USWNT vs. Republic of Ireland: Starting XI & Lineup Notes

USWNT vs. Republic of Ireland
Date: June 29, 2025
Venue: TQL Stadium; Cincinnati, Ohio
Broadcast: TBS, truTV and Max in English; Universo & Peacock in Spanish
Radio: Westwood One Sports 
Official Kickoff Time: 3:07 p.m. ET

USA: 1-Mandy McGlynn, 2-Emily Sams, 3-Jordyn Bugg, 5-Tara McKeown, 6-Lynn Biyendolo (Capt.), 7-Croix Bethune, 10-Sam Meza,11-Izzy Rodriguez, 13-Olivia Moultrie, 19-Emma Sears, 22-Yazmeen Ryan

Available Subs: 4-Naomi Girma, 8-Avery Patterson, 9-Ally Sentnor, 12-Michelle Cooper, 14-Emily Sonnett, 15-Claire Hutton, 16-Rose Lavelle, 17-Sam Coffey, 18-Claudia Dickey, 21-Alyssa Thompson, 23-Lilly Reale, 24-Angelina Anderson

USWNT Starting XI Cap Numbers (Including this match): Biyendolo (82), Ryan (11), Moultrie (9), Sears (7), McKeown (7), Sams (5), McGlynn (4), Bethune (4), Bugg (2), Meza (1), Rodriguez (1)

Notes: 

• Two players in the starting lineup will earn their first senior USWNT caps today: Sam Meza in the midfield and Izzy Rodriguez at left back. They are the 281st and 282nd players to earn a cap for the WNT.
• Meza and Rodriguez, two players of Hispanic descent, are the 23rd and 24th players to debut under Emma Hayes. They are the 13th and 14th players of Hispanic descent to play for the USWNT.
• Rodriguez and Emma Sears played their college soccer at Ohio State. The site of their home college soccer matches – Jesse Owens Stadium -- is 113 miles from TQL Stadium.
• This is the first time Lynn Biyendolo has captained the USWNT.
• If the USWNT defeats Ireland, this will be the 600th win in team history.
• U.S. head coach Emma has made 11 changes to the Starting XI from last game, a 4-0 win over Ireland on June 26. Six players in today’s Starting XI didn’t play last match.
• At the 2025 SheBelieves Cup, Hayes changed all 11 players for the Australia game (the second match) from the squad that defeated Colombia three days earlier in the first game. It was the first time since 2001 that the entire U.S. lineup changed from one game to the next, and only the sixth time in program history. This is the seventh.
• This will be the 765th match in USWNT history.
• The starting lineup vs. Ireland on Sunday averages 11 caps per player. The starting lineup has 10 players with 10 caps or fewer.
• Lynn Biyendolo has almost TWICE as many caps (81) as the entire rest of the starting lineup (41). Take out Biyendolo and the other 10 players in the starting lineup average just 4.1 caps per player.
• The starting lineup against Brazil on April 8, 2025, averaged 17.9 caps. Before that, the last time the starting lineup averaged fewer than 25 caps was April 12, 2022, vs. Uzbekistan when Vlatko Andonovski put out a Starting XI that averaged 22.3 caps, including that start. It was the first cap for Naomi Girma.
• The lowest average for a starting lineup before that was March 17, 2001, vs. reigning Olympic champion Norway at the Algarve Cup when the starting lineup averaged eight (8) caps per player, but that game was a bit of an anomaly as U.S. Soccer brought a very young team to Portugal made up mostly of Under-23 players as the U.S. veterans were in pre-season training camps for the first season of the Women’s United Soccer League (WUSA).
• This all means that the lineup for this game vs. Ireland averages the second fewest caps of any USWNT starting XI in the past 24+ years.

MATCH HUB | FIVE THINGS TO KNOW

STARTING XI NOTES:

Mandy McGlynn, 26, earns her fourth USWNT cap. She last played vs. Brazil on April 8, a 2-1 loss. She also played this year against Australia at the SheBelieves Cup, a 2-1 win. Her other cap was her debut, a 3-0 shutout win over Argentina on Oct. 30, 2024.

Emily Sams, 25, earns her fifth career cap and makes her second start of 2025. She last played against Australia at the SheBelieves Cup on Feb. 23 and went the full 90 minutes.

Jordyn Bugg, 18, is the USA’s youngest starter and earns her second cap while making her first career start for the senior team. Still age-eligible for the 2026 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, Bugg earned her first cap in the USA’s last match against Ireland on June 26, coming off the bench to play the final 18 minutes. She is the youngest USWNT debutante since Olivia Moultrie debuted at 18 years and 76 days in 2023.

Tara McKeown, 25, earns her seventh cap and makes her sixth career start. The converted forward will play alongside 18-year-old Jordyn Bugg at center back for the first time. All of McKeown’s caps have come this year.

Lynn Biyendolo, 32, is the oldest player on this roster and earns her 82nd cap. It is just her second start in 2025 and she will be looking for her 25th goal, which would make her the 28th player in USWNT history to hit that mark. She will get the honor of captaining the USA for the first time.

Croix Bethune, 24, will earn her fourth career cap and see her first action of the year. Bethune, a 2024 Olympic gold medalist, has not played for the USA since the Olympics when she saw 12 minutes of action in the group stage win over Australia on Aug. 31, 2024, marking almost 10 months between caps.

Sam Meza, 23, earns her first career cap, makes her first career start, and becomes the first player who played in the USL Super League to earn a USWNT cap. She played for the Dallas Trinity on loan from Seattle Reign FC during the first part of the inaugural season. Meza is a rare player who has won a Concacaf title at the U-15, U-17 and U-20 levels for the USA. She would likely have played in a U-20 Women’s World Cup, but her age group saw their World Cup cancelled due to the global pandemic.

Izzy Rodriguez, 26, earns her first career cap and makes her first career start. It was a long road to the USWNT for Rodriguez, who last played for the U.S. National Teams in 2018 at the FIFA U-20 WWC. She also played in the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup. She ended her U-17 international career with 19 caps and one goal. For the U-20s, she earned 21 career caps and played in two matches in the 2018 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.

Olivia Moultrie, 19, makes it two teenagers in the starting XI for the USA. She will earn her ninth career cap and make her first start of 2025. It is her third career start. Moultrie scored two goals against the Dominican Republic in the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup, making her the 33rd teenager all-time to score for the USWNT and at 18 years and 156 days. She became the third-youngest player to score a brace in USWNT history after Mia Hamm in 1990 and Cindy Parlow Cone in 1996. Moultrie joined Hamm and Parlow Cone as the only players in USWNT history to score multiple goals in a game at age 18 or younger.

Emma Sears, 24, earns her seventh cap and makes her fourth career start. She made her debut in the 56th minute of the USA’s Oct. 27, 2024, win over Iceland in Nashville, Tenn., and made it a night to remember, assisting Lynn Biyendolo’sequalizer in the 72nd minute and adding a goal of her own in the 90+3rd, becoming the fourth player in USWNT history to score and have an assist in her USWNT debut and the first to do so since Christen Press in 2013.

Yazmeen Ryan, 26, will earn her 11th cap and start her fifth career match. Her last start was in the 2025 SheBelieves Cup finale vs. Japan and she is looking for her first USWNT goal after scoring her first of the season for the Houston Dash in the match prior to this FIFA window.