GENEVA (AP) — Soccer great Pia Sundhage’s long international career stretches back a decade beyond the first Women’s European Championship she won decisively for Sweden in 1984.
Now aged 65, the two-time Olympic title-winning coach — both times for the United States — is preparing host nation Switzerland’s team to kick off Euro 2025 next Wednesday.
“I would say it’s the biggest challenge I have ever had,” said Sundhage, who has coached in a World Cup final, three Olympic gold-medal games and a Copa América final. “It is really, really interesting.”
Her first tournament coaching the Swiss is 41 years after the inaugural Euros was won in conditions that seem more than a lifetime ago for women’s soccer.
In 1984, the four-team UEFA competition was home-and-away semifinals and final, with second legs played weeks after the first in games of 70 minutes, not 90. The title was won in England with fewer than 3,000 fans in the stadium and no national television coverage.
Sweden beat England in a penalty shootout after each won the home leg 1-0. At the muddy, rain-soaked home field of Luton Town, Sundhage added to her first-leg goal to score the winning spot-kick, captured in fuzzy footage of the game.
The Swedish champions got home to find their victory celebrated in a rare two-page newspaper spread.
“That was just unique,” Sundhage recalled to reporters at a recent briefing. “Two pages, are you kidding me? Oh look, there’s a picture as well.”
In 2025, Switzerland will play to packed stadiums in a 16-nation event that will set a tournament record of about 600,000 spectators. The venues are Switzerland's best and four of the eight also were used at the men’s Euro 2008 co-hosted with Austria.
Sundhage has been there for most stops on the women’s soccer journey: helping Sweden win that first European title, then taking third place at the first Women’s World Cup in 1991. She coached host Sweden to the Euro 2013 semifinals and now has a second chance with a home team.
The challenge to get Switzerland tournament-ready has Sundhage drawing on what she learned coaching in China, the U.S, Sweden and Brazil — leaving her, she said, “really rich” in experiences.
“All these different teams, countries have made me really open minded,” said the coach who believes passionately in teamwork though is very much her own person.
After each Olympic title, in 2008 and 2012, she declined the traditional invitation for U.S. team gold medalists to visit the White House. From presidents on each side of the aisle.
“I felt like I’m not connected to the White House,” Sundhage explained recently. “If I have a choice I can go in the other direction, I’m going to do that. Regardless, Bush or Obama, I’d rather go back to Sweden.”
For five years she coached a stellar U.S. squad that was denied a World Cup title in 2011 by Japan only by a penalty shootout. She was immersed in a sporting culture where “they know how to bring out the best,” Sundhage recalled.
Switzerland is different, with players that have experience and promise yet a tendency their coach sees of taking too few risks, being too “correct.”
“You have to get crazy. That means you are going to make a mistake. And that is scary for a Swiss player,” she suggested.
“The biggest mistake you can actually do is not trying,” said Sundhage, who defied social expectations in her Swedish childhood to forge a career in soccer. “Otherwise you will never ever find out how good you are.”
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Switzerland's head coach Pia Sundhage watches her players during a training session, May 28, 2025, ahead of a UEFA Women's Nations League soccer match against France in Saillon, Switzerland. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
Switzerland head coach Pia Sundhage, right, talks to her players during a UEFA Women's Nations League match against France, Friday, May 30, 2025, in Nancy, France. (Peter Klaunzer/Keystone via AP)
Switzerland's head coach Pia Sundhage talks to the media during a press conference Monday, June 2, 2025, ahead of a the UEFA Women's Nations League soccer match against Norway in Sion, Switzerland. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)
ST. LOUIS (AP) — World champions Ilia Malinin and the ice dance duo of Madison Chock and Evan Bates will anchor one of the strongest U.S. Figure Skating teams in history when they head to Italy for the Milan Cortina Olympics in less than a month.
Malinin, fresh off his fourth straight national title, will be the prohibitive favorite to follow in the footsteps of Nathan Chen by delivering another men's gold medal for the American squad when he steps on the ice at the Milano Ice Skating Arena.
Chock and Bates, who won their record-setting seventh U.S. title Saturday night, also will be among the Olympic favorites, as will world champion Alysa Liu and women's teammate Amber Glenn, fresh off her third consecutive national title.
U.S. Figure Skating announced its full squad of 16 athletes for the Winter Games during a made-for-TV celebration Sunday.
"I'm just so excited for the Olympic spirit, the Olympic environment," Malinin said. “Hopefully go for that Olympic gold.”
Malinin will be joined on the men's side by Andrew Torgashev, the all-or-nothing 24-year-old from Coral Springs, Florida, and Maxim Naumov, the 24-year-old from Simsbury, Connecticut, who fulfilled the hopes of his late parents by making the Olympic team.
Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova were returning from a talent camp in Kansas when their American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter and crashed into the icy Potomac River in January 2025. One of the last conversations they had with their son was about what it would take for him to follow in their footsteps by becoming an Olympian.
“We absolutely did it,” Naumov said. “Every day, year after year, we talked about the Olympics. It means so much in our family. It's what I've been thinking about since I was 5 years old, before I even know what to think. I can't put this into words.”
Chock and Bates helped the Americans win team gold at the Beijing Games four years ago, but they finished fourth — one spot out of the medals — in the ice dance competition. They have hardly finished anywhere but first in the years since, winning three consecutive world championships and the gold medal at three straight Grand Prix Finals.
U.S. silver medalists Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik also made the dance team, as did the Canadian-born Christina Carreira, who became eligible for the Olympics in November when her American citizenship came through, and Anthony Ponomarenko.
Liu was picked for her second Olympic team after briefly retiring following the Beijing Games. She had been burned out by years of practice and competing, but stepping away seemed to rejuvenate the 20-year-old from Clovis, California, and she returned to win the first world title by an American since Kimmie Meissner stood atop the podium two decades ago.
Now, the avant-garde Liu will be trying to help the U.S. win its first women's medal since Sasha Cohen in Turin in 2006, and perhaps the first gold medal since Sarah Hughes triumphed four years earlier at the Salt Lake City Games.
Her biggest competition, besides a powerful Japanese contingent, could come from her own teammates: Glenn, a first-time Olympian, has been nearly unbeatable the past two years, while 18-year-old Isabeau Levito is a former world silver medalist.
"This was my goal and my dream and it just feels so special that it came true,” said Levito, whose mother is originally from Milan.
The two pairs spots went to Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea, the U.S. silver medalists, and the team of Emily Chan and Spencer Howe.
The top American pairs team, two-time reigning U.S. champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov, were hoping that the Finnish-born Efimova would get her citizenship approved in time to compete in Italy. But despite efforts by the Skating Club of Boston, where they train, and the help of their U.S. senators, she did not receive her passport by the selection deadline.
“The importance and magnitude of selecting an Olympic team is one of the most important milestones in an athlete's life,” U.S. Figure Skating CEO Matt Farrell said, "and it has such an impact, and while there are sometimes rules, there is also a human element to this that we really have to take into account as we make decisions and what's best going forward from a selection process.
“Sometimes these aren't easy," Farrell said, “and this is not the fun part.”
The fun is just beginning, though, for the 16 athletes picked for the powerful American team.
AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Amber Glenn competes during the women's free skating competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Alysa Liu skates during the "Making Team USA" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Maxim Naumov skates during the "Making Team USA" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Madison Chock and Evan Bates skate during the "Making the Team" performance at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Gold medalist Ilia Malinin arrives for the metal ceremony after the men's free skate competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
