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One of the most important aspects of sports is impossible to quantify and nearly undefinable. Team chemistry is often underrated in professional sports, but there’s no doubt any team works better together when people like each other, whether it’s an office or one of the best soccer teams of all time.
To paraphrase the Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart when asked to define pornography, you know team chemistry when you see it. And we definitely see it with the U.S. women’s national team.
The latest example of the team unity on the squad came from a video filmed during the team’s January camp in Austin, in which pairs of players were asked to figure out what they were touching while blindfolded. The video is available at the top of this page and embedded below. It’s nearly nine minutes, but trust me, it’s nine minutes well spent.
USWNT Team Chemistry
Kept ̶A̶u̶s̶t̶i̶n̶ Jan Camp weird pic.twitter.com/myPazYpBQl
— U.S. Soccer WNT (@USWNT) February 8, 2022
Team Mewis (actual sisters Sam and Kristie), Team Gen Z (not actual sisters Ashley Sanchez and Sophia Smith), Team Feeling Some Things (Alana Cook and Tierna Davidson) and Team Not Introduced (Abby Dahlkemper and Lynn Williams) competed against each other to see who was best at using their hands instead of their eyes, an important skill in soccer. The result was pure delight.
The Mewis sisters, as always, provided plenty of laughs. We will never grow tired of Mewis content, as the siblings are hilarious together. Their banter is the type of thing you only get from people who spent formative years together, and the Chapstick comment was a throwback to a previous video they filmed for the USWNT.
Sam Mewis, in particular, was roasted a few times by her sister and other teams. The 2020 USWNT Player of the Year was called out by Kristie (“with what makeup?”) and Team Gen Z, which mocked: “I bet the older groups didn’t get this,” an absolutely true statement. (I’m still trying to figure out what the deal is with Orbeez, and I’m with the Mewies in thinking the slime was Gak.)
The video didn’t specify who won, but I’d say it was Team Not Introduced because Williams guessed the cleat was a white Tiempo and Dahlkemper identified it as Rose Lavelle’s. That said, Team Feeling Some Things was pretty spot on for its guesses and Team Gen Z guessing the slime was purple was brilliant.
— U.S. Soccer WNT (@USWNT) February 9, 2022
— U.S. Soccer WNT (@USWNT) February 9, 2022
Though these were just pairs of players who were clearly already friends, bonds like that are the best place to start for building team spirit and unity.
USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski brought in a lot of younger players for the January camp and the upcoming SheBelieves Cup, so building team chemistry will be paramount heading into World Cup qualifying this summer. It seems the team is off to a good start.
