Paige Monaghan is a forward for Sky Blue FC of the NWSL. Ahead of the NWSL’s Fall Series, we sat down with her to talk about training and competing during a pandemic, representing New Jersey as a ‘hometown kid’, and what to expect from Sky Blue FC over these next few months.

Almost a year ago last week, you recorded two goals to beat Chicago and cemented yourself as one of the league’s rising stars. Can you talk a little bit about what your first season as a professional athlete was like?

Thinking back to my rookie year, I always knew I could fit in and I also knew I could thrive, but it’s one of those things where you’re trying to get your feet wet. You’re trying to figure out to the point that you ask yourself, “Do others believe in me? More importantly, do I believe in myself? What matters? What doesn’t?”

And I think that Chicago game was that moment of showing what I can do, what I’m going to do, and what I’m determined to do. For me, it just gave me the confidence to show that I can score in games and not just in practice. Looking back, my rookie year was definitely all about getting my feet wet, but also showing me that I need to have this inner confidence to thrive in the NWSL.

So your rookie year comes to a close, and right as you’re about to head into your sophomore season, the world pauses and the NWSL season is postponed. Can you talk about your mindset when all of that happened and what it was like to train and prepare during a pandemic? 

Yeah. It’s kind of crazy to think back on this year for both Sky Blue and myself. I think we built momentum towards the end of last year. And then in the offseason, I was super determined. I got invited to National Camp with U-23s and then I got invited to the ID camp. It was like all of the pieces were coming together, and I was getting recognized for my accomplishments and play, but then obviously, as everything was happening with COVID, there was a lot of uncertainty and it looked like we weren’t going to have a season at all.

I just tried to make the most of what I had while training at home. Sky Blue prepared us well and we had our online workouts, Zoom calls, meetings, and all of that stuff. I also took a page out of our assistant coach Becca Moros’ book and made my own FootyBoard since I couldn’t physically work with her. I’d practice with that in my backyard with my dog, run in my neighborhood, do hills, and stuff like that. Basically did whatever I could from home.

Initially, there was a lot of uncertainty. Like, what are we doing? Is this actually going to happen? We’re going to Utah for what? In a bubble? But at the end of the day, I knew that no matter the circumstance, I wanted to be the best version of myself and the best soccer player I could be. So I had to dig deep and really looking at myself and say, “Okay, am I going to make an excuse and sit on the couch, or am I going to make the most out of this?”

I’m also very fortunate to have my family throughout all of this. Some days honestly sucked, but they would always be there to hilariously cheer me on, even during some of those tough sprint workouts up and down my street. So, having their support plus a really hard look at myself, I knew that at the end of the day, I just wanted to be better.

So after a few months of isolated training, you head off to Utah for the NWSL Challenge Cup. What was life like for you when you got to the bubble? 

We had pretty strict protocols to follow. Every day felt a little Groundhog’s Day-y, but it was like, wake up, temperature check, symptoms check, meals together, go to training, come back, meals again, meetings, dinner, bed. And then sometimes there were games, but that was basically it, over and over.

Bubble life honestly felt a little dorm-like, a bit like college, which honestly, I enjoyed and I think our team did a really good job just making the most of it. We all were on the same floor together and we would hang out, watch a lot of Netflix, watch NWSL games, watch MLS games, host ping pong tournaments, and doing pretty much anything we could. I’m more of a relaxer and FaceTimed some family and friends, but yeah, the bubble was interesting. We really only went from the hotel to the soccer field because they wanted to guarantee our safety. We couldn’t go out for coffee, all of our meals were catered, but really we just hung out and shared a lot of meals together. That’s kind of the simple answer because there really wasn’t a lot going on.

Safety was the priority, so ‘simple’ is definitely a positive in this situation. 

Right, right. I think other leagues had different things. I know some of the MLS guys, they went golfing. We didn’t have that. Our bubble was just our hotel. And it was funny because when you would go to training, you’d see other teams and it was almost like summer camp because you’re like, “Hi!” to your friends, but you only can wave and you can’t hug each other. But yeah, we liked hanging around the coffee truck. That was our time to mingle.

Aside from hotel bubble life, there was also a tournament to compete in. Can you talk us through what Sky Blue’s expectations were going into this Challenge Cup? And now that it’s over, what are the takeaways? 

