What can the USWNT learn from two friendlies against Spain?

Why are the United States and Spain meeting now?

ESPN reports that the second-ranked US women's national team will play top-ranked Spain in two friendlies over the coming week. The next World Cup is a little more than eight months away. At this stage, national team coaches stop experimenting widely and start narrowing down a system they can rely on in a tournament. Playing the world champions gives the US a sharp test at the right moment. Weaker friendly opponents let a team rehearse patterns. An opponent of Spain's level shows whether those patterns still hold under pressure. The venues, squads and selection plans for these matches are not covered here and should not be assumed. What is known is the structure of the window: two meetings with the same elite opponent, close together, with a major tournament on the horizon.

What does Spain's style of play look like?

Spain's game is built on positional play. Players hold set zones across the pitch so that the player on the ball always has several passing options. Patient circulation pulls opponents out of shape. Midfielders constantly adjust their angles and distances, so pressing one player rarely cuts off all the passing lines. The full-backs often push high and wide, and the midfield controls the centre. When Spain lose the ball, they try to win it back quickly near where it was lost. This is usually called counter-pressing, and it limits the opponent's chances to break. The overall aim is control. Spain want to decide where the match is played and how fast. For any opponent, the tactical problem is to stay organised for long spells without the ball and still have the energy and structure to attack when possession turns over.

How has the US traditionally tried to win matches?

Historically, the US has been associated with intensity and directness. Its traditional strengths are aggressive pressing, quick vertical attacks, strong running in wide areas and a competitive edge in physical contests. Those qualities work best when matches are open and possession changes hands often, because each turnover is a chance to attack quickly. In recent years, many observers have described the US as trying to add more control and more patience in possession to that base. This is a broad trend in the women's game rather than anything unique to one team. Spain test exactly where those two approaches meet. If the US can keep its directness while staying calm on the ball under pressure, it has a more complete game. If it cannot, the gaps tend to show quickly against a side as precise as Spain.

Why is pressing Spain so difficult?

Pressing works by taking away time and passing options. Positional teams are designed to beat it. When a pressing player moves towards the ball, they leave space behind them. Spain's players are trained to spot and use that space with one or two passes. If the press is not coordinated, a single bypassed player can open the whole midfield. The US therefore has to choose. It can press high in a tightly linked unit, accepting that any mistake may leave its defence exposed. Or it can drop into a mid-block, giving Spain the ball in less dangerous areas and waiting for a trigger to press, such as a backward pass or a poor first touch. Watching which approach the US uses, and when it switches between them, will be one of the clearest signs of its tournament thinking.

What happens when the US spends long spells without the ball?

Spells without possession test concentration as well as tactics. Against a team that circulates the ball patiently, defenders have to keep adjusting their positions to close passing lanes, even when the ball is nowhere near them. Over time, small lapses build up. A midfielder drifts out of line, or the gap between defence and midfield grows, and that is often the moment a positional team picks its pass. For the US, these long phases test its compactness. That means keeping the horizontal and vertical distances between players tight enough to protect the centre. They also test communication, because players need to hand runners on to each other instead of following them out of position. Facing this kind of pressure for a sustained period is hard to recreate in training, which is one reason matches against Spain are valuable.

Where might US transitions find space?

Every system leaves a weakness somewhere. When a positional team pushes its full-backs high and commits players forward to keep the ball, space can open behind them, especially in the wide channels. If the US wins the ball before Spain's counter-press is set, a quick forward pass into those areas could lead to a direct attack on the back line. The difficulty is the timing. Counter-pressing exists to close that window within seconds, so the first pass after winning the ball matters a great deal. A safe sideways pass lets Spain recover their shape. A forward pass that is risky but accurate can get past several players at once. Whether the US can make that first pass reliably under pressure is one of the most useful things these games can show.

What can a friendly reveal that a competitive match cannot?

Friendlies have no competitive stakes, so coaches can treat them as controlled experiments. They can try different formations, test a player in an unfamiliar role, or rehearse a game plan built for a particular kind of opponent. The result matters less than what the staff learn from it. Because nothing depends on the scoreline, teams may be willing to take risks they would avoid in a tournament. That makes friendlies informative, but it also means they can mislead. A side may hold back some ideas, or use the matches to manage players' workload. So the most reliable lessons come from patterns: how the team behaves in particular phases of play, not who wins. Treat any single moment, or the final score, with caution.

Why play the same opponent twice in one window?

Playing the same opponent twice in quick succession creates a rare chance to learn and adjust. After the first match, both coaching staffs can analyse the footage, find what worked and what did not, and change their plans for the second. That turns the window into a tactical exchange rather than two separate tests. One side might change its pressing triggers, its build-up shape or how it defends crosses. The other then has to respond in real time. That rhythm resembles tournament football, where teams often have only a few days between matches to study an opponent and adapt. For the US, seeing how well it applies lessons from one game to the next may matter as much as anything it does in either game.

How do set pieces fit into this kind of test?

Set pieces are the part of football where open-play style matters least. A team that struggles to keep the ball can still create danger from corners and free-kicks, and a team that dominates possession can still concede from them. In matches between closely matched sides, dead-ball situations often carry extra weight because chances from open play are scarce. Friendlies let coaches test routines, such as blocking patterns, near-post runs and short corners, against a high-quality opponent's defensive organisation. They also show how a team defends set pieces, whether through zonal marking, player-to-player marking or a mix of the two. Teams often keep their most important routines secret until a tournament, so what appears in these matches may not be the full picture.

What will remain unknown after the two matches?

Even with two meetings against the world champions, a lot will stay uncertain. Squads at this point in the cycle are rarely final, and the players selected for one window may differ from those picked for the World Cup. Neither side has to show its full tournament plan, and friendlies can be shaped by experimentation and workload management in ways that are hard to see from outside. Tournament conditions, opponents and the pressure of knockout football will also differ from anything a friendly can recreate. What these matches can offer is evidence about how the US deals with one specific, demanding tactical problem. That evidence is valuable, but it is only part of the picture. The final verdict on any team's preparation comes at the tournament itself.

Sources and further reading

• ESPN: report on the upcoming friendlies between the United States and Spain and their place in World Cup preparation
• FIFA: official information on the Women's World Cup and the women's world ranking system
• U.S. Soccer Federation: official communications on the women's national team schedule
• Royal Spanish Football Federation: official information on the Spain women's national team