The next women’s World Cup isn’t until 2027, but the USWNT has much to do — including a bid to host in 2031

CHICAGO — The years between an Olympics and the next World Cup are often called “the off years” for the U.S. women’s soccer team, especially by fans and media.

There isn’t a major tournament in those years, unlike for European and South American teams who have continental championships this summer. The next official tournament of any kind that the U.S. will play in will be the Concacaf Women’s Championship late next year, which doubles as 2027 World Cup and 2028 Olympics qualifying. (The U.S. is already in the latter as host.)

But for all that, the U.S. program doesn’t think of these years as “off.” There’s plenty of work to do, especially with manager Emma Hayes still relatively new at the helm. She and sporting director Matt Crocker have an expansive vision for the program through 2027 and beyond, from the senior squad through all the youth levels.

“Off years?” Crocker said with a laugh. “You try speaking to Emma Hayes about that.”

Or U.S. Soccer president Cindy Cone, who in her playing days won the 1999 World Cup and 1996 and 2004 Olympics.

“I never thought of a year as an ‘off year,’” she said. “The team is so competitive, and so at every moment you are fighting to keep your spot on that team. I don’t think Emma or any of the players view the next 2½ years as ‘off years.’”

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Perhaps Cone and Crocker weren’t the best people to try that phrase with, and Hayes wasn’t immediately available to ask. But the manager made her point in a speech at last week’s United Soccer Coaches convention.

“I am known for being a coach [as] someone who if it isn’t broken, break it,” she said. “Comfort is the death of teams, too much comfort.”

It’s easy to claim that the world has caught up to the United States in women’s soccer. In fact, that happened longer ago than the 2023 World Cup flop. The Americans weren’t the sole favorite to win the 2019 World Cup, and they won’t ever again be the sole favorite to win any tournament.

But just in case rival countries were wondering, U.S. Soccer doesn’t only have its gold medals from Paris to show off. It has an $80 million war chest donated by soccer club owners Michele Kang and Arthur Blank.

Kang, owner of the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, French superpower Lyon, and England’s London City Lionesses, gave $30 million to fund the women’s national team program at all levels, and female coach and referee education. Blank, owner of MLS’s Atlanta United and the NFL’s Falcons, gave $50 million to fund U.S. Soccer’s new national training center in that city’s southern suburbs. It will be a home for all 27 U.S. national teams, especially their coaching staffs.

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“The talks that we’re having internally now about developing a specific women’s game strategy — everyone in this country looks with the game through a male lens,” Crocker said. “But can you imagine and dream about a scenario where we are observing and changing things based through the lens of women and girls? It’s never been done before anywhere, but you have a head coach in Emma Hayes who is more passionate about that than anything.”

Hayes reflected on the many areas where that could play out: game tactics, fitness, sports science, coach education, and more.

“We go and say, ‘These are the best recovery methods.’ Well, is that for men or women?” she said. “Actually, the realities are we have to deal with lots of fundamentally different situations. … For me, the vision for the next step is to architect a global blueprint that sets the bar for the women’s game.”

The fruits of that labor won’t be seen for some time. For now, when the U.S. women’s team is seen publicly, it will only be in friendlies.

The program will try to schedule as many other big-time teams as possible, with the annual SheBelieves Cup a prominent example. This year’s edition, set for next month, will have Japan, Australia, and Colombia coming over. In April, Brazil will visit for a two-game series in California, including a showcase at the NFL stadium just outside Los Angeles.

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Beyond that, much remains to be seen. It’s increasingly hard to schedule games against European teams because their calendars are filled by the UEFA women’s Nations League and then World Cup qualifiers. There aren’t many marquee teams in Africa — Nigeria is the only one in the top 50 of FIFA’s global rankings, at No. 37 — and Asian teams have to travel a long way to get here.

“The schedule is always a challenge [and] it’s always going to be a challenge,” Cone said. “Whether it’s our men’s team or women’s team — even our youth teams and extended national teams. … We do the best that we can do to get the best opponents here, because we want to play the best in the world as often as we can.”

The long-term vision also includes a joint U.S.-Mexico bid to host the 2031 World Cup. U.S. Soccer has wanted to host the tournament again for a while, and initially sought to host the 2027 edition. But last year, the focus shifted to 2031, in part to get it out of the shadow of the 2026 men’s World Cup and 2028 Olympics.

There will be other bids for ’31, with the highest-profile ones expected to come from England and Japan. But Cone is pretty confident about her chances, and doesn’t mind saying so.

“We’re going to win it — you heard it here first,” Cone declared at the convention. Her tone was a little tongue-in-cheek, but she knew it would make headlines and it did.

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“It was hard for us to shift from 2027 to ’31, but we all felt like it was the best thing for our game to do,” she said. “Personally, I didn’t want the focus on ’27 to not happen until after ’26. I wanted that buildup so that we can put the exact same focus and energy into the women’s World Cup that we’re putting into the men’s World Cup.”

Cone’s dream is to have “[the] same stadiums, same fan sites — like, everything will be on par.” That implies having Philadelphia as a host city, which it was when the U.S. hosted the 2003 Women’s World Cup. (Local soccer fans forget this sometimes, and at this point, some might not even know about it.)

Philadelphia’s 2026 World Cup organizing committee, which in theory would be involved in a 2031 effort, declined to comment. If the city is interested, the next step is waiting for FIFA to start the 2031 bidding process. That is expected to happen later this year.

“We’re going after it hard,” Cone said. “What we’re waiting on is for FIFA to put the bid materials together, and what they actually need us to do. As soon as that’s put out, we’ll put our bid in, and we’re going to win it.”

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