USWNT manager Emma Hayes dropped a big piece of roster news on Friday, with Chelsea star forward Catarina Macario officially ruled out for the 2024 Paris Olympics due to “consistent irritation in her right knee.”
The roster shakeup comes the day before the USWNT begins a series of two send-off friendlies leading up to the Olympics. In the wake of the injury, forward Lynn Williams will now be elevated from an alternate to a fully rostered player, with defender Emily Sams moving from training player to Olympic alternate.
Macario’s original injury dates to 2022
In June 2022, Macario suffered an ACL tear in her left knee while playing for former club team Olympique Lyonnais.
Before the injury, the Stanford University standout featured on the USWNT’s expanded Tokyo Olympics roster in 2021. She went on to win the 2022 Champions League title with Lyon before being sidelined the following month.
The 24-year-old continued to rehab the injury, sitting out the 2023 World Cup. She returned to the USWNT for the first time since 2022 this past April. After helping lead the US to victory at the 2024 SheBelieves Cup, Macario took the pitch again for the USWNT’s June friendlies.
Looking to the future, Hayes called Macario’s knee “not a long-term situation, just not going to recover in time for the Olympics” in Friday’s announcement.
Pre-Olympic USWNT friendlies kick off
This Saturday, the newly formatted Olympic lineup with square off against Mexico in New Jersey.
It will be the first time the two teams have met since Mexico upset the US in the Concacaf W Gold Cup group stage earlier this year. Since then, the US hasn’t lost a single match, going 5-0-2 and picking up trophies at the Gold Cup as well as SheBelieves Cup.
The USWNT’s 18-player Olympic roster will take center stage this week, while alternates and training players joined the team at camp leading up to the friendlies. Training players Alyssa Thompson and Kate Wiesner will return to their NWSL squads prior to Saturday’s USWNT friendly.
Many of the players on the US Olympic roster have just recently left their NWSL teams for the Olympic break, while three European club players — Lindsey Horan (Lyon), Korbin Albert (PSG), and Emily Fox (Arsenal) — have spent the last six weeks off the pitch.
A new USWNT paves its Olympic path
The pre-Olympic series will likely see goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher return to the starting XI, after a hamstring injury kept her out of a pair of June friendlies.
The matches will also provide an initial glimpse of a USWNT without longtime star Alex Morgan, who was not selected to play in this year’s Summer Games. Morgan’s absence will impact the frontline, with Sophia Smith most likely to take over at center forward.
Speaking from USWNT training camp, Naeher expressed positivity about this year’s Olympic team.
“I just feel an energy shift — I’ve just feel like a joy and excitement of from the group,” she said. “I think that’s really exciting to come back into after being gone from it for a camp.”
The US will play a second friendly in Washington, DC on Tuesday against fellow Concacaf competitor Costa Rica. For a team looking to redeem their international standing after a disappointing World Cup run, these next two outings will serve as a chance to develop the chemistry necessary to hit the ground running in Paris later this month.