Hope College is pleased to announce it will host an exhibition soccer match next month featuring the United States Under-17 Women’s National Team at Van Andel Stadium.
The Friday, August 12 match will feature the U.S. playing Brazil’s Under-17 Women’s National Team. Kickoff is 7 p.m. Admission is free.
The match will be the final chance to evaluate the players before U.S. head coach B.J. Snow chooses the final roster for the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup.
The 28-member U.S. Under-17 Women’s National Team is training in Michigan from August 1-13 in preparation for its World Cup in October in Jordan. The Americans also will play an August 9 exhibition match vs. Brazil at Michigan State University.
“We are extremely excited to bring our U-17 Women’s National Team to Michigan,” said Snow, who hails from Kalamazoo and who played college soccer at Indiana. “The opportunity to be together for two weeks during some of the final preparations before the Women’s World Cup this fall is critical. We will be capping a long and rigorous evaluation process and the players that have matriculated their way here deserve a ton of credit. The depth of this player pool has been extraordinary, so the fact that they are even in the conversation for a final roster spot at this point in time is something that these players should be extremely proud of.”
The U.S. Under-17 Women’s National Team is undefeated in 10 international matches this year.
“The decisions that we will have to make to finalize our roster will be exceptionally difficult and that is why playing these two international games is so vitally important,” Snow said. “The state of Michigan has a rich soccer tradition and we were ecstatic when we found out that we would be able to bring these two international games there. These games offer us one of the last opportunities to assess our players and our team so we are hoping to simulate a World Cup environment as much as possible. We will be playing in two first class facilities and the hope is that we can work to together with the soccer communities in Michigan to showcase the growth of women’s soccer at the youth level.”