Vera Pauw has called on the huge Irish community in America to get behind her Girls in Green when Ireland’s World Cup preparations take them Stateside in April.
Two games have been pencilled in against the reigning world champions - on April 8 in Austin, Texas, and on April 11 in St Louis, Missouri.
The USA are currently ranked number one in FIFA’s rankings and Pauw is thrilled to land the hugely challenging matches ahead of Ireland’s first ever World Cup appearance.
“When we qualified for the World Cup we immediately set to work on preparing the best possible schedule to ensure that our team faced the type of challenges and intensity that they will need to cope with in Australia,” she said.
“We believe that we have the best program to prepare for our first ever World Cup.
“The opportunity to play two games against the number one team in the world is fantastic for us as it will put us under the kind of pressure that we need to experience as a team.
“We will benefit so much more from playing against top quality teams as those games help us to raise our performance and learn how to adapt in difficult situations.
“The quality that the USA is pretty clear to see with their recent history, their strength in depth and having a very good Head Coach, so we are excited to play these two games.
“We also know that there are a lot of fans in the United States with Irish connections, so we hope that they will come out to support us.”
Ireland this week completed a 10-day training camp in Spain, which included a behind-closed-doors match against Germany and a scoreless draw on Wednesday against Asian champions China.
Home games against Zambia (June 22) and France (July 6) have also been arranged ahead of the trip Down Under.
Ireland will face co-hosts Australia on July 20, Olympic champions Canada on July 26 and Nigeria on July 31 in Group B.
