Match Preview – 2020 Concacaf Women’s Olympic Qualifying: USA vs. Haiti

Jan. 28, 2020 | BBVA Stadium; Houston, Texas

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The U.S. Women’s National Team, which is riding a 23-game unbeaten streak, will face Haiti to open Group A on Jan. 28 at BBVA Stadium in Houston. This is the first step on the road to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. The USA will then face Panama on Friday, Jan. 31, before finishing Group A play against Costa Rica on Monday, Feb. 3. All the U.S. group matches will kick off at 7:30 p.m. CT.

U.S. Women’s National Team 2020 Olympic Qualifying Roster by Position (Club; Caps/Goals):

GOALKEEPERS (3): 12-Adrianna Franch (Portland Thorns FC; 3), 18-Ashlyn Harris (Orlando Pride; 24), 1-Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars; 57)

DEFENDERS (6): 7-Abby Dahlkemper (North Carolina Courage; 53/0), 19-Crystal Dunn (North Carolina Courage; 96/24), 11-Ali Krieger (Orlando Pride; 104/1), 5-Kelley O’Hara (Utah Royals FC; 125/2), 4-Becky Sauerbrunn (Utah Royals FC; 171/0), 2-Emily Sonnett (Orlando Pride; 40/0)

MIDFIELDERS (5): 8-Julie Ertz (Chicago Red Stars; 95/19), 9-Lindsey Horan (Portland Thorns FC; 78/12), 16-Rose Lavelle (Washington Spirit; 38/10), 3-Samantha Mewis (North Carolina Courage; 60/14), 6-Andi Sullivan (Washington Spirit; 15/0)

FORWARDS (6): 17-Tobin Heath (Portland Thorns FC; 162/32), 10-Carli Lloyd (Sky Blue FC; 288/121), 14-Jessica McDonald (North Carolina Courage; 14/2), 20-Christen Press (Utah Royals FC; 130/51), 15-Megan Rapinoe (Reign FC; 160/50), 13-Lynn Williams (North Carolina Courage; 21/6)

OLYMPIC QUALIFYING FORMAT: All the matches in Group A of the Olympic Qualifying tournament will take place at BBVA Stadium and Group B will play H-E-B Park in Edinburg, Texas, home to the Rio Grande Valley FC Toros of the USL Championship. The round-robin stage of the tournament will be conducted with three doubleheaders in each group. Group A will have doubleheaders on Jan. 28, Jan. 31 and Feb. 3, while Group B – which features Canada, Mexico, Jamaica and first-time qualifier St. Kitts and Nevis – will play doubleheaders on Jan. 29, Feb. 1 and Feb. 4. Canada and Jamaica both participated in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France. The all-important semifinal matches will be on Friday, Feb. 7 at Dignity Health Sports Park, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy of MLS, with the winners qualifying for the 2020 Olympics in Japan. The championship game on Sunday, Feb. 9 will also be at DHSP.

2020 USWNT OLYMPIC QUALIFYING SCHEDULE:

Date	Opponent	Time	TV/Result	Venue
Jan. 28	Haiti*	7:30 p.m. CT	FS2 and TUDN XTRA 4	BBVA Stadium; Houston, Texas
Jan. 31	Panama*	7:30 p.m. CT	FOX Soccer Plus and TUDN XTRA 4	BBVA Stadium; Houston, Texas
Feb. 3	Costa Rica*	7:30 p.m. CT	FS1 and TUDN	BBVA Stadium; Houston, Texas

OLYMPIC HISTORY HAS BEEN MOSTLY GOLDEN: The U.S. will be attempting to qualify for a seventh consecutive Olympic Games and win the CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying event for the fifth consecutive time. In 2016, the USA won the Olympic Qualifying tournament in Frisco and Houston, Texas, winning all five games including a 5-0 semifinal victory against Trinidad & Tobago to earn a berth to Brazil and a 2-0 victory against Canada in the championship game. In 2012, the USA won the Olympic Qualifying tournament in Vancouver, B.C. and then went on to win the gold medal in London. In 2008, the USA won the tournament in Mexico and went on to win gold in Beijing. In 2004, the U.S. won the tournament in Costa Rica and went on to win gold in Athens, Greece. The U.S. qualified for the 1996 Atlanta Games as host and for the 2000 Sydney Games as a top-7 finisher at the 1999 Women's World Cup.

BACK AT BBVA: The U.S. Women have played five matches at BBVA Stadium since the venue opened in 2012, including two previous matches in Olympic Qualifying. The first match at BBVA was a 4-0 win vs. China PR in 2012 followed by two games in the 2016 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Championship, a 5-0 win vs. Trinidad & Tobago and a 2-0 win in the championship game against Canada. The USA also played Russia at BBVA in April of 2017, winning 5-1, and most recently won 6-2 on April 8, 2018, a game which featured Carli Lloyd’s historic 100th career goal in the city where she played three seasons in the NWSL. The opening match against Haiti will be USA’s 23rd game in Texas in all competitions and the USA has won each of the previous 22 games.

