USWNT's errors stick out almost as much as their strengths in loss to Spain

Spain scored twice in the opening minutes thanks to Patri Guijarro and Eva Navarro, creating a hole the USWNT could not dig themselves out of

Oct 10, 2026 at 9:37 pm ET • 5 min read

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Crystal Dunn may no longer be a member of the U.S. women's national team, but a Women's World Cup winner's finger is not necessarily far from the pulse, even in retirement. Shortly before the reigning Olympic champions faced the reigning world champions in a friendly, she outlined the theme of the week succinctly.

"I don't want us to win easy."

The simple logic is that there are no shortcuts to the top, especially in a women's soccer landscape that is more competitive with each passing day. The USWNT did not get the easy win they were trying to avoid on Saturday after all; instead, they came away with a complex 2-0 loss to Spain that saw their shortcomings share the same pitch as their defining qualities. The U.S. team were uneven and imperfect, unsurprising considering they faced a foe who was always going to pose questions and did as soon as the opening whistle blew. Eight months before a World Cup, though, questions are not such a bad thing.

"I don't think it's always necessarily a bad thing to lose," Trinity Rodman said post-match.

Emma Hayes' side grew into the game, so much so that they ultimately outshot Spain 13 to six and racked up 2.26 expected goals to Spain's 0.43. The visitors' attack was limited to zero shots in the second half, a signal that the USWNT's game plan had its merits. They were ultimately outdone by a rough start – Patri Guijarro and Eva Navarro scored within the opening 14 minutes, the U.S. team's defensive operation exposed in different ways despite the impressive finishes from Spain's goalscorers.

"One, it's a great strike but really we've got to do better than that," Hayes said. "Second goal, their goalkeeper's got the ball and we've got numbers behind the ball but we don't do our job well enough as a collective."

Those first 15 minutes were unforgiving to the USWNT's defenders and midfielders, even if the second half was redeeming. Hayes went with Tierna Davidson and Kennedy Fuller at center back, the pair playing together for the first time, though the head coach had little choice – Naomi Girma was ruled out of the friendlies against Spain with an injury. The highlight reel on Navarro's goal will be unkind to Fuller but she was far from the only one, a U.S. midfield featuring Lindsey Heaps, Lily Yohannes and Rose Lavelle unable to do their best on both Spain strikes. There were as many individual failings as collective ones, Hayes argued.

"If you're defending and you jump out in the wrong moment and then the back line drops, well, the midfielder, whoever you are, is always going to be exposed because there's too much distance in front and there's too much distance in behind," Hayes said. "I didn't think we got that right as a collective in the first half and so we have to position any midfielder to be in a better place to be able to manage the quality of their players when they play close together. You can't have big gaps, but when you're 2-0 down, that maybe it creates a little bit of doubt in your head around drop-off and those things, so I don't think we helped our midfield as a collective approach. I think it's a team game. I don't think it's about one unit. I think it's about the whole and I think that whoever was on the field grew into the game, and I said, [we] didn't finish."

Navarro's goal threatened to suck the energy out of the USWNT, to the point that the team gathered right after before resuming play.

"We have to keep going," Yohannes said of the discussion. "It's early. We have a lot of time and then just little tactical things that someone saw something. We just said it and keep the communication, positive energy."

Tactical shifts at halftime helped, including Lavelle taking more of a wide role on the right, restoring some balance after their forward play veered heavily to the left during the first. They also allowed the U.S. team to do exactly what it set out to do, their shot creation encouraging enough despite an inability to score that Hayes described as a consistent problem. In a test of the USWNT's depth and the team's range of options, not every concern was assuaged. Heaps is not well-suited to play as the deepest midfielder on the pitch against a team of Spain's caliber, Hayes making a fascinating choice there despite having Claire Hutton as an option even if Sam Coffey was unavailable through injury. Heaps' attack-minded tendencies remain her strong suit but the USWNT's midfield can still look unresolved at times, a problem Hayes inherited but has yet to find the perfect solution for.

Even if the USWNT improved in the second half, it was hard not to notice that the midfield was failing to accomplish its objectives, even if they were far from the only ones.

"I think me and Lindsay were sort of [in] a pivot role together, trying to stay close to each other when they're pressing high, providing options to our back line, getting second balls, winning our duels," Yohannes said. "That's our role and that's what we tried to do. I think it was spells of good moments when we, I think, were winning a lot of duels and going into sort of transitions with them but like I said, when we tried to kind of fall back, they were good at playing against low blocks and when we're not able to get pressure on the ball, it's tough."

Heaps concurred.

"The two goals wasn't directly off of them playing through us or breaking us down," Heaps noted. "I mean, they had quality in their finishes but it was almost due to our lack of not stepping to the ball or maybe us giving them a transition moment and obviously a back post cross that maybe we can prevent … Defensively, we got to stay compact and keep the lines tight but be able to get enough pressure on them and especially don't let them play through us too quickly."

The USWNT's pre-World Cup qualification schedule has almost been building up to this moment, though. Friendlies against Japan in April and Brazil in June continue to afford them the experiences of a potential knockout match next summer, ones that come down to fine margins and moments that can come and go in a flash.

"When you play the best team in the world, you have to execute everything really well in the first instance," Hayes said. "You can't afford to go 2-0 down against the best team in the world, especially the way we conceded those goals but that's the learning and did I think we did enough to score a goal? Of course we did. Did we ever do enough to score more than one? Absolutely. We just didn't make, necessarily, the right decisions and execute with the quality I know us to [have] but I think a lot of things are really good about what we did but not those."