Emma Hayes has found her USWNT Triple Espresso alternatives - ESPN

How much can you learn from a match in which the opponent perfectly plays to your strengths?

United States women's national team head coach Emma Hayes must mull that context as she analyzes her team's 3-0 win over China on Saturday.

Hayes has been operating a carousel of new and inexperienced players to identify the group she will develop on the road to the 2027 Women's World Cup. She sought clarity at the wide forwards role ahead of this training camp — and she ostensibly got answers on Saturday.

Forwards Alyssa Thompson and Michelle Cooper were electric on Saturday as the USWNT's starting wingers who terrorized China's defense. Each player registered an assist and frequently got into space behind to be the catalyst of the USWNT's attack. China may have had its own development reasons to play a higher line, which gave Saturday's game the feeling of two teams playing around rather than against each other.

But Hayes now has further confirmation that both Thompson and Cooper are part of the solution as she narrows down her team heading into the summer. What's more important is that Saturday's performance, combined with recent outings, shows that the USWNT has depth in a winger position and area of the field that has long been integral to its dominance.

If the Americans want to win the 2027 World Cup, they'll need to be excellent in those wide areas. The self-proclaimed «Triple Espresso» of Trinity Rodman, Mallory Swanson and Sophia Wilson scored 10 of the USWNT's 12 goals on the Americans' Olympic gold-medal run last year. The dominance of Rodman and Swanson in those wide areas at last year's Olympics carried on the team's strength from its World Cup title in 2019, when Megan Rapinoe, Tobin Heath and Christen Press were