A year after narrowly missing the World Cup, Sam Coffey is close to making the USWNT’s Olympic team

The Penn State product has played in the Americans’ last 11 games, often as a starter. With two games left before the Olympic team is picked, now's her moment to make one last impression.

Sam Coffey (right) has become a mainstay of the U.S. women's soccer team's midfield in recent months.Read moreGregory Bull / AP

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published May 31, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET

DENVER — Just over a year ago, Sam Coffey was on the cusp of the big time with the U.S. women’s soccer team. But when the race to make the World Cup team reached the finish line, 23 players got there ahead of her.

Now Coffey is on the cusp again, two months before the Olympics. The task is even tougher this time, though, because the Olympic team is smaller — 18 players and four traveling alternates — and the talent pool is as deep as ever.

Many handicappers of this year’s race have her making the squad, and for good reason: She has played in the Americans’ last 11 games, a streak that dates to last October.

That includes every game of the hard-fought women’s Gold Cup title run, with starts in the three knockout-round wins over Colombia, Canada, and Brazil. Then came the SheBelieves Cup, where Coffey started in wins over Japan and the rematch vs. Canada three days later.

Coffey mainly is a defensive midfielder, so the bar isn’t goals and assists (though she has one of each). If you’re playing a lot of minutes and playing against big-time teams, you’re doing it right.

So as the U.S. comes down the stretch, with two games left before new manager Emma Hayes picks the Olympic team, it’s natural to ask whether this will be Coffey’s time.

Part of a new era

“I don’t think I take anything for granted; I don’t think anything is guaranteed,” she told The Inquirer. “There’s never been a moment, last year or presently, that I’ve felt comfortable or like anything is to be assumed or guaranteed. That was obviously a really challenging experience, but I learned so much from it.”

That’s the correct mindset, no doubt, and Hayes surely will appreciate it. But Coffey knows that plenty of other people are talking about her, and not just because her family is full of sports journalists. (One, as Inquirer readers know by now, is our Alex Coffey.)

“All we can ever do is just come back to process and focusing on things one day at a time,” Coffey said. “That was my mindset last year. It’s my mindset now — obviously with some of those lessons learned. And I’m grateful for those lessons, as hard as they were, and I think ultimately I’m stronger and a better player and person because of it.”

Should Coffey make her 16th senior U.S. appearance on Saturday against South Korea in nearby Commerce City, Colo. (5 p.m., TNT, Universo, Max, Peacock), it will mark the third manager she’s played under. Vlatko Andonovski was first to call her up in 2022, then Twila Kilgore was interim boss until Hayes’ arrival this month.

Though Hayes had some input from afar since agreeing last fall to take the U.S. job, Kilgore was in charge of steering the ship through the choppy waters that followed the Americans’ elimination from the World Cup in the round of 16.

Even if the U.S. had done well enough for Andonovski to keep his job, it still would have been a short turnaround to the Olympics because the two big tournaments always are in back-to-back years (unless there’s a pandemic, as there was last time). So it would have been natural if Kilgore hadn’t pushed for too much change.

But she pushed quite a bit. Andonovski’s former top assistant made a few tactical tweaks and brought in a fleet of marquee youngsters: Mia Fishel, Jenna Nighswonger, Korbin Albert, and teenagers Jaedyn Shaw, Olivia Moultrie, and Lily Yohannes.

‘There’s constantly change’

Now Hayes is on board to lead them, with her vast experience and charisma. There likely will be more change to come, especially after the Olympics, and Coffey seems ready for it.

“The new staff is doing a great job of layering in that information and being patient with us while also helping us learn quickly,” she said. “There’s constantly change all around us. And I think the more we can become adaptable, and not allow some of those external circumstances to overwhelm us, or become something that’s detrimental, is really key.”

Though Coffey, at 25, hasn’t quite reached veteran status yet, her position is one of the most important on the field. An elite defensive midfielder not only snuffs out opponents’ attacks but launches their own team’s forays by winning the ball and sending it to the right teammates — the faster, the better.

So it helps that Coffey has played other midfield roles in the past, including the attacking midfield spot at Penn State.

“I don’t want to just be this destroyer in the midfield that can make hard tackles,” Coffey said. “I want to be that, but I also want to be a connector and someone who can link play, help the team set a rhythm and fluidity. Someone who can stop the ball when things are chaotic or speed up play when things need to be picked up a little bit.”

But it wasn’t surprising when she said she has been focusing most on the defensive side of her game. For as well as she has played with the U.S. and the NWSL’s Portland Thorns, the top of the international game is a beast like no other. And while the national team’s ravenous fan base loves to see attacking soccer, players will tell you that those four World Cup stars on the jersey and the four Olympic golds were won with defense first.

History’s burden

The ghosts of the past hang over Coffey in another way, one that’s especially relevant to her. The Americans haven’t had the kind of do-it-all-defensive midfielder she described since Julie Ertz retired, and it’s been a glaring problem.

“That’s always the legacy of this program: We’ve had the most incredible players come through and be a part of this team,” Coffey said. “And at some point they will all go on to retire, and it’s [about] how now do we adapt and do we shift? Specifically with Julie’s example, no one will ever be like her — she’s incredible.”

Her approach on the field carries the same realism.

“I can’t be her, and no one can be her,” Coffey said. “No one can be her, no one can be a Tobin [Heath] or an Abby Wambach, or I mean literally name any player. But all we can do is just be the best version of ourselves.”

Coffey knows the chatter is out there — no one who so effortlessly name-drops that many legends wouldn’t. But she believes that if this new crop of players comes together right, it can set the U.S. program back on course toward the throne it held for so long.

“All we can do is just be the best version of ourselves,” she said. “And I think that is what makes this group, both past and present, so special: our ability to do just that. And how we can bring those pieces together to ultimately be the best in the world, which I believe we have been and can continue to be.”