• Player Rating: 6.7
• Stream: Netflix
• Length: 4 episodes, 42 to 45 minutes each
• Audience: Ages 10 and Older
It’s a bit lacking in fresh insights or interesting behind-the-scenes footage, and doesn’t look too deeply into what went wrong for the USWNT during their disappointing World Cup, though the series still succeeds at presenting and contextualizing many of the external pressures faced during their failed chase for a three-peat.
“The World Cup will eat you up and spit you out with bad skin.”
That visceral, slightly gross quote is from USWNT and Gotham FC forward Lynn Williams, and arrives towards the end of Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team, a new docuseries streaming on Netflix that offers behind-the-scenes looks at the USWNT’s 2023 World Cup experience.
Williams’s quote is also an accurate way to describe what transpires across these four episodes, with varied forms of pressure shown weighing on the players and coaching staff of the world’s top women’s national team as it tries to three-peat as World Cup champions.
You see the pressure and stress around making the World Cup squad play out as a number of players are shown receiving video calls from head coach Vlatko Andonovski informing them they’ve made the team.
Under Pressure follows multiple USWNT members, like then-Gotham FC players Lynn Williams and Kristie Mewis, as they take stock of their chances of making the World Cup roster, then experience the tournament and a bit of its aftermath.
You get candid comments about things like Williams’s struggles for USWNT minutes due to the nation’s stacked forward pool, Mewis coping with being on the substitutes bench for almost all of the World Cup, and what some players felt about coaching decisions made by Andonovski during the tournament.
Front and center in the series is the enormous pressure on the USWNT to actually perform and chase their three-peat. Under Pressure drums said pressure up by regularly dropping in strongly-worded soundbites from Fox Sports pundits and former U.S. national team players Carli Lloyd and Alexi Lalas, turning Lloyd into far too central a character in what is supposed to be a behind-the-scenes series about the 2023 World Cup squad.
That in part keeps Under Pressure from greatness: As a behind-the-scenes docu-series goes, it’s a little light on true behind-the-scenes footage or fresh insights gleaned from the players or coach.
Locker room or training ground footage is sparse, player access is limited to a select handful which also included star striker Alex Morgan and midfielder and tournament captain Lindsey Horan.
Under Pressure succeeds at presenting and contextualizing many of the external pressures the USWNT faced heading into and during the 2023 World Cup. Ex-players like Julie Foudy and Abby Wambach, as well as The Athletic’s Meg Linehan, fill viewers in on things like the vast improvement of the women’s national teams and women’s soccer setups in other countries, the “closing of the gap” between America and the rest of the world, and discuss at length some of Andonovski’s more questionable roster selections and in-game decisions, or lack of decisions, from the tournament.
There’s nothing revelatory or unknown revealed in Under Pressure, though it’s worth a watch if you are interested in revisiting some of what went wrong in a World Cup that saw the USWNT only win their opening group stage match against Vietnam.
It’s also undeniably interesting to get a glimpse into the lives of players like Lynn Williams and Kristie Mewis—and by proxy Mewis’s partner, Australian star Sam Kerr.
Watching a series all about all the many pressures faced by the USWNT World Cup squad is made somewhat awkward by having read about a report released by FIFA that found during the 2023 World Cup, the USWNT received the most online abuse of any country participating in the tournament, with Megan Rapinoe singled out by the report as one of two players targeted on social media above all others.
Under Pressure delivers on some of the promise of a behind-the-scenes documentary, but it’s not of the depth of something like Amazon’s All or Nothing series, because it only scratches the surface of what the USWNT and some of its most famous players faced during their disappointing World Cup experiences.
