Hello. Hello. We are back here again at full time with Meg Lininahan. You are listening to a podcast all about

women's soccer on the Athletic Podcast Network. I'm Meg, your host, and I am a staff writer at The Athletic covering the NW.S.L. U.S. Women's National Team. We've got another big episode for you this week. We are back on our normal day on Thursday. Heather O'Reilly is here to discuss all things U.S. national team after their first win of 2021.

We've got another game coming up on Friday.

And Jessica McDonald of the North Carolina Courage is joining the show to share what she is working on in the year ahead.

Let's start, as always, with the news from the past week a little bit less intense than last week, fortunately.

But Phil Neville, out, the coach of the England week a little bit less intense than last week, fortunately. But Phil Neville,

out. The coach of the England women's national team and team G.B. for the Olympics is actually on his way here to the U.S. taking the reins to enter Miami of MLS. In his place,

retired Norway international player, Hegariz, has been named to run the team's February camp with her and Canada's

Rianne Wilkinson, both joining the coaching staff with the short-term appointments for, of course,

Serena Wegman of the Netherlands, steps in to lead the team.

More international coaching news with Monica Vergara, named as the new head coach in Mexico.

She has plenty of managerial experience

within FMF after leading various youth teams for the Federation. Some here might actually

be familiar with her name as she was paired with Jill Ellis as part of a coaching mentorship

program through FIFA. Of course, the big news of the weekend here in the U.S. was Wacko

Andanovski's announcement that Becky Sauerbrun is back as captain of the national team. Now, Brooks Peck and I took off our Christy Mewis Appreciation hats to put on our Becky Sauerbrun appreciation hats. And we wrote about why she was the perfect pick to lead the team. If you would like to read that story, the link is in the show notes for you. Now, if I were to

take the time to describe Heather O'Reilly's playing career, I think we would probably have a two-hour

show for you today instead of a one-hour show for you today. But suffice to say she is an all-time

great within this game. She's won a lot of trophies over the years, a lot of medals,

a couple of NWSL championships, and now she is balancing her assistant coach position at

UNC and her media responsibilities. She was on the desk for the national team's first game

of the year, and now she is here to break things down even more for you. All right, So we've had our first game of the year.

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