‘Lean on each other’ – how USWNT players are dealing with abuse report

Welcome to Moving the Goalposts, the Guardian’s free women’s football newsletter. Here’s an extract from this week’s edition. To receive the full version once a week, just pop your email in below:

This past week, the US Women’s National Team took on a challenging international window amid the fallout of Sally Yates’s 172-page report investigating “abusive behavior and sexual misconduct” in the NWSL. Released on 3 October, the report detailed abuse of various nature, at multiple clubs, and illustrated issues more pervasive than even the athletes involved had realised.

Among the findings, Yates’s year-long independent investigation stated that “abuse in the NWSL was systemic. Verbal and emotional abuse and sexual misconduct occurred at multiple teams, was perpetrated by several coaches and affected many players.”

The heavily decorated, intrinsically involved USWNT – many of whom performed for clubs implicated in the findings – waded through the report while overseas, preparing to meet two dominant sides in England and Spain. The experience was clearly challenging, even for a team accustomed to spotlight and controversy. I was with the US team in Europe and Crystal Dunn told us in London: “I’d be lying if I said we were doing well.”

Despite the circumstances the team celebrated the opportunity to play before a sell-out crowd at Wembley and test their World Cup readiness against two of the best sides in the world. In between the celebrations and the tumult, the players met with media, emanating a resolute poise, considering not just the past and its revelations but the future and its mandates. This is what some of the key players had to say.

Megan Rapinoe calls for club leadership to step down: On the afternoon before the