January 13 – Orlando, Florida, has rapidly become the go-to destination for centralised tournaments in north America. Having hosted MLS and Concacaf competition during the pandemic, the next visitor will U.S. Soccer in February for the SheBelieves Cup women’s national team competition.
Brazil, Canada and Japan, will join the US from February 18-24 in the sixth edition of the tournament that will be ‘presented’ by VISA.
All four teams are ranked in the World Top 10 while the US, Brazil and Japan are all champions of their confederations. All four have qualified for this Summer’s Olympic games in Tokyo.
The six matches will be played as doubleheaders at the Exploria Stadium in Orlando, Florida.
U.S. Soccer has said that it plans to make some tickets available to the general public for each doubleheader and will announce details nearer the event.
SheBelieves is an initiative led by U.S. Soccer to inspire and encourage women and girls both within the game as well as in a wider social context. Launched in the run-up to the 2015 Women’s World Cup, it has become a powerful message of empowerment with the SheBelieves Cup being the showcase event for the campaign.
U.S. Women’s National Team head coach Vlatko Andonovski said: “We put in all this work to play matches, so to get three great ones in this world class event that resembles group play at an Olympics is something we’re very thankful for. It will be a bit different this year with limited fans, but with the Olympics once again on the horizon our players will be highly motivated and there’s no better way to prepare for the tournament than to play teams that will be in Japan.”
While the rescheduled 2020 Tokyo Olympics are still planned for this summer, a second wave of coronavirus cases in Japan have raised questions internally over whether it will be still safe to proceed with the games.
2021 SheBelieves Cup Schedule
Feb. 18, Brazil vs. Japan , 4 pm; USA vs. Canada, 7 pm
Feb. 21, USA vs. Brazil, 3 pm; Japan vs. Canada, 6 pm
Feb. 24, Canada vs. Brazil, 4 pm.; USA vs. Japan, 7 pm
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1713939661labto1713939661ofdlr1713939661owedi1713939661sni@n1713939661osloh1713939661cin.l1713939661uap1713939661