It’s U.S. women’s soccer captain Lindsay Horan’s last morning in the United States before flying to France to join her club team, Olympique Lyonnais.She was in the hotel lobby, sitting at a table with Competitor Spend an hour talking about her experience leading a team in the spotlight, how she sees her role during this transition, and most importantly:
“Can we think about football?”
Horan’s comments came almost exactly five months after then-U.S. Women’s head coach Vlatko Andonovski was named captain of the national team along with Alex Morgan (when the two took the field at the same time Horan won the captain’s armband). This character is the fulfillment of a life goal, but it also seems like a natural outcome given how often and intensely she thinks about the game.
Her first five months in the leadership role were filled with high-profile exits: her team’s exit from the World Cup, Andonovski’s team and the retirements of Megan Rapinoe and Julie Ertz. One last big addition: U.S. Soccer has announced the hiring of Emma Hayes as head coach.
Horan, 29, with 139 caps under his belt, falls into the middle camp: too experienced to be a rookie, but too new to be on the way out. Her generation — which also includes Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnet and others — must maintain the team’s signature flame, the DNA of the U.S. women’s soccer team, even as the team undergoes its most difficult World Cup history Serious rethinking followed the worst results.
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“We have to keep doing this,” she said of herself and other middlemen. “You have to be with this team for a while to know what it takes… This is one of the most competitive national teams.”
No one on the team talks about starting from scratch. It’s just that they need more ways to win. Not just a mindset or fitness level, not just a never-say-die approach. Horan said that’s what her early conversations with Hayes were about. That’s why she wants to talk about soccer and how the U.S. women’s soccer team can get back on its feet — not just by playing better, but by thinking more.
“We’ve had so much success with a certain way of playing for a long time, which is offense and transition,” Horan said. “We have individual talent. We have football players on the pitch and players who really want to play football and it all comes together and either it will always work out or our DNA will take us to this place and we will stand out. , because our mentality is so damn good.”
The game is changing, and Horan recognizes it. She praised Portugal’s performance in the World Cup, its commitment to Spain and other European competitions, and the high level of the U.S.’s rising stars (with special mention of 19-year-old San Diego Wave forward Jadin Shaw). If Horan and the rest of the U.S. Women’s Soccer team had a theme during their final training camp of the year, it was a recurring one: No one really knows what this team’s ceiling is.
Holland praised Shaw as an exciting young player in the United States (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
“You didn’t see that even in the last few games, but it’s the end product, continuing to do that throughout the game and getting everyone on the same page, not just four or five players. ,”she says. “If you can develop that further and it’s inherent to every player in the team, then do you look for combinations, all those things? Don’t know what this team can do.
“Then you also have the mentality aspect, if football doesn’t go well we know we will collapse go. We have faster, stronger, more capable players on the field, and we’re going to eliminate them, right? The world is going to be a very scary place. “
These words may cause a stir. In 2019, Ali Krieger said that the U.S. women’s soccer bench could compete with and beat multiple other teams at the World Cup, which is true for a team that has received more criticism in U.S. culture A huge point of contention even as they celebrated a third consecutive World Cup title.
“We have to be one of the most talked about teams,” Holland said. “Everything we do or say is always under a magnifying glass.”
Individual players, as well as teams, may bear the brunt of the magnifying glass. Horan was visibly frustrated with how her performance was perceived (even by the USWNT’s own fan base), although that’s understandable. To illustrate her point, Holland suggested that many viewers will simply take the analysis of television commentators at face value.
“Most American fans are not smart,” she said. “They don’t understand the game. They don’t understand. (But) it’s getting better and better.”
She paused, sensing that these words would also cause a stir.
“I’m going to piss some people off,” she continued, “but the sport is growing in America. People are getting more knowledgeable, but a lot of times people believe what the commentators say, right? That’s what my mom did Yes!” She burst out laughing. “My mom said, ‘Julie Foudy said you played so well!’ and here I am, just saying, ‘I was so fucked up today.’”
