The 4 BIGGEST takeaways from the USWNT vs Italy

The Late Sub with Claire Watkins

Just Women’s Sports

Sports, Soccer

4.9 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Subscribe: https://pod.link/1563105123 In this week’s episode, Claire breaks down the USWNT friendlies against Italy. Claire shares her biggest takeaways heading into 2026, from what these lineups told us about the midfield, what its means to have Naomi Girma back, and what opponents shouldn't do against his team. Subscribe to The Late Sub to never miss an episode. Follow Claire on Twitter/X (@scoutripley) and sign up for the Just Women’s Sports newsletter at justwomenssports.com/newsletter/ Just Women’s Sports is the leading digital media platform dedicated exclusively to women’s sports. In a world where women’s sports have been historically underfunded and under-promoted, Just Women’s Sports exists to shine a light on all the stories, athletes and moments that define and fuel the space. Through original podcasts, premium video programming, social media, editorial content, a newsletter, and exclusive merchandise and live events, Just Women’s Sports is committed to making it both easy and fun to be a women’s sports fan. Listen to The Late Sub with Claire Watkins here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-late-sub-with-claire-watkins/id1563105123 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4n4ZxsVs1Ix9DY9E0KPSc6 iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-late-sub-with-claire-81239737/ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/c457a882-c376-4e46-8380-d7471ed29d4c/the-late-sub-with-claire-watkins Add us on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justwomenssports/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/justwsports Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@justwomenssports?

Transcript

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0:00.0	The US Women's National Team dominated Italy to close out their 2025 in ways that I think show a lot of learnings from the past year and perhaps a preview of what we're hopefully going to see from the team in 2026.
0:13.3	Welcome to this week's edition of the late sub. I am your host, Claire Watkins. It is Wednesday, December 3rd.
0:18.8	And we're going to break down what we saw from the U.S. in two games against Italy into a couple of larger points that touch on the attack, midfield, defense, and a couple of tactical notes as well, because I think that opponents are going to have to start playing this team very differently if they're going to want to find success. Let's dig in.
0:43.3	So the U.S.
0:48.2	Women's National Team finished 2025 in a really good place,
0:49.3	finish out the year strong,
0:53.6	two pretty dominant wins over 2025 Euro semi-finalists, Italy.
0:58.4	First game, 3-0 nil strong two goals by catarina micario with the opener by olivia mulchrey the second game two nil goals by
1:03.1	mccario and jaden the shaw you know not going to underplay it it was a really good window with
1:09.6	combos that i think worked really well,
1:11.4	a very good bounce back with some lessons learned from the window in which they lost that one
1:15.5	game to Portugal, showcased more, I think, of the team's promise for the future, even more
1:20.9	than that Portugal and immediate bounce back that we saw over the course of these two games
1:26.1	to hit on maybe some of these larger big picture,
1:28.8	both questions and answers of what's going to happen next year as they move into games that
1:34.4	really, really matter. There's World Cup qualifying in November. It's going to be another
1:37.3	wonky schedule with obviously the huge men's tournament in the summer. But I want to take
1:42.3	some of these learnings from the last couple of windows
1:45.3	and turn it into something that focuses a little bit more on what we're going to see next year.
1:50.9	And so to start with the big, big headline, and I think this is one that you'll probably
1:54.0	have seen from a variety of different coverage points this week, is that Katerina Makario is
1:59.9	truly, really back. She is fully healthy,
	...

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