{"id":90340,"date":"2025-07-07T12:18:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T16:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/?p=90340"},"modified":"2025-07-07T12:18:57","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T16:18:57","slug":"sam-coffey-the-uswnt-midfield-metronome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/2025\/07\/07\/sam-coffey-the-uswnt-midfield-metronome\/","title":{"rendered":"Orchestrating from deep: How Sam Coffey steers the USWNT midfield
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It\u2019s no wonder Emma Hayes once said<\/a>, “They don\u2019t make players like Sam Coffey anymore\u2026a gem.” Coffey has continued to justify that praise with another year of steady, standout performances \u2014 further solidifying her place among the world\u2019s elite defensive midfielders.<\/p>\n

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Since her arrival in 2022, Coffey has become a midfield mainstay on the United States Women\u2019s National Team<\/a>. She anchors the team in a quarterback role, and her performances have grown in stature over the past few international windows, making every roster despite Emma Hayes\u2019 ongoing experimentation with the squad.<\/p>\n

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So how has Coffey embedded herself so firmly in the midfield, and why does Hayes rate her so highly?<\/p>\n

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The role Coffey has taken up for the USWNT over the past year isn\u2019t too dissimilar to her natural playing style. The Portland Thorns<\/a> midfielder has been an all-round player capable of performing both offensive and defensive midfield duties without a drop in performance levels. Her earlier role was very much as a defensive number six, who\u2019d get stuck into tackles and provide an outlet for the more advanced and forward-minded midfielders to attack. At the time of her debut in 2022, the team was looking to replace Julie Ertz<\/a> who was the defensive lynchpin for the USWNT and trialed several players before Coffey made the position her own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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With precise passing, smart positioning, and pressure-resistant play, Coffey has become the heartbeat of Emma Hayes\u2019 evolving midfield structure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4978,"featured_media":90345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":true,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1806,9],"tags":[1230,644,1791,34,2527,2989,845],"class_list":["post-90340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-player-feature","category-uswnt","tag-analysis","tag-emma-hayes","tag-extra","tag-featured","tag-sam-coffey","tag-tactics","tag-uswnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4978"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90340"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90458,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90340\/revisions\/90458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/equalizersoccer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}