As soon as Becky Sauerbrunn became captain of the U.S. women’s national team, she began preparing the squad to one day be without her.
It wasn’t that she felt retirement was imminent when she landed the captaincy in January 2021. (Hardly.) But she had been around long enough to know the value of planning ahead. Sauerbrunn was first called up to the national team in ’08. The center back had played through coaching changes and strategy shifts. She had been on the fringes of the roster and on the pitch for every minute of a triumphant World Cup. And she knew how important it was for the team to have more than one pillar of leadership.
Coach Vlatko Andonovski had asked Sauerbrunn to hold the captaincy on her own—no regular co-captain. She was honored. But she was also committed to bringing other people into the fold. Sauerbrunn wanted everyone on the roster to feel empowered, an environment where the youngest players were comfortable speaking up and those slightly older were ready for their own budding leadership roles. Sauerbrunn hoped the team would not depend too heavily on her and her fellow veterans. “We need to pass this torch on,” she says. “And we need to do it in a way that’s as smooth and seamless as possible.” Eventually, Sauerbrunn knew, they would not be on the roster, and she wanted a foundation for success after her generation was gone.
