The history of the USA Women’s National Soccer Team is very intertwined with the history of UNC women’s soccer. Dozens of Tar Heels have appeared for the USWNT over the year, and many have helped them to several different World Cup and Olympic gold medal championship victories. From Mia Hamm to Crystal Dunn, pretty much every notable USWNT team and moment has a Tar Heel somewhere on the field.
As soccer has grown in the United States, other colleges have built up their women’s soccer programs, so UNC
isn’t quite the singular dominant force at putting players on the USWNT as they used to. However, it doesn’t seem like UNC national teamers are going away any time soon.
The 2025 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup is set to begin October 17th in Morocco. The US youth national team will be there, and a couple Tar Heels will be part of the squad. Current Tar Heels Riley Kennedy and Lauren Malsolm were selected by coach Katie Schoepfer to represent the US and this year’s tournament.
You might be wondering how currently college-aged players are able to play in the Under-17 World Cup, the answer is that players are generally eligible to compete if they are under 17 when the various qualification tournaments take place. For this year’s edition, players born between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2010 are able to play in the tournament, even if they are 17 years or older when the actual final tournament takes place.
For Kennedy, Malsolm and the US team, they will be in Group C along with Ecuador, China, and Norway. There are a couple groups that are in the running for the traditional “group of death” status, but based on women’s soccer history of the countries, that’s probably one of them. That being said, the US would just need to finish in the top two in their group (or be one of the best third place teams) to advance on to the Round of 16, and that should be doable without any issue.
I personally cannot attest to the talent of this year’s US U-17 team or the talent level of any other nation in this year’s tournament. Just based on the qualifying tournament that got them into this year’s World Cup, the US won their three games by a combined 17-0 margin, so it seems like Kennedy, Malsolm, and company will be in the running for the title.
