Concacaf W Championship: USA vs Mexico

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Concacaf W Championship – Group A: USA vs. Mexico

Date: July 11, 2022
Venue: Estadio Universitario; Monterrey, Mexico
Transmission: Paramount+, ViX
Airtime: 10pm ET / 9pm CT
Official kick-off time: 10pm ET / 9pm CT

Starting XI against Mexico: 18- Casey Murphy; 2-Ashley Sanchez, 4-Becky Sauerbrunn (Capt.), 5-Kelley O’Hara, 10-Lindsey Horan, 11-Sophia Smith, 12-Naomi Girma, 13-Alex Morgan, 14-Emily Sonnett, 17-Andi Sullivan , 23-Midge Purce

Available Subs: 1-Alyssa Naeher, 3-Alana Cook, 6-Trinity Rodman, 8-Sofia Huerta, 9-Mallory Pugh, 15-Megan Rapinoe, 16-Rose Lavelle, 20-Taylor Kornieck, 21-Aubrey Kingsbury, 22- Kristie Mewis

Not available: Ashley Hatch, Emily Fox

GAME NOTES | FIVE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW – MEXICO

  • USWNT Starting XI Cap Numbers (including this game): Sauerbrunn (205), Morgan (194), O’Hara (156), Horan (114), Sonnett (68), Sullivan (30), Smith (19), Purce (18), Cook (13), Sanchez (12 ), Girma (4)
  • The starting line-up against Mexico consists of seven different players from the XI that started the USA’s game against Jamaica on July 7: Murphy for Naeher in goal, O’Hara, Sauerbrunn and Sonnett for Cook, Fox and Huerta in the defense, Sullivan for Lavelle in midfield, and Morgan and Purce in attack instead of Hatch and Pugh.
  • Horan and Smith start their third straight game at the 2022 Concacaf W Championship while Purce and Sonnett make their first tournament starts.
  • That starting lineup averages 28 years old and has 74 caps per player, with four players – Sauerbrunn, Morgan, O’Hara and Horan – averaging over 100 caps and two – Murphy and Girma – with single-digit caps.
  • Five players in that starting lineup featured in America’s most recent game against Mexico, a 4-0 USA win on July 5, 2021 in East Hartford, Connecticut. Horan scored the opening goal with a smashing volley in the sixth minute, while O’Hara and Sauerbrunn were also in the game. Sonnett and Morgan came on as substitutes in the team’s final action ahead of the start of the 2021 Olympics.
  • Defender and team captain Becky Sauerbrunn will earn her 205th Cap as captain of the USA for the 34th Time. This will be Sauerbrunn’s 20th yearth Career cap for USA in Worlds and Olympics qualifiers, having played in 2010, 2014 and 2018 Worlds qualifiers, 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympic qualifiers and now in the 2022 Concacaf W Championship.
  • goalkeeper Casey Murphy will be making her second start in the Concacaf W Championship as she has her sixth cap overall for the USA. Murphy has four shutouts in her last five internationals, the first of which came in her debut against Australia on November 27, 2021, a 3-0 win over the Matildas in Sydney.
  • Ashley Sanchez will make it back-to-back as she makes her sixth career start in her 12th yearth Cap jumpsuit for the USA. Sanchez made her third career assist in the USA’s win over Jamaica, becoming her 10thth Appearance of the year for the USA. She will now have appeared in every game for the USA since the November 2021 friendlies in Australia.
  • defender Kelley O’Hara returns to the starting lineup for the second time of the tournament with a 156th place finishth international appearance, passing Michelle Akers and Christen Press to take sole ownership of 22nd on the USWNT All-Time Caps List. O’Hara was directly involved in a goal in each of her last two appearances for the USA, scoring her third international goal in the June 28 win against Colombia as a second-half substitute and setting up Alex Morgan’s second goal against Haiti in the opening game of the Concacaf W Championship.
  • Lindsey Horan will make her third start at the Concacaf W Championship with a 114th place finishth international appearance. Horan, who led the USA in the 2020 Concacaf Olympic Qualifiers tournament with six goals, has eight goals and eight assists in 16 career games in Concacaf qualifiers.
  • Sophia Smith do you deserve 19th Kappe as she celebrates her ninth start as team leader in 2022. Smith also leads the USWNT with seven goals that year and scored a brace within the first eight minutes of USA’s 5-0 win over Jamaica on July 7. Her goal in the fifth minute remains the fastest goal ever scored by a player in the tournament.
  • Twenty two years old Naomi Girma will make her second straight start for the USA as she earns her fourth career cap. Girma played the full 90 minutes in USA’s win over Mexico and scored her first international assist by setting up a fifth-minute goal from longtime friend and former Stanford teammate Sophia Smith.
  • After a brace in America’s opening game against Haiti Alex Morgan returns to the starting XI for her 194th international appearance. The brace against Haiti marked Morgans 29th multi-goal game of his career, third best in US history. She has now scored 21 goals in 21 qualifiers for the USWNT and is entering the game against Mexico having scored in the last five straight Concacaf qualifiers she has played in, a streak that extends to the 2018 World Cup qualification.
  • He scored nine of Morgan’s 117 career international goals against Mexico. The only nation she has scored more times against is Japan (12 goals), while she has also scored nine career goals against Canada.
  • Emily Sonnet will make her first start at the 2022 Concacaf W Championship as she earns her 68th career cap. This is the fourth Concacaf qualifier for Sonnett, who came on at half-time in the USA’s win over Jamaica on July 7th.
  • Andy Sullivan returns to the USA starting XI for her 30th birthdayth Career cap on her eighth start this year and her second in the tournament. Sullivan played the full 90 minutes in America’s opening win over Haiti and is fifth in the USWNT this year with 526 minutes played.
  • Forward Mosquito Purce will make her third appearance and first start in the Concacaf W Championship as she turns 18th Total cap for the USWNT. This is the second start this year for Purce, who scored her second goal of 2022 in the late stages of the US win over Haiti on July 4.
  • 21 players are available for the USA for this game against Mexico as forward Ashley Hatch is unavailable against Jamaica after suffering a leg strain on July 7th. Emily Fox is in the COVID logs.