Trinity Rodman and the USWNT’s Next Generation Seek Olympic Redemption After “Chaotic” World Cup

It’s been almost a year, but Trinity Rodman still can barely bring herself to say it out loud.

“Losing at the World Cup,” she says. “I hate saying that word.”

For the United States women’s national team, the L-word has always been something of taboo, if not a foreign concept entirely. A juggernaut in the order of Brazil on the men’s side, the USWNT has been a serial winner, dominating women’s soccer like few teams in any sport. The US has won gold at the Olympics four out of seven times, and in nine women’s World Cup tournaments, the team has claimed the top prize in four of them. The previous decade produced a truly storied run, with the likes of Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan leading the USWNT to Olympic gold in 2012 and consecutive World Cup titles in 2015 and 2019.

But last year’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand marked a humbling end to that dynastic era. Under head coach Vlatko Andonovski, the team was an awkward mix of familiar mainstays and World Cup rookies like Rodman, lacking the venom in attack that American fans have come to expect. “Going into the World Cup, it was chaotic and there was a lot of adjustment,” Rodman adds. “I feel like it was kind of hard to know where you stood.”

In four matches at the tournament, the USWNT mustered only four goals––three of them coming against lowly Vietnam––before crashing out in the round of 16 against Sweden. It was the worst finish ever at a World Cup for the US, which had previously never finished lower than third at the competition. “Having a coach that’s experiencing the World Cup for the first time, with half the team that’s experiencing it for the first time,” she adds, “I think there was a lot of uncertainty and unknown factors.”

Andonovski resigned shortly after the World Cup and has since been replaced by the English coach Emma Hayes, who officially took the reins of the USWNT last month after a decorated 12-year run with Chelsea FC of the Women’s Super League. “The way she connects with players is so good,” Rodman says of Hayes. “The honesty and upfront meetings that she has with people, I think, helps a lot with people’s confidence and the way that they go into games.”

The changes have extended from the touchline to the pitch, with Rapinoe and other longtime USWNT anchors such as Julie Ertz and Kelley O’Hara announcing their retirement over the past year.

Ten months after the disappointment down under, Rodman believes there is more clarity within the national team. There is also decidedly more youth. The average age of the roster that Hayes selected for a pair of friendlies this month against South Korea was 26, underlining the generational shift in the squad. Within the current setup, Rodman says, “It’s a little bit more up-front and blunt about what your role is, what our new coach wants us to do.”

“I feel like we’re more connected as a team and we’re working for each other,” she says. “Not that we weren’t before, but I think recently it’s been more of a team effort and not just relying on certain people’s skill set and magic moments.”

As Rodman and her teammates have forged a new identity, they have started to look like the USWNT of old. After a shocking loss to Mexico in February, the team has rattled off seven wins in a row, building crucial momentum ahead of next month’s Olympics in Paris. Hayes hasn’t yet named her squad for the tournament, but barring an injury, Rodman is a virtual shoo-in.

She showed why against South Korea, dazzling alongside the other youngsters as the USWNT won both matches by a combined score of 7-0. In the second friendly, Rodman displayed the relentless energy and technical quality that have made her one of the team’s most complete attacking players. She tormented the Korean defense with menacing runs down the right side, helping to create two of the team’s goals––first setting up Sophia Smith before assisting the 17-year-old phenom Lily Yohannes on the other.

Rodman, 22, is in the vanguard of the USWNT’s youth movement, a front-facing star to lead the team into a new era. There is world-class athleticism in her bloodlines; her father, Dennis Rodman, is one of the greatest—and most eccentric—players in NBA history. He was not an active presence in her upbringing, as her mother, Michelle Moyer, raised both Trinity and her older brother. But there is no lingering resentment. “I have nothing but great things to say about him,” Trinity Rodman says of her father. “I’ve modeled a lot of my game after him and I think you can see that.”