WOMEN'S WORLD CUP 2023
Alex Morgan and Lindsey Horan named as USWNT captains for the 2023 World Cup
The two captains of the USWNT, one of the favourite teams to lift the trophy, have been named.
The USWNT captains for the upcoming 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand have been announced, and it’s no surprise to see that Alex Morgan and Lindsey Horan, two of the biggest stars in the world game, have been selected.
Morgan, currently playing for San Diego Wave, has experience with the armband, co-captaining the national team between 2018 and 2020, along with Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd. Horan, at 29-years-old, has slightly less experience than her new co-captain, yet she has still featured over 100 times for the USWNT, meaning she will be more than ready to take on the challenge and thrive down under.
Which teams are in the USWNT’s World Cup group?
The USWNT come into the tournament as one of the favourites to win and it is no surprise given that they have managed to lift the trophy on the last two occasions: 2015 and 2019. The squad also has some younger faces and despite injury keeping a lot of otherwise certain picks out of action, the talent pool that the manager has is unquestionably one of the most enviable in the world of sport.
Playing in Group E, the USWNT will face off against Vietnam, The Netherlands and Portugal in a group that, despite them being favourites to top, will be no walk in the park. If they make it through the first round they will play one of Italy, Argentina, Sweden or South Africa.
What did Alex Morgan say about the World Cup?
The clock is ticking down to the World Cup that Alex Morgan herself said will be “the best that there has ever been” before saying that she thinks the US can go all the way: “We have the confidence that we need to go into a World Cup and prove why we deserve to win. I feel like we have the talent, we have the quality, we have the right coach, the right players, the right camaraderie, the right mentality” Alex Morgan explained. “I don’t think that’s different from previous World Cup teams, but I think there’s a lot of different small details in place to get us to the same place that we’ve been able to go in 2015 and 2019 [and USA’s other World Cup titles in] 1999, 1991.”
As for Megan Rapinoe, another star of the side, she called the upcoming tournament a “massive cultural moment”, saying the World Cup “feels like real opportunity to blow the lid off in terms of fanfare, media, sponsorships and the larger business around the sport...the zoom-out picture in women’s sports now feels like we’re out of the dogged, fight phase. Not that there’s not still a lot to fight for, but the acceptable cognitive dissonance and denial of what we actually are, how incredible women’s sport is how popular it is, how profitable we can be, what the business actually is: I think those days are pretty much long gone that would be quite a tough and embarrassing position to still keep.”