2025 SheBelieves Cup Recap
- ehinckley35
- Mar 8
- 2 min read
The SheBelieves cup is a women's international soccer tournament. This year, the teams featured were the United States of America, Australia, Japan, and Colombia. In a round robin style of play, Japan broke the United States' five consecutive victories.
With three losses and a goal differential of -6, Australia, conceding four goals in their opening game against Japan, bounced back, playing a much more organized game and took the unfortunate 2-1 loss to No.1 ranked United States. In a back-and-forth game, Australia fell 2-1 to a strong Colombia side. An equalizer goal came in the second half from Hayley Raso, but Colombia was quick to answer back. Throughout the entire event, the Australian side struggled to find their rhythm and create solid chances. Coach Tom Sermanni made line-up changes in all three games attempting to help his team have success. Australia was looking for their first SheBelieves cup win; however, they ended with 3 losses and last place in the bracket.
Colombia, a developing side, saw few successful moments throughout the tournament. In their opening game, they suffered a 2-0 loss to Olympic Gold Medalists, the United States. Japan drowned the side 4-1 on match day two. In the side's final game, they defeated the Matildas 2-1, taking the early lead. Mary Jose Alvarez and Linda Caicedo were standout players for Colombia. The win in the third game secured a third-place finish.
Coached by Emma Hayes, the United States finished second after suffering a heartbreaking defeat to Japan in the final game. The States brought a young team and debuted many players including Michelle Cooper, Gisele Thompson, Tara McKeown, and Claire Hutton. Notably, star on the rise Ally Sentnor made an impact on the team in her first tournament representing her country. The leadership from Lindsey Heaps and Emily Sonnet helped their team defeat Colombia 2-0 and Australia 2-1. After the final game of the event, Hayes commented, "We've won the gold medal in the summer, and we are wanting to compete to win the World Cup, so we have to keep developing and development isn't linear.” Hayes reassured fans that this loss, the first loss in the Emma Hayes era, is not defining the future of the USWNT.
The 2025 champions, Japan, won their first two games in a dominating, shutout fashion. Mina Tanaka took home the Golden Boot award, scoring a total of four goals with three assists throughout three matches. She was also named the SheBelieves Cup MVP. In their opening game, Japan got off to a hot start defeating Australia in a 4-0 win and quickly rebounded to win 4-1 against a solid Colombian side. In the final winner takes all match against the United States, Japan struck first and responded to a U.S goal to take home their first SheBelieves Cup trophy.
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