SIX IN, SIX TO GO: Half of the Women’s Olympic Soccer Tournament field is set, with host Japan, Brazil (coached by former U.S. WNT head coach Pia Sundhage) from South America, Great Britain, Netherlands and Sweden from Europe and New Zealand (coached by former U.S. WNT head coach Tom Sermanni) from Oceania having booked tickets to Japan. Still to be determined are the two representatives from Concacaf, one from Africa, two from Asia and the winner of a playoff between the second-placed team from Africa and Chile, which finished second in the most recent South American qualifying tournament.

U.S. ROSTER NOTES TEAM

• The 13 players on this roster who were a part of the 2016 Olympic Qualifying team are goalkeepers Alyssa Naeher and Ashlyn Harris, defenders Becky Sauerbrunn, Kelley O’Hara, Crystal Dunn, Emily Sonnett and Ali Krieger, midfielders Samantha Mewis, Julie Ertz and Lindsey Horan, and forwards Carli Lloyd, Christen Press and Tobin Heath.

• Sauerbrunn, O’Hara and Krieger and Lloyd, Megan Rapinoe and Heath were a part of the team that qualified for the 2012 Olympics. Heath and Lloyd are the only players on the roster who also participated in qualifying for the 2008 Olympics.

• The two players on the roster who were not a part of the 2019 Women’s World Cup Team are forward Lynn Williams, who scored 12 goals in the NWSL last season (second in the league) for the North Carolina Courage and has been playing on loan in Australia for the Western Sydney Wanderers this off-season, and midfielder Andi Sullivan, who was the first pick in the 2018 NWSL Draft and had an excellent second pro season for the Washington Spirit in 2019.

• Lloyd has the most Olympic Qualifying appearances of anyone on the roster, playing in 14 games (2008, 2012 & 2016) and scoring 12 goals. She needs two goals to tie Abby Wambach for most by an USWNT player in Olympic Qualifying. Lloyd is the only player on the roster with double figures in Olympic qualifying appearances and goals.

• Seven other players on the roster have scored in Olympic Qualifying. Crystal Dunn has six goals with five of those coming against Puerto Rico in 2016 to tie a U.S. record for most in a game. Tobin Heath has five, while Christen Press has two. Lindsey Horan, Samantha Mewis, Kelley O’Hara and Megan Rapinoe have one each.

• The U.S. roster averages 86.7 caps per player and the average age is 29 years old.

• The USA is 18-0-1 all-time in Olympic Qualifying and has scored 98 goals while allowing three. It tied Canada 1-1 in the title game of the 2008 tournament before prevailing in penalty kicks.

• In just his fourth camp, Andonovski has already looked at 50 different players.

• Fourteen different players scored for the USA in 2019. Carli Lloyd lead the team with 16 and Morgan and Rapinoe had nine each. Heath had seven goals, Mewis and Pugh six; Horan and Press five and Lavelle had four. Long, Brian and Williams had two, and McDonald and Ertz had one each. The USA benefited from two own goals.

• Since its inception in 1985, the USWNT has compiled a record of 521 wins, 66 losses and 77 ties. Over the history of the program, the USA has gone 294-20-31 (90% winning percentage) at home, 53-18-13 away (71%) and 174-28-33 (81%) on neutral ground. Of the USA’s 66 losses, 12 (18%) came at the Algarve Cup in Portugal.

• The USA has scored in 51 consecutive matches and has averaged more than three goals per game in that time. Since the end of the 2015 World Cup, the USA has played 94 matches and has a 79-5-10 record.

• Lloyd has 57 WNT goals since the start of 2015. Morgan, who also has 57, is the only other player with more than 30 goals over the four years.

• The USA’s 1-1 draw with Korea Republic on Oct. 6, 2019, ended a streak of scoring multiple goals in 16 consecutive matches. The USA had not scored multiple goals in 14 straight games since March 19-June 13, 1995. That draw also ended the USA’s winning streak at 17 consecutive matches, the third-longest winning streak in team history and one short of a team record. The U.S. Women had not won 15 games in a row since Feb. 10-July 23, 1996. That 17-game streak was the longest since July 25, 1990 – May 25, 1991, which included 18 wins.

• The U.S. Women are unbeaten on home soil over its last 40 matches, 35 wins and five draws. The last loss at home was July 27, 2017 vs. Australia, a 1-0 setback in Seattle.

• The USA is now unbeaten in 23 consecutive games after losing its first game of 2019 to France in Le Havre. That streak includes 20 wins and three ties.

• Seven of the USA’s 22 goals in its last seven games have been headers, two more than the total from their previous 10 matches combined. The USA scored five headers in the game prior to that 10-game stretch (April 7, 2019 vs. Belgium). The U.S. scored 21 goals from set pieces in 2019 (27% of the goals score), including nine at the Women’s World Cup – three more than any other team.