The top two teams in the world will square off in October. Today, U.S. Soccer announced that the United States Women’s National Team, ranked 2nd in the FIFA world rankings, will take on #1 ranked Spain in two October friendlies. The first will take place on October 10th at Audi Field in Washington, DC, while they will head to Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania for the second match on October 13th.
The match on October 10th will feature a pregame ceremony to honor USWNT legend Crystal Dunn, who retired
before the start of this season. She got her start with the Washington Spirit and was NWSL MVP in 2015 while with them before going on to win the 2019 Women’s World Cup with the USWNT.
With no September window, the October window is the last chance for the team to prepare for the 2026 Concacaf W Championship, which will occur during the November-December window and will serve as qualifying for both the Women’s World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. The USWNT automatically qualify for the Olympics, but still need to win their first match in that tournament to directly qualify for next summer’s Women’s World Cup.
“Two more fantastic matches,” USWNT head coach Emma Hayes said in a statement. “We’ve desperately wanted to get Spain on our schedule, but the difficulties of scheduling the top teams during the women’s international calendar are well known, so to be able to get these two games on the East Coast will be the perfect tests before we head into World Cup qualifying at the end of the year.”
Spain has already directly qualified for the Women’s World Cup by winning their group in UEFA qualifying, which made them available for the October window. The two teams have only faced each other 4 times before, with the last being a 2-0 Spain win in Pamplona in October 2022. The USWNT won the other three battles, a 1-0 friendly in 2019, a 2-1 win in the 2019 Women’s World Cup Round of 16, and a 1-0 win at the 2020 SheBelieves Cup. They now renew their series as the two best teams on the planet compete against each other on the East Coast.
