Updated

Updated · Fox News · Sep 14

Caitlin Clark Says She and Angel Reese Were Always Friends After 2026 World Cup Title

Updated

Updated · Fox News · Sep 14

Caitlin Clark Says She and Angel Reese Were Always Friends After 2026 World Cup Title

Q: How did erasing a massive deficit against France finally shatter the media-fueled rivalry between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese?

The comeback against France did not create a friendship so much as make it impossible to deny. In the pressure of a gold-medal game, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese were visibly operating as teammates, not symbols of a feud, and Clark used the moment to reject that narrative outright: “We’ve always been friends.” Team USA’s 97-79 win mattered because it came after a real crisis. The Americans trailed by 14 in the first half before cutting it to 45-43 at halftime, helped by Clark’s buzzer-beating 3. They then overwhelmed France in the third quarter, outscoring it 30-12. Clark finished with 12 points and three assists; Reese added defense, rebounding and energy. Their individual numbers were not the whole story. On the bench and in shared stretches, cameras caught them laughing, talking through tense moments and reacting together as the game turned. That mattered because their so-called rivalry had long been driven less by their own words than by the public framing that followed the 2023 NCAA title game. In reality, both players had repeatedly expressed respect for each other, had already played together in the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game, and had helped the U.S. go unbeaten in World Cup qualifying. What changed in Berlin was the scale and clarity of the evidence. Erasing a major deficit on the way to gold gave the public its strongest proof yet that shared stakes, winning basketball and visible chemistry had overtaken the old rivalry storyline.

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Sep 14

Caitlin Clark said after the 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup final that she and Angel Reese had “always been friends,” pushing back on years of rivalry speculation.
Berlin provided the clearest public display yet: the two sat together on the bench, laughed through tense stretches and combined on key plays that swung momentum before halftime against France.
That title run was their first sustained partnership in high-stakes games, after earlier teaming at the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game and helping the U.S. go 5-0 in March World Cup qualifying in Puerto Rico.
The friendship question has lingered since Reese’s 2023 NCAA title-game taunt toward Clark, even as both players had publicly described their relationship as respectful and mutually beneficial for women’s basketball.
Their World Cup success now strengthens the case that a pairing once framed as a rivalry could become a longer-term U.S. centerpiece heading toward the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.