The USWNT’s ambitions for the next nine months are trained on a July 7, 2019 game at Parc Olympique Lyonnais, but their path to the 2019 World Cup final starts tonight in North Carolina. The United States takes on Mexico in their Concacaf qualifying opener, and they’ll be looking to make a statement. When you’re a favorite to the degree that the USWNT is, you can’t just grind it out. The expectations here are to confidently dispatch their trickiest foe in Group A, setting the stage for the rest of the tournament.
Location: Sahlen’s Stadium (Cary, NC)
Kickoff time: 7:30 Eastern
Projected USWNT starting 11: (433) - Alyssa Naeher; Kelley O’Hara, Abby Dahlkemper, Becky Sauerbrunn, Crystal Dunn; Lindsey Horan, Julie Ertz, Morgan Brian; Tobin Heath, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe
Bench: Ashlyn Harris, Emily Sonnett, Casey Short, Hailie Mace, Samantha Mewis, Rose Lavelle, Christen Press, Carli Lloyd, Mallory Pugh
This is the toughest game of the group stage, so Jill Ellis will sending out her best 11 (or at least, the lineup she sees as her best 11, which is actually a very different thing).