The U.S. U20 Women’s National Team finished fourth at the 2016 World Cup in Papua New Guinea. The semifinal appearance was one of the highlights of the last year on the Women’s Soccer side.
Take a deeper look at the past 12 months for the U18, U19, U20, and U23 Women’s National Teams below.
U18 Women’s National Team
Record in 2016: 4-2-2
Head coach: Jitka Klimkova (U.S. Soccer Women’s Development Coach)
Year in review: The purpose of the U18 WNT is to prepare the next group for the next U20 World Cup, which will be held in 2018 in France. The difficulty for this age group is not many national programs devote resources to the U18 WNT. There aren’t many international events, and there is a challenge of finding opponents. In 2016, the U.S. played eight games in this age group. Four of those eight games were against England. Still, U.S. Soccer devoted quite a bit to this age group with seven camps in 2016. Next year, this group transitions to the U20 WNT and takes on even more of the spotlight as they head to qualifying preparation.
Players to watch: Tierna Davidson was part of this group during the last camp of 2016. She is a quality soccer player who should have a future at the First Team level. When this age group transitions to the U20 team, the group should be built around Davidson’s skill set because most Youth National Teams fail to identify the talents that make her special. Outside of Davidson, Abigail Kim was the leading scorer for this age group last year. She scored four goals over the course of the past season. The speedy winger will be a name to remember, as she has the attributes to earn a lot of playing time with the U20s.
