The U.S. women's national team will face Portugal, Jamaica and Nigeria in three June friendlies, U.S. Soccer confirmed on Thursday.
All three matches will take place in Texas, with the USWNT facing Portugal on June 10 and Jamaica on June 13 at BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston, with a game against Nigeria on June 16 at Q2 Stadium in Austin.
The games, which U.S. Soccer is calling the "Summer Series" will be the final matches before head coach Vlatko Andonovski names his 18-player Olympic roster.
What was said?
“In these Covid times, we’re grateful that U.S. Soccer has been able to organize a schedule of games for us to prepare for the Olympics and getting these three during the Summer Series against teams we don’t play very often will be important in helping us make the final decisions on the Olympic team,” Andonovski said in a news release.
“Choosing the Olympic team has been a long process, with a big break in the middle, but we’ll take all the information from our trainings, the national team games and club matches so we can make the best choices to give our team the best chance for success in Japan.”
Olympics on the horizon
After the USWNT played April friendlies at Sweden and France, these matches represent the final opportunities for players to impress Andonovski before he names his Olympic squad.
The three Summer Series games will be followed by two send-off friendlies in early July after the 18-player roster for Tokyo is confirmed.
The USWNT has drawn Sweden, Australia and New Zealand in the Olympic group stage, which kicks off on July 21.
In Japan, Andonovski's side will be looking to banish memories of the 2016 Olympics in Rio, where they were eliminated by Sweden in the quarter-finals to see them fail to medal for the first time since women's football was introduced at the Olympics in 1996.