Horan said it was different when playing in Lyon, France.
“I understand that people know a lot more about my game, my feel for football and the way I play,” she said. “This is French culture. Everyone watches football. People understand football.”
However, none of this compares to Horan’s experience at the 2023 World Cup. Comments from outsiders, including from her own former teammate Carli Lloyd, about entering the stadium wearing custom clothing; the tone used in interviews; body language. Everything is scrutinized. This time, however, the talk was accompanied by poor performance and poor results.
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Horan said she wasn’t bothered by the criticism, but noted that no one other than the players can understand what it’s like to be on this team. Ultimately, she said, it felt “really good” that people had something to talk about.
“If you’re not there to support it, people are going to come and talk about what you’re doing and what your priorities are,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Are you ready to compete? Are you more concerned about this—?'”
Horan relies on Lavelle (left) to help lead a team in transition (Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Horan once again returned to a seemingly innocuous little detail: the traditional pre-match photo of the starting eleven. In the NWSL, more and more teams are beginning to take advantage of this opportunity to have various carnivals. Horan’s European teammates brought up an example of Americans not taking their business seriously. It was obvious that this made her uncomfortable as well.
“I want professionalism,” she admits. “It’s these little things that really annoy me. I don’t think I can do it, and maybe I’m wrong for saying that, I don’t know. It just annoys me. We put a lot into this game, but sometimes it just Like a joke.”
She’s quick to point out that if it works for other people, she won’t be the one to shut it down. She didn’t mean to say this. It’s just that, ultimately for her, it’s about football.
“We need to get back on the football field. Football is the most important thing,” Horan said. “So maybe we should eliminate some things now. We need to focus on the game, we need to focus on being the best.”
As captain, Horan can help make that happen. She’s clearly settled into the role, though she struggled to understand it in the months between Andonovsky’s exit and Hayes’ hiring.
Hayes has not officially started coaching yet and will not coach games until her job as Chelsea manager comes to an end with the European season in May. But Holland said Hayes’ visit to Holland and other members of the team in December helped clarify the process. It also gave Horan an opportunity to open up the lines of communication and admit that sometimes she felt like she didn’t have full control and no one was giving control to her.
“I’ve always felt like I’m a guy that can really influence every player and get the best out of them and try to make them the best they can be,” Horan said. “I’m not going to be like one of those gibberish speeches. Becky (Sauerbrunn) and I are probably a little bit similar in that way. I’m probably a little bit crazier on the court. I want to make sure I’m the leader that I want to be, No one is trying to make me be someone else.”
Before Andonovski gave her the armband — a move prompted in part by the fact that long-time captain Sauerbrunn missed the World Cup with a long-term foot injury — Horan told him that getting the armband wouldn’t change her, nor would it. Will change how players talk to her. What it would change, she told him, was the tone it set. She wants to be a role model.
“I’m not going to be the coach’s captain, I’m going to be the players’ captain,” she told Andonovski. So if that’s not what he wants, then he shouldn’t make her captain.
Horan has been true to his word since interim head coach Twila Kilgore stepped in, relying on Morgan, LaVere and Thornette to be part of the transition process. She also helps new people on the team. Naomi Girma, the usually taciturn 23-year-old center back, said Horan “encouraged me to find my voice.”
“Even in this Olympics, a lot of new young players are going to play important roles,” Horan said. “How on earth do we get the best out of them and get us on the podium? It’s a crazy place to be, but it’s a really exciting role for me because I feel like that’s who I am. Things that should be done.”
There are still four months until Hayes takes over and six months until the Olympics. The massive team project has entered the sprint phase to re-establish the team’s top status before looking ahead to 2027 and a World Cup that could be hosted at home. Every voice is important to Horan, from Horan to Lavelle to Morgan to Gilmar to Shaw and beyond.
“We need to do everything we can to improve, make each other better and maintain standards,” Horan said. “We need to change every bit of the culture before the last World Cup and before this Olympics because we need to win. It starts now.”
(Photo: James Gilbert/Getty Images)
