The United States Women’s National Team will head to Southern California to begin 2026. Today, U.S. Soccer announced that the USWNT will hold its annual January Camp January 17-27 and will face Paraguay
in the first of two friendlies on January 24th at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
“January camp is a vitally important part of our yearly schedule, especially with 2026 being a year that will host World Cup qualifying,” said USWNT head coach Emma Hayes in U.S. Soccer’s press release. “We don’t get many training days together during any given year, so there is a high value in getting a whole week of training as well as two matches. I was pleased with the progress we made as a team in 2025, but we still have a ways to go to get to where we want to be heading into the Concacaf W Championship in the fall.”
The January 24th match against Paraguay will also serve as a tribute match for Christen Press, who recently retired from professional soccer. The two-time Women’s World Cup champion will be honored before the match before her hometown fans. No venue has hosted more USWNT matches than Dignity Health Sports Park, which sits 10 miles from Press’s hometown of Palos Verdes Estates. Christen Press bobbleheads will be given out to the first 2,000 fans through the gates for the match.
In Paraguay, it’s just the third time the USWNT has faced the current 41st ranked team in the world. The teams last faced in two friendlies in Cleveland and Cincinnati in September 2021, and the United States won 9-0 and 8-0 in those matches.
Unlike the USMNT, the USWNT is continuing the January Camp tradition. However, Emma Hayes had indicated back in January that it was unlikely that the team would have matches during the camp moving forward. Hayes believed that with most of the NWSL-based players in preseason mode, it made more sense to have stepped up training camps and combine it with youth national team camps. However, with 2026 being a pivotal year with Women’s World Cup qualifying beginning in the fall, it makes sense to get ssome match experience for the players who can be released from their clubs outside of an international window.
The Paraguay match will be the first of two friendlies during January Camp. A second match will be held on January 27th, with the opponent and venue to be announced at a later date. The first international window of the year for the women will be February 24-March 7, where it is expected that they will host their annual SheBelieves Cup with three invited teams.
