The first edition of the Concacaf W Gold Cup is set to kick off on February 17, with the tournament running through March 10. Along with the United States women’s national team, the 12-team field features seven other teams from Concacaf and four guest teams from South America.
The USWNT’s early competition in this tournament isn’t exactly stiff. Their first game will be against the winner of Saturday’s Guyana vs. Dominican Republic match, and then they’ll take on Argentina before closing out the group stage against Mexico, who failed to qualify for last year’s World Cup. No disrespect to any of these opponents, but there’s a huge talent gap between the U.S. and each of these teams.
That, paired with the fact that incoming head coach Emma Hayes isn’t even with the team full time yet, makes this an interesting set of games for the USWNT to start off an Olympic year. What can we learn – if anything – from this stretch?
