star to their crest while also facing a pressure-cooker of expectations amid political tension and a contentious fight for equal pay.
"You can't feel what we felt...and not believe that you're doing something so f---ing important for the world," said Heath.
"You feel that responsibility — and that's what it is — and you want to keep carrying that responsibility as far forward as you can."
Star USWNT goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher announced her retirement from international play on Monday, with the vet set to hang up her boots after the team's upcoming friendlies against England and the Netherlands. Naeher's final game will fall on December 3rd — 10 years to the month after her 2014 first cap.
"When I began this journey, I never could have imagined where it would take me," Naeher wrote. "This has been a special team to be a part of and I am beyond proud of what we have achieved both on and off the field."
Naeher will continue playing professionally in the NWSL, recently inking a contract to stay in Chicago for an upcoming 10th season.
One of the best to ever do it
With two World Cup titles, a gold and bronze Olympic medal, and 88 wins and 68 shutouts across her 113 caps, the 36-year-old exits as one of the best goalkeepers in USWNT history.
Naeher is also unmatched on the world stage. The only goalie nominated for the 2024 Ballon d'Or is also the first and only to record shutouts in both a World Cup final and Olympic gold-medal match. Even more, Naeher didn't concede a single goal throughout the 2024 Olympics knockout round, shutting down the world's best to help the USWNT secure gold.
Amidst her many achievements and skills, Naeher will likely be remembered for her quiet, reserved demeanor, her intensity, and her unparalleled ability to play penalty hero in some of the USWNT's biggest moments.
The PK specialist made key stops to send the US to the 2019 World Cup final and to eventually earn bronze in the 2021 Olympics. To date, she's the only US goalkeeper to record three saves in a penalty shootout.
Most impressively, Naeher is one of few keepers at the international level who will step to the spot herself. Earlier this year, she strung together a shootout series of saving a shot, burying her own, and immediately making another save, and she did it twice, just five weeks apart — in March's Concacaf W Gold Cup and April's 2024 SheBelieves Cup.
Future USWNT shotblockers
Naeher's retirement kicks off the hunt for a new starting keeper. Regulars Casey Murphy (NC Courage) and Jane Campbell (Houston Dash) are the likely frontrunners for the job, though neither will feature in the USWNT's final camp of 2024.
Currently in Europe alongside Naeher are Mandy Haught (Utah Royals), who earned her first cap in October, and first-time call-up Phallon Tullis-Joyce (Manchester United), who will both look to prove their worth to US boss Emma Hayes in Europe.
How to watch Alyssa Naeher's final USWNT matches
The goalkeeping great's last two matches in a USWNT kit begin with Saturday's battle against England at London's iconic Wembley Stadium at 12:20 PM ET.
After traveling to The Hague, Naeher's final US game will be against the Netherlands at 2:45 PM ET on December 3rd.
Both friendlies will air live on TNT.
Ali Krieger won her second World Cup title with the U.S. women’s national team in 2019. But the two years before that tournament were among the toughest of her career, she told Lynn Williams and Sam Mewis on the latest episode of Snacks.
An 11-year member of the USWNT, Krieger made 108 appearances for the squad. But she played sparingly for the USWNT in 2017 and not at all in 2018, as she went 18 months without a call-up.
“I lost two years with the team and I didn’t really understand why,” she said. “That was another moment in my life, in my career and my personal life, that was really difficult to overcome because you just didn’t have a reason.
“It was like breaking up with somebody and you never had closure because you didn’t really know the reasons why. I didn’t know really what to work on to improve in my game so that I can get back out there and practice and train and, and figure out how I can better myself to get back on the team. So that was a low moment I think for me.”
In April 2019, she returned to the USWNT and played a full 90 minutes in a friendly against Belgium almost exactly two years after her last appearance for the team. She went on to make three appearances during the World Cup, including in the championship match.
While Krieger has had a long and storied career, it hasn’t always been easy. She’s played professionally since 2006, including for the entirety of the NWSL’s existence. And for Krieger, staying in the game meant learning she could control — and what she couldn’t.
“There’s gonna be times where, you know, coaches might not like you. You might go through fights with adversity and injury and you might not be playing your best at some points during your career,” she said. “And you have to have that mental capacity and the positivity to really stay within the game and the level that you want to play at.”
Krieger has focused on her mental health, which has helped her remain steady through her career.
“Self-talk is really, I think, what has helped me stay here for so long because emotionally and physically, I could get on the line all day and run, right?” she said. “It’s like you don’t want to, but you’re able to physically do it. But mentally, through all the adversity and everything that kind of comes your way and is thrown at you, whether that be on the field, off the field, fans talking shit to you, fans supporting you, coaches might not like you that day, maybe they like you the next week?
“There’s so many different moments. There’s so much to unravel, and all the layers piled on to just being an athlete 24/7 for this amount of time, you really have to be strong mentally.”