Coming off a championship at the 2013 Algarve Cup in Portugal, U.S. Women’s National Team head coach Tom Sermanni has named a 23-player roster that will travel to Germany and the Netherlands for friendly matches against two teams preparing for this summer’s European Womens Championship.
After facing Germany in the Algarve Cup Final on March 13, the U.S. Women will be meeting Germany for the second time in 23 days.
The top two teams in the current FIFA Women’s World Rankings play on Friday, April 5, at Sparda Bank Hessen Stadium in Offenbach, home of Kickers Offenbach in the German Third Division. Kickoff is set for 6:15 p.m. local time (12:15 p.m. ET).
The USA will then travel to the Netherlands to face the Dutch in The Hague at Kyocera Stadium, home of ADO Den Haag of the Dutch Eredivisie, on Tuesday, April 9.
Twenty of the 23 players named to the roster were in Portugal for the USA’s Algarve Cup title run. As goalkeepers Hope Solo and Jill Loyden are both rehabilitating from wrist and hand surgeries, respectively, Sermanni named uncapped Western New York Flash goalkeeper Adrianna Franch to the roster.
The USA’s quartet of forwards – Alex Morgan, Abby Wambach, Christen Press and Sydney Leroux – has scored 11 of the USA’s 18 goals so far in 2013. Morgan scored the USA’s final three goals of the Algarve Cup in a 1-1 tie with Sweden and a 2-0 victory against Germany in the championship game.
Wambach heads to Europe with 154 career goals, just four short of tying Mia Hamm on the world’s all-time scoring list. Press leads the USA in goals this year with four.