USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps is coming home, with 2026 NWSL expansion team Denver Summit FC announcing the signing of the star midfielder to a multi-year deal on Monday.
Heaps plans to join the squad in June, kicking off the second half of the NWSL season after finishing up her current campaign with French side OL Lyonnes.
"Lindsey has won at every level of the game," Denver head coach Nick Cushing said in the club's Monday morning statement. "Her leadership, talent, and professionalism will continue to raise the standard for Summit FC when she arrives this summer."
Homegrown in Colorado, Heaps has been leading the Lyonnes midfield since 2022, when the former PSG standout moved back to Europe after winning two NWSL Shields and one championship in her six seasons with the Portland Thorns.
She returns to the US after picking up one UEFA Champions League and three Division 1 Féminine titles with the French titans.
The 31-year-old has also been a consistent presence for the USWNT, winning the 2019 World Cup and the 2024 Olympic gold medal, among other trophies, across her 170 senior national team appearances.
"I'm incredibly excited to come home to Colorado and join Denver Summit FC," Heaps said. "This club represents something special, not just for the league, but for this community and for the next generation of players growing up here."
The USWNT is gearing up for the new year, with US Soccer announcing Tuesday that the world No. 2 team will take on No. 45 Chile in the second of their two January friendlies.
Three days following their 2026 debut against No. 41 Paraguay in Los Angeles, the USWNT will face Chile some 100 miles north at Harder Stadium in Santa Barbara on January 27th — the senior national team's first-ever match in the California city.
"Playing in a city for the first time is not a common occurrence at this point in our history, so I know our players will enjoy being in beautiful Santa Barbara," US manager Emma Hayes said in Tuesday's press release.
"Our staff are really looking forward to January camp and these matches against two tough South American countries," Hayes continued. "This is the start of an important year for our team and, as always, we're focused on maximizing every minute we get with the players."
While Chile already began their 2027 World Cup journey in their confederation's ongoing qualifying tournament, the USWNT will spend much of 2026 gearing up for November's final eight-team Concacaf competition to punch their ticket to the Brazil-hosted world championship.
The most recent of the US's three total clashes with Chile came at the the 2019 World Cup in Paris, resulting in a 3-0 group-stage win for the USWNT.
How to buy tickets to the January 2026 USWNT friendlies
A myriad of presale opportunities for both January 2026 friendlies will become available starting at 1 PM ET on Wednesday, with general sales opening at 1 PM ET on Friday.
Fans can purchase tickets to both matches via US Soccer.
Gotham FC's Emily Sonnett would like everyone to know that her longtime teammate and close friend Rose Lavelle is a very good defender.
"Cannot forget that," she told Just Women's Sports at Thursday's NWSL Championship Media Day. "Gotta write about that."
A World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist with the US women's national team, the respect that Lavelle almost instantly garners from the opposition creates significant space for her Gotham teammates. And since joining the team in 2024, she's taken well to the club's high-pressing, quick-transition style.
"She takes up a lot of attention," said Sonnett. "The way that she leads silently on the field, like a ghost — you don't know when she's going to get [the ball] and do something brave, and then, bam, she's there."
Gotham teammates spotlight Lavelle’s two-way brilliance
Lavelle has been a constant during Gotham’s unlikely championship run, both a locker room leader and a Fellow Gotham and USWNT star Midge Purce would also like everyone to know about Lavelle's prowess on both sides of the ball.
"It's hard to describe when you play with someone who's that good, it's just special," she said. "She can do special things on and off the ball — something she doesn't get a ton of credit for."
She's such a force, in fact, that Purce wasn't aware of the one achievement that's eluded Lavelle throughout her illustrious career — winning an NWSL title.
"Rosie, I didn't realize!" Purce exclaimed upon learning she's never won a league championship — despite being on the Gotham squad that took down Lavelle's Seattle (née OL) Reign in the 2023 NWSL Final. "She deserves the world."
From Breakers to Gotham: Rose Lavelle's winding NWSL journey
Lavelle needs little introduction to a soccer audience. A perennial winner on the international stage and a midfield maestro with the ball at her feet, the 30-year-old is a fixture of the global women's game. But her NWSL career has been a bit more nuanced.
A Wisconsin standout with serious USWNT interest right out of college, Lavelle signed her first professional contract with the now-defunct Boston Breakers in 2018, entering a league almost unrecognizable to today's thriving NWSL ecosystem.
Boston folded the following year, sending Lavelle to Washington during a dark competitive period for the Spirit. She was later somewhat unceremoniously traded to Seattle in 2021, while playing overseas with the WSL's Manchester City. That Reign team went on to fall to none other than Gotham FC in the 2023 NWSL Championship — with Lavelle scoring Seattle's only goal.
