US Women's Teams Realign for '08

Under-18s Added; U-21 Becomes U-23

January 12, 2008

CHICAGO � The U.S. women's soccer program is undergoing a reconstruction at the youth level. The program will reinstitue its Under-18 team and the Under-21 team is being converted to a U-23 side to continue to compete in the annual Nordic Cup.

The new U-18 team, under head coach Dean Duerst, who coached the U.S. U-17s last year, is being reinstituted (after having existed from 1998-2001) to provide international competition to players who have just finished a cycle with the U.S. U-17s, but are a year away from the next U-20 cycle. The U-18 WNT provides a transition for a number of those players that could possibly make up the core of the team that would attempt to qualify for the following U-20 Women�s World Cup. FIFA U-20 Women�s World Cups are held every two years.

The U-21 WNT has been changed to a U-23 age group as a result of the Nordic Cup becoming a U-23 competition. As a result, the U.S. U-21s, who dominated the Nordic Cup for the past decade, will become a U-23 squad with no overage players for the summer tournament that brings the USA together with Europe�s top youth teams. This year the U.S. U-23s, led by head coach Bill Irwin, will compete in the Nordic Cup in Sweden against Europe�s top U-23 teams.

The U-23s will vie for their 10th Nordic Cup title, and both the U.S. Under-20 Women�s National Team and the U.S. Under-17 Women�s National Team enter heavy preparations for CONCACAF Qualifying later this spring. The U-20s will be shooting for their second WWC Championship at the U-20 Women�s World Cup, being staged in Chile from Nov. 20-Dec. 7, while the U-17s are setting their sights on winning the inaugural U-17 Women�s World Cup, being held from Oct. 30-Nov. 16 in New Zealand.

In addition, the U.S. Under-16 Girl�s National Team will be absorbed by the U.S. U-17s, much in the same way the Men�s U-17 Residency Program features two age groups of players every year. Head coach Kazbek Tambi will lead this year�s U-17s into CONCACAF Qualifying, with players from both the 1991 and 1992 age groups.

The U.S. Under-15 Girl�s National Team will have its usual complement of four to five training camps in 2008 as head coach Tad Bobak starts to groom the next group of players that will compete for a spot in the 2010 FIFA U-17 Women�s World Cup. The U-14 National Development Program will also stay the same, holding their annual Identification Camp in August.

The U.S. U-15s, U-20s and U-23s will all be in action at The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., during training camps in January, with the U-23s kicking the year off on Saturday, Jan. 12 at the National Training Center.

The U.S. Women�s National Team program now has teams at the U-14, U-15, U-17, U-18, U-20, U-23 and full Women�s National Team levels, mirroring the structure on the men�s side, which sends its U-23 team to the Olympics, and like the men (with the inception of the U-17 Women�s World Cup), competes every two years for FIFA U-17 and U-20 world championships.

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