Alyssa Naeher has said the U.S. women’s national team came together at the Olympics over the group’s collective lack of even a single gold medal.
The USWNT entered the 2024 Olympics on the back of two straight tournaments without a gold medal. In 2016, the U.S. was stunned in the quarterfinal by Sweden and exited with no medal, while in 2021 the team beat Australia in the bronze medal game after losing to Canada in the semifinal.
Two players from the 2012 gold medal-winning Olympic team, Alex Morgan and Becky Sauerbrunn, were in the mix for the 2024 roster, but both were left at home by head coach Emma Hayes.
That meant all 22 players on the 2024 roster entered the Olympics with a collective total of zero gold medals — a rarity for a program as historically successful as the USWNT.
According to Naeher, who turned in an outstanding tournament at goalkeeper, the team bonded over their opportunity to do something special as a collective.
“For us specifically going into this one, something that we talked about as a group before was unlike any tournament team that I can remember for sure, nobody on this team had an Olympic gold medal,” Naeher said on SiriusXM FC.
“That’s really rare going into this kind of a tournament — you always have that one person that’s still around from 2012 or something. But I think that was something very unique to this group, and once we figured that out, it helped jell the group even more because we were kind of like, ‘Hey, this is something special and unique that we can do together as the 22 players in this room.'”
The USWNT now has a roster full of players with a gold medal, of course, as the team beat Brazil 1-0 in the Olympic final earlier this month.
It was the program’s fifth gold medal, having also won in 1996, 2004, 2008 and 2012.
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