In 2024, Lavelle got to make her own choices. She jumped ship, signing with the NY/NJ club that so silenced Seattle the previous season as part of a flashy free agency class.
How Lavelle battled injury and reclaimed her NWSL influence
Regardless of tonight's outcome, Lavelle's greatest triumph this season might simply be taking the pitch for a full 90 minutes. The 30-year-old has struggled with injuries throughout her professional career, but bouncing back from offseason ankle surgery was especially taxing. Her prolonged recovery impacted her ability to make a difference on the field, as she watched Gotham's form waver early in 2025.
"It was a pretty big surgery," Lavelle said, acknowledging that she's had to adjust her role within the team to maintain a presence off the pitch.
So she found ways to stay involved. She shared opinions in team meetings, staying connected with teammates in order to forge a seamless transition once she could handle more significant playing time.
"She supported me for the first half of the season, when she wasn't even on the field," said rookie midfielder Sarah Schupansky. "And she didn't only support me, she supported the whole team."
Lavelle admitted that even now she doesn't feel 100%. But she also has a veteran's perspective on the bigger picture. "I still have to give myself the grace of acknowledging that it's going to be an up and down journey," she said.
"Being able to play with Rose, obviously, with the national team, has been incredible," Sonnett remarked. "But seeing the way that she's been able to train in NWSL, seeing that grit — I know she's battled through injury. [But] being able to see her train, I learn a lot from her."
Chasing the one women's soccer trophy that’s eluded her
Having won all there is to win at the international level, Lavelle's legacy doesn't ride on a single title. But her teammates would love to help check off that particular box on behalf of their locker room leader.
"I adore playing with her, and I adore her off the field," said Purce. "I definitely want to see her lift that trophy — she's going to be just fantastic."
As for Lavelle herself, the game is the fun part. And raising a trophy at the end of 90 minutes is just a benefit of the greater goal.
"This is what you play for," said Lavelle.
"This season is so long and hard. But then you get to these moments and this is the fun part, win or go home. We're all just fighting for each other, amped up, playing every single day."
Sweden veteran defender Magda Eriksson is hanging up her international boots to focus on her health, with the 32-year-old officially announcing her retirement from her national team on Sunday.
Eriksson will continue competing at the domestic level for her German club, Bayern Munich.
The longtime captain sat out the most recent international window due to a head injury, watching as world No. 3 Sweden fell to No. 1 Spain in the two-leg 2025 Nations League semifinals.
"It's by far the toughest decision I've ever made," Eriksson said in her social media announcement. "But I'm listening to my body and mind instead of my heart."
"I've landed in the fact that unfortunately it's a decision that has to be made."
After an 11-year career with the Swedish senior national team, Eriksson retires as a two-time Olympic silver medalist, earning those podium finishes in Rio in 2016 and at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games.
Often leading Sweden through major tournaments where early domination dissolved into a third-place finish, Eriksson also helped her team eke onto the World Cup podium in both 2019 and 2023.
"It is heavy news," said Sweden head coach Tony Gustavsson after Eriksson announced her international retirement, calling her "one of our most important players for a long time."
"[Magda's] professionalism, courage, and heart have left a strong mark on the national team," he added.
Two-time World Cup champion Christen Press is hanging up her boots, as the Angel City and USWNT star announced her retirement on Wednesday, marking the end of the 2025 NWSL season as the finish line of an almost two-decade-long pro and amateur career.
The 36-year-old forward ranks ninth on the USWNT's all-time scoring list with 64 goals across her 155 international appearances, earning World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019 plus Olympic bronze at the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.
However, a 2022 ACL tear saw Press sidelined, with the Stanford alum undergoing four surgeries over two years as she battled back onto the pitch, making her return to ACFC in 2024.
Press was the LA expansion side's first official signing in 2021, going on to make 37 appearances for her hometown NWSL team after stints with the Chicago Red Stars, Utah Royals, and the WSL's Manchester United, among other teams.
Her impact also extended beyond the pitch, as Press found success alongside her wife, recently retired fellow USWNT star Tobin Heath, in the lifestyle brand RE—INC and its "The RE—CAP Show" podcast.
"I'm retiring from professional soccer and I've decided that this is my last season and my last few games," Press told Good Morning America on Wednesday morning. "I thought I would wait until I didn't want to play anymore, but I realized…that time is never going to come."
"I feel a mix of everything," Press acknowledged about her impending retirement. "Yes, there's relief, there's joy, there's excitement, there's fear, there's so much grief. I have so much grief, a part of me, a piece of me, I'm losing her."
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.”