The U.S. women's national team may not have a major tournament to worry about this year but the so-called "off" year has already been an important one for the group, one that could set the tone for the 2027 Women's World Cup and the 2028 Olympics.

Head coach Emma Hayes' real work began after the team won Olympic gold last year in Paris, with Hayes spending the months since fleshing out the player pool and offering meaningful experiences to a group of up-and-comers. The results have been impressive – many of the players who are new to the USWNT's ultra-competitive environment have settled in nicely and left their mark in matches, making the most of the opportunities in front of them. Barely a year into the job, Hayes has already done the hard work of expanding the player pool considerably.

Nearly 50 players have played in the USWNT's 15 matches since last year's Olympics, giving Hayes and company plenty to work with as a new phase of the team's development begins in the fall. The head coach targeted this month's friendly against Canada, a 3-0 win in Washington, D.C., as the conclusion of her major roster expansion project, the next step now all about identifying the best players in a pool of around 50 and developing chemistry with under two years to go until the World Cup.

The USWNT's schedule for the rest of the year is not confirmed yet, though they will likely play four to six games in the fall as FIFA has earmarked an international window in October and another one from late November to early December to close out 2025.

In the meantime, here are the storylines to keep an eye on for the rest of the year.

Building a new core roster

Hayes and her coaching staff have spent the better part of a year identifying rising talents who could play a role at the 2027 World Cup or 2028 Olympics, largely indiscriminately of how impactful they can be right now. The head coach is correcting course on a longstanding quibble she has had with her predecessors, arguing that she "inherited" a small player pool out of an overreliance on veteran talent. The opportunity was a ripe one, too – the USWNT had just under three years on the clock between the Olympics in Paris and the World Cup in Brazil, allowing the coaching staff and the players the comfort to develop at a reasonable pace.

Nine months, 15 games and 49 players later, Hayes now has a genuine familiarity with the player pool that will serve as a valuable foundation for her tactical vision for the next three years. The next phase, though, will likely see the head coach decide which 20-plus players are leading the race for roster spots at the World Cup, answers that could come as soon as October. It feels very unlikely that the door will be closed to anyone, though – Hayes herself has said that some players will spend time with the U-23 national team if it means they have a better shot at playing time, a place where they will have a chance to impress enough to join the senior team. It adds a new layer of competition to an already competitive environment, a strategy Hayes views as an essential part of her plans to ensure the USWNT remain one of the world's best sides.

Reintroduction of the veterans

During the USWNT's era of experimentation, Hayes prioritized working with fresh faces rather than the roster that won Olympic gold in Paris and while much of it was intentional, some of it was forced. A batch of players like Naomi Girma and Trinity Rodman have been unavailable through injuries, while Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson are currently on maternity leave, so there is still a limited understanding of how the newcomers would rank amongst the mainstays. The next few months will offer plenty of answers on that front, but there is enough to extrapolate in the meantime.

Since October, six of the seven players at the top of the list of minutes played were part of the gold-medal winning team, with midfielder Sam Coffey and defender Emily Sonnett leading the pack. Things are trending in the opposite direction for some, though – midfielder Korbin Albert and forward Jaedyn Shaw have not been in the mix since April and joined the U-23 team in June, while defenders Jenna Nighswonger and Casey Krueger have not played since last year. The same is also true for goalkeeper Casey Murphy, who was Alyssa Naeher's backup at the Olympics but has not been with the team since a training camp in January. It is a signal that the veterans who will be back in the mix this fall will be the ones that Hayes genuinely believes are on the right track to be part of the team in 2027 and 2028, with the head coach perhaps finally beginning to build the team in her image.

Who is the starting goalkeeper?

Out of all the uncertainties in the USWNT's lineup, the starting position in goal remains the biggest unknown.

