AUCKLAND, New Zealand — The U.S. women’s national team is “not panicking” after its underwhelming 2023 World Cup group stage, forward Lynn Williams said here Thursday. But its bubble isn’t impervious to the hysteria that has swirled around the team ever since a 0-0 draw with Portugal.
“It is noise,” co-captain Lindsey Horan said. “Sometimes you hear it, you see it, and sometimes it's hard to get away from it.”
But, Williams said, “that's the outside world, not us.”
Horan acknowledged that the World Cup feels like a “pressure cooker.