By Alex Al-Kazzaz
With a final score of 1-0, the United States beat Brazil to win the first edition of the Women's CONCACAF Gold Cup tournament. After their embarrassing flop in the Women's World Cup last summer, the USWNT has redeemed itself.
A strong defensive effort played a big role for the United States. The team's mentality was the biggest advantage for the United States. Brazil is a solid team, but they were somehow overwhelmed by a strong opposition. The US's Lindsey Horan put the US ahead shortly before the end of the first half. Brazil couldn't respond as they couldn't even register a shot-on-goal. But credit to the Brazilians; they did their best and put the US to work every second of the game.
In the semifinals, the USWNT had quite a memorable match against Canada. The US emerged victorious after a penalty shoot-out. Canada's resiliency can't be overlooked as they gave the US everything they had, but the US was able to take everything that was thrown. It was an interesting journey for the USWNT as they didn't win their group and even suffered a shocking upset loss to Mexico in the group stage. Canada had won their group in a dominating fashion. Same thing with Brazil.
The USWNT is going through a period of rebuild and resurgence. They've still got veterans from the years of success, and the experiment seems to be working well so far. Soon, the team will have some new faces, and when the time is right, new names will make their debut and begin the journey of representing the United States.
Winning this tournament was the first step to achieving redemption. The next FIFA Women's World Cup is in 2027, and the USWNT needs to be sure that by then, they're ready to go.