We had big plans for this year, especially after last year and how we wanted to play. We had people who wanted to be here. We made some awesome trades. And we had all of these people who really wanted to buy into us, our team, staff, and the whole organization.

But again, it was like everything we wanted to do, we had to do in a short span. So we went in committed to who we wanted to be and how we wanted to play. We wanted to keep the ball and just stick to our game. And even though we didn’t score a lot of goals, which as a forward is frustrating because you’d love to score four goals a game and walk away, we were committed to just play how we wanted to play, and I think coming out of this tournament, this was a big building block for us.

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I didn’t walk away from the tournament thinking we played our best soccer ever, but I also didn’t leave saying that we were trying to be someone we weren’t. We stuck with who we wanted to be, how we wanted to play and I think that’s just a good addition going forward for whatever’s next to come. We’ll build on that, and one point of emphasis will be scoring goals.

Most definitely. This tournament was truly a test given during the direst of circumstances. So regardless of the outcome, this is something you’ll all look back upon and can really be proud of. 

Definitely. And honestly, I hope we can do it again in some way or form, which sounds so weird because going into it, I did not think I’d ever say that again, but it really was a gritty tournament and just taught me a lot. It taught our team a lot, too.

Thinking back, I had some interviews there and people were like, “Oh, you guys aren’t scoring goals.” But it’s almost like if you think of Sky Blue last year and how we got better over time, you saw that watching us in March versus October was like watching two completely different teams. So, given that we had to perform in such a short time, I’d say that we’re all very proud of what we put together and I’m just really excited for our team moving forward.

So you said you’d be down for a Bubble: Round 2? 

Totally. Maybe Hawaii for the next one would be fun. I mean, they did a great job putting this together, but maybe next time we can be by a beach or something more of my style.

Switching gears, playing for Sky Blue definitely hits home for you as one of the local kids on the roster. So as a ‘Jersey girl through and through’, can you tell us what it’s like to play for your home state and what it will be like to play in front of them at Red Bull Arena?

Looking back at last year and being able to play at Rutgers and at Red Bull Arena, it’s definitely surreal. I think Jersey people are Jersey. I know that sounds silly, but I think there’s a lot of pride in living in New Jersey and for women’s sports in New Jersey, and I’m honored to be a part of it.

It was really cool to see so many younger fans, people from my hometown, and people who watched me when I was younger come up after games and say that they can’t believe that I’ve grown into this woman and that I’m playing for this club. I’m just so honored to be one of the hometown kids for Sky Blue and I always have such a fun time playing here in New Jersey.

Ideally, I hope to do this for as long as I can. Jersey people are just… Jersey! I know that sounds funny, but only it’s something that only Jersey people would really understand.

The team recently returned to training. What has that been like after the mini-break following the Challenge Cup?

It’s kind of funny. Once we got back and saw each other again, we were like, “So what’s been new?” because we went from living together for over a month to then not seeing each other at all. Honestly, I think everyone needed some time off just to decompress, reflect. But training has been good. The energy and commitment that this group has, even with all of the injuries and overseas loans, has been amazing. I’m really excited for our whole team to be back together. We’re all so committed to getting better and I think everyone really wants to put in the work, wants to learn, wants to grow, and is excited for whatever comes next.

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Next up, you’ll be heading into this Fall Series with a few games slated for this season. What are your expectations for this mini-season? 

We have some great games to play against Chicago and Washington and expect to use them as another building block to show who we are at Sky Blue. Even though some of our players are abroad or hurt, we still expect to play our game at the same level we brought to the Challenge Cup.

The bubble had a lot of games in a short amount of time, whereas this is more spread out. This time around, we will also have more time to actually train and prepare for teams. I’m looking forward to playing games with my teammates because I know how hard we all have been training, on and off the field. So it’s really exciting to just put on my uniform and head to battle with them again this fall.

Looking even further, what are some of your goals for 2021 as you look towards year 3?

So, I am a big goals person. I have my lists for what I do every day, what I need to get done, and what I want to accomplish. But for going forward, I really want to make an impact with Sky Blue, I want to make an impact in the NWSL, and I want to be wearing that US crest. So, I have a lot to do before then and I’m just so excited to grow and develop as a player.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

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Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.