Six goalkeepers have played since the Olympics, including Alyssa Naeher in her final matches before retiring from the national team, all with varied amounts of playing time. Mandy McGlynn tops the group with four games, but it is not a massive lead – Phallon Tullis-Joyce has three, while Jane Campbell and Claudia Dickey each have played twice and Murphy once. It really does paint a picture that the race to be Naeher's successor is well and truly up for grabs, with October's matches potentially illuminative as to how Hayes ranks these shot-stoppers.

Murphy's lack of playing time perhaps comes as the most surprising development here as a longtime understudy to Naeher, but Hayes has possibly used the last 15 games to experiment as much as possible. She has had nice things to say about the group, describing Tullis-Joyce as "leading in that area at this moment in time in her age category" ahead of the June friendlies, and Dickey as "probably the best performing goalkeeper in the NWSL this season."

No triple espresso, no problem?

The triple espresso of Rodman, Swanson and Wilson have not played together since the Olympics, but the USWNT has not exactly struggled to score without them, a sign that the team's historic embarrassment of riches in that category should continue for another generation or so. A handful of players have made real strides in that area of the pitch, too, chief among them Alyssa Thompson. The 2023 World Cup participant ranks third for minutes played since the Olympics and has four goals and one assist along the way, ranking third for goal contributions during that stretch and probably has the best case to stay in the running for a starting role, with or without triple espresso.

Thompson is not the only one making her minutes count, though. Yazmeen Ryan and Ally Sentnor are inside the top 10 for minutes played on the USWNT since October, the latter really impressing in her first games on the senior national team. Sentnor has four goals and two assists in 467 minutes of play, averaging a goal contribution every 77.83 minutes. Catarina Macario, finally regularly back with the group after battling injuries for the better part of three years, has three goals and two assists in 391 minutes of play, averaging a goal contribution every 78.2 minutes. Veteran Lynn Biyendolo, meanwhile, has not missed a beat – she ranks inside the USWNT's top 10 for minutes played and leads the group in goal contributions with six goals and one assist during that period. Each of the top performers have a real argument as starters, creating a batch of good problems for Hayes and her staff in the years ahead.

Lily Yohannes and the midfield picture

Hayes has been very prudent in handing out opportunities to a wide variety of players but if there is one face of the youth-focused project, it is 18-year-old midfielder Lily Yohannes. The coaching staff have, rightly, been patient with Yohannes, who has played just 373 minutes since the Olympics, but the next two years will be very important ones for her and the national team as a whole. Yohannes has moved to OL Lyonnes from Ajax this summer, charting the next phase of her development at the club level and giving herself ample time to realize her potential. The signs are clear, though, that the 18-year-old has the potential to be a transformative figure in the USWNT's midfield, which has been crying out for some balance in recent years.

The team's midfield has looked unbalanced since Sam Mewis and Julie Ertz's time as regular starters came to an end before the pandemic-delayed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, the former dealing with injuries before retiring and the latter missing time through maternity leave before she also retired. Former head coach Vlatko Andonovski also struggled to find the right mix at the 2023 World Cup as the USWNT went on a 200-plus minute run without scoring a goal, and Hayes did not actually find the answer at the Olympics in Paris. Running with some combination of Coffey, Albert, Lindsey Heaps and Rose Lavelle, Hayes' USWNT felt stilted at times and left a lot to be desired.

Coffey feels like a mainstay with Hayes at this point, playing more minutes than anyone since the Olympics, and Yohannes feels like a player the USWNT are betting on in time for the 2027 World Cup. That leaves a fairly small number of spots that are up for grabs, though – Lavelle is likely a starter when healthy, and there is perhaps no other player in the pool who offers a similar profile in terms of her technical, attack-minded skillset. The 19-year-old Claire Hutton really seems to be rising up the ranks, though, which could force some tough decisions from Hayes, especially as it pertains to Heaps' role. She is still in the front of the pack for minutes, ranking fourth in that category since the Olympics, and it seems unlikely that Hayes will abandon her anytime soon. Finding the right fit in a crowded field will likely be the hardest of Hayes' tasks and though she has the benefit of time to figure out how to strike the balance, figuring out how to do just that will be key.