Lindsey Horan has admitted that hearing her former teammate Carli Lloyd questioning the U.S. women’s national team’s mentality “hurts a little bit.”
Lloyd made headlines in the aftermath of the USWNT’s 0-0 draw against Portugal to close out the World Cup group stage, offering a scathing assessment of the team’s state of mind.
“I’m just not seeing that passion,” Lloyd said on Fox. “I’m just seeing a very lackluster, uninspiring, taking it for granted, where winning and training and doing all that you can to be the best possible individual player is not happening.”
The USWNT legend’s comments have not gone down well with those around the program, with head coach Vlatko Andonovski saying they were “insane” and Midge Purce calling them “absolutely ludicrous.”
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, USWNT captain Horan wouldn’t go quite that far, but admitted that her ex-teammate’s words stung.
“It’s kind of frustrating for me to hear, especially knowing this team and knowing how much we put into every single game, how much preparation we put into every single game, seeing our trainings, seeing how hard we work,” Horan said in quotes published on ESPN.
The midfielder added: “Again, it’s noise and, again, it’s an opinion and everyone is entitled to their own opinion — we know that’s how it goes. But for me, I always want to defend my team and say: you have no idea what’s going on behind the scenes, you have no idea every single training what we’re doing individually, collectively, etcetera.
“So, for anyone to question our mentality hurts a little bit but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t really care. It’s what’s going inside of the team and getting ready for that next game.”
After struggling through the group stage, the USWNT finished runner-up in Group E — earning a difficult last-16 match against Sweden on Sunday.
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