COMMERCE CITY, Colo. — Rose Lavelle had a goal and an assist in her first national team match in nearly seven months and the U.S. women’s national team defeated Ireland, 4-0, in an exhibition match on Thursday night.
Avery Patterson, Sam Coffey and Alyssa Thompson also scored for the United States. Lavelle, who had ankle surgery in December, last played for the national team on Dec. 3 against the Netherlands.
She played for 59 minutes on Thursday.
“Any time you spend time away from the game I always find some silver lining in it,” Lavelle said earlier this month upon her return for her NWSL team, Gotham FC. “I think I’ve found a lot of silver lining during this time away. I think [some] of that is learning how to be a good teammate when I can’t be on the field with them, staying present, still having a voice and helping people where I can. Being out for so long really forced me to do that 10-fold.”
Patterson, making her third start for the national team, scored on a header off a short corner from Lavelle in the 18th minute. It was her first international goal.
“It’s surreal. I think at halftime someone asked me what was going through my head, and I don’t think I fully came down and realized what had happened until two water breaks afterward,” Patterson laughed. “I need to watch it again because I kind of blacked out.”
Coffey added a goal before halftime, with a shot that cut across to the far post. It was her third national team goal and second in the last three games.
Lavelle made it 3-0 in the 53rd, scoring handily off a well-placed pass from Ally Sentnor. Thompson ran the ball from the center line, danced around a defender and finished with a blast from atop the box in the 63rd.
“I felt that pressure was coming so I took a touch around her. I’ve been in that situation a lot of times in this game, and I was like ‘I need to score this one,’” said Thompson, a Harvard-Westlake graduate. “So I did my usual move and then hit it to the far side.”
Coach Emma Hayes gave her Europe-based players – including Lindsey Heaps, Catarina Macario, Crystal Dunn and Emily Fox – time off after their club seasons. The exception was defender Naomi Girma, who is working her way back from a calf injury.
Goalkeeper Claudia Dickey, who plays for the Seattle Reign, and Lilly Reale, a defender for Gotham, started for the United States in their national team debuts. The youngest player on the squad, 18-year-old Jordyn Bugg, made her debut as a second-half substitute. Six of the 11 starters had less than 10 appearances with the national team.
Lavelle, who has 111 national team appearances and was a crucial part of the 2019 World Cup-winning team and the 2024 Olympic gold medal squad, was one of the veterans in the lineup, along with defender Emily Sonnett.
The U.S. has faced Ireland 16 times and never dropped a match. The Irish have scored just one goal against the Americans.
The U.S. plays Ireland again on Sunday in Cincinnati, Lavelle’s hometown. The team plays Canada on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
The team will not assemble again until the next international window in late October, at which point Hayes said she expects to have narrowed the pool of players that she will rely on ahead of the 2027 World Cup.
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