Ashley Hatch has made her return to the U.S. women’s national team, and it’s a reunion that surprised even the star forward herself.
“It was obviously very exciting. It was something that wasn’t really on the radar for (me), but when I got the email, I was just really excited for another opportunity to come into this environment,” she told the Deseret News.
Hatch was one of 26 players called to the team’s January training camp, which began last week and concludes Wednesday.

While she said she felt “mostly surprise and excitement” upon receiving the camp invite, there was some “accepting and digesting everything that had happened in the past.”
Leading up to the 2023 FIFA World Cup, Hatch appeared to have a had good chance of representing the United States at the tournament, which took place in Australia and New Zealand, but she was surprisingly left off the final USWNT roster.
She was then called up for friendlies in October and December that year, including a match in Sandy, Utah. That December 2023 call up was Hatch’s last until now.
The team looks quite different now than it did then.
Several of the national team’s most iconic names and faces have retired, and new head coach Emma Hayes has taken the helm.
Hayes' hiring was announced weeks before Hatch’s last camp with the team, but interim head coach Twila Kilgore continued to lead the USWNT while Hayes' wrapped up her final season with Chelsea.
“It’s been a while and there’s lots of changes,” Hatch said. “So (it) kind of just felt like going into a new opportunity.”
Hatch’s long road back to national team consideration
Unlike most national team camps, the January camp doesn’t include an international match. It’s a chance for Hayes to expand the player pool by getting a closer look at players who haven’t yet had an opportunity with the team or who haven’t had one in a while, as in Hatch’s case.
But without a game, a player can’t catch Hayes' attention by scoring a game-changing goal, which is important when the U.S. is deep in the forward position. Instead, players have to resort to other options in practice.
“It’s just important to do what I do always and just show up as myself and not try to be anyone else ... staying true to who I am as a player, and working hard and just learning and continuing to implement the things that are asked of me,” Hatch said.
Hatch believes it’s important to be consistent, “whether that’s day to day or camp to camp,” and she said that’s how she tries to stand out.
“It’s not a super flashy way, I guess, to set yourself apart, but I think that’s just how I’ve always operated. It’s just consistently doing the right things, and I feel like it’s become a habit for me to continue to do those things, and so I’ll just carry that into this environment,” she said.
Hatch’s 2024 NWSL season
That approach seemed to pay off for Hatch during the recently concluded NWSL season. She helped lead her team, the Washington Spirit, to the NWSL championship, although it wasn’t an easy journey.
Hatch was benched from her starting forward role midway through the season. While missing the starting minutes, she focused on working hard and being ready for the time the Spirit would need her, she told the Deseret News.
Upon returning to the starting lineup, Hatch scored five goals in the last seven games of the regular season, climbing the NWSL’s all-time scoring list all the way up to fifth place while she was at it.
Hayes noticed Hatch’s character and the work she put in to help her team on their championship run, the coach told the Deseret News earlier this month after the January camp roster release.
“I think she’s had to work herself into situations, especially on the back end of the season. I think she showed great character, and I just want to see where she’s at in our environment and considering the absence of Soph (Smith) and Mal (Swanson) and Trin (Rodman), this is an opportunity for Ashley and one that I’m sure she’s looking forward to,” Hayes said.
During her interview with the Deseret News on Tuesday, Hatch said “it’s pretty cool to hear that (Hayes) recognized that and has seen that in me.”
“You never know what people are going to notice, or what they’re gonna take away from whatever situation you’re in. So, I’m just proud of myself for working through a hard situation and building my character through that experience, and for her to see that, is really cool. You often hear coaches say that they value that, but then it ends at that. But for her to see that and show me that she values that by giving me a chance to come into this environment is pretty cool,” she said.
Ashley Hatch on Emma Hayes
Though this is Hatch’s first camp with Hayes, it’s not their first time meeting. They met at Hatch’s last camp while Kilgore was still the interim coach but Hayes was there observing, having been hired the month prior.
After just a week of playing for her, Hatch already has high praise for Hayes.
“She’s very nice and very approachable, very fun and loving. She will talk to anyone and everyone,” she said. “She’s just a fun person to be around.”
Hatch said her major takeaway from this camp centers on Hayes' passion and vision.
“I think one thing that I’ve learned is I learned a lot about Emma, the coach, and how much she cares about just like the overall development of not only this team, but soccer in the U.S., in this country, and the changes that she’s trying to make,” she said.

Hatch said that Hayes has taken a “holistic approach of just the female athlete in general.”
“We’ve had a lot of meetings about soccer, but we’ve also had a lot of meetings just about, like, how to manage stress and pressure, or being a female athlete and managing your menstrual cycles, and, like, paying attention to your overall health. So that’s something that I’ve never experienced really in this environment, to this level of detail and attention,” she said. “I feel like she’s setting a precedent for the future, and so it’s cool to kind of get an inside (look) into what that looks like and hopefully see it trickle down throughout, you know, just soccer in America.”
Hatch is leaving this camp excited for the future of U.S. Soccer and female soccer players.
“I’d be a part of it, obviously, for however long I can be, and it just excites me for the future,” she said.
Ashley Hatch’s future with the USWNT
Where does Hatch’s relationship with the national team go from here?
Despite her positive experience with Hayes, she may still be on the outside looking in, since the Paris Olympics, where the U.S. women won gold, saw the emergence of a front line comprised of Mallory Swanson, Sophia Smith and Trinity Rodman.
Hatch said she plans to employ the same mindset she had with the Spirit last season: She’ll continue to work hard and be ready for her moment.
“I feel like that’s always the case in whatever team you’re playing, for whatever position or role you find yourself in. Obviously, those three are tremendous players,” she said. “But Emma has told us that she wants to just continue to educate more players and deepen the player pool, and so for me, just doing my best to be one of those players in the player pool was really important.”
Hatch added, “You never know what opportunities may present themselves.”
“So regardless of what players are in front of you or not, just staying ready and being ready and being at your best for whatever moment,” she said.
Following this camp, Hatch will return her attention to the Spirit as preseason begins ahead of the 2025 NWSL season, rather than dreaming of her next national team call-up.
“Everyone always wants to get called up. But I think you’ll waste a lot of energy, waiting and hoping,” she said. “I feel like I’ve learned that lesson the hard way, just like wasting a lot of time, like stressing over the decision, but for me, once this is over, I’m really excited to go back and be with the Spirit and start preseason with them and just focusing there on continuing to improve. And then if the opportunity comes, then I’ll be able to switch over and be really excited for another opportunity. So for me, it’s just staying very present, and focusing on what I’m doing that day is how I can best prepare myself for the future, whether there’s a call up or not.”
Hatch feels that if she continues to do well in the NWSL, then more national team opportunities could open up, but she said her main focus is still the Spirit.
“I know that if I’m focused on doing well there, and my team does well, and I do well, that just helps naturally create more opportunities to come back into this environment with U.S. Soccer.”
Regardless of what the future holds for Hatch and the national team and her soccer career, in general, Hatch, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has her faith to lean on.
“My relationship with God is the one thing that I know I can always rely on and that his love for me is always consistent no matter what my situation is as a soccer player, or whatever mistakes that I make or shortcomings I have. I know that I can always try again and improve because of my relationship with God and my faith in just his plan for everyone. I feel like that’s something that’s consistently helping me through all the ups and downs and the inconsistencies that we experience in life,” she said.