If the old adage goes that defense wins championships, U.S. women’s national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski might be taking his faith in the statement a little too far.

The U.S. has given up only one goal so far in the 2023 World Cup, on a single shot on goal. But they’ve also looked disjointed in possession and frantic in the attack en route to a second-place finish in their group.

Despite the legacy of the USWNT’s “Department of Defense,” fans weren’t expecting a defensive lockdown of this magnitude going into the World Cup. As different players with varying strengths rotated in and out of the backline in the lead-up to the tournament, the odd mistake in the defense became a regular occurrence and, to Andonovski, a risk worth taking.

There was a feeling that the team was willing to live or die by their defensive mistakes in the pursuit of strengthening the attack. But what Andonovski has actually prioritized under the glare of the spotlight is shoring up the team’s backline issues at the steep cost of freedom in front of the defense.

A hyper-conservative game plan to limit shots on goal is both a problem the U.S. is having trouble solving and their current lifeline. It doesn’t appear to be a mistake as much as an intentional gamble. But it’s a gamble the USWNT players are not accustomed to executing, even under Andonovski’s management.

The loss of reliable contributors

Injuries to USWNT forwards have rightly gotten a fair amount of attention, but the team’s group stage suggests that Andonovski’s current approach is a way to offset absences in the defense.

What the U.S. defense is missing, as compared to 2019 or even 2021, is the result of incremental loss. While Abby Dahlkemper wasn’t available for selection due to her ongoing recovery from back surgery, other players have been in and out of match fitness. Tierna Davidson returned from her ACL injury in 2023, but was unable to claim her spot as the heir apparent to a USWNT center-back role. Captain Becky Sauerbrunn played sporadically to begin the 2023 NWSL season, and the variable nature of her recovery kept her off the roster entirely.

Other members of the defense are clearly important to team chemistry but cannot get on the field consistently. Kelley O’Hara’s influence on the USWNT is clear, with her leading the huddle after the team’s disappointing draw with Portugal to close out the group stage. But her return to soccer fitness has not been linear in 2023 — before departing for the World Cup, she even played in an attacking role for Gotham FC because she was not getting minutes on their backline.

So Dahlkemper, Davidson and Sauerbrunn are not in camp, and O’Hara’s role is tied more to off-field contributions. O’Hara and Sauerbrunn’s limitations are a consequence of the passing of time and the USWNT’s inability to develop heirs to match their skill sets. Dahlkemper and Davidson’s absences are the result of the twists of fate that saw other notable teammates miss out on a World Cup opportunity.

A lack of confidence in new faces

Two players who rounded out the top five in minutes played for the USWNT in 2022 were center-back Alana Cook and outside-back Sofia Huerta. Both made the 2023 World Cup roster but have yet to make an impact on the field: Huerta played seven minutes against Vietnam, and Cook hasn’t seen the field at all.

Based on their 2022 contributions, their very limited roles at the World Cup might surprise, but the writing has quietly been on the wall in recent months. At the end of 2022, Andonovski began pairing Naomi Girma and Sauerbrunn together consistently, after previously rotating them at left center-back and giving Cook heavy minutes on the right.

The sample size was small enough to register as experimentation, but it could now be read as a coach sensing that Cook’s reaction times in key moments weren’t going to be reliable enough against top competition. In Sauerbrunn’s absence, Andonovski has now seemingly replaced Cook with Julie Ertz, making a conscious decision to prioritize the defense over the midfield and trusting the two-time World Cup champion in partnership with Girma.

Huerta is on the team as a crossing specialist, a player who makes up in attacking generation what she gives up in 1v1 defending. Signs in the early stages of the tournament are that Andonovski feels more comfortable with Emily Fox out of position on the right side of the field than getting Huerta settled in games that make sense for her abilities. Emily Sonnett also appears to be a player Andonovski brought to see games out in their final stages, and not as a reliable starter.

The benefit of a conservative approach

There have been clear positives to the way the U.S. has locked down its defensive roles. The USWNT has given up just the one goal, their xG against ranks fourth among the entire World Cup field, and goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher has not had to register a single save so far in the tournament.

That last point is probably a statistic Andonovski has taken very seriously, based on Naeher’s struggles with the Chicago Red Stars this season. The USWNT goalkeeper player pool is more wide open than ever, but the best-performing American keepers statistically (outside of third keeper Aubrey Kingsbury) are not with the team right now. Again, experience and leadership have taken priority over clearing the way for a brand-new goalkeeping core based on current shot-stopping ability.

Naeher is the player Andonovski wants organizing his defense, and she has progressed year after year with distribution with the ball at her feet. But the USWNT’s hopes for clean sheets seem to rely on her seeing as few shots on goal as possible, which the team so far has been achieving (the one shot on target they did face, against the Netherlands, went in for a goal).

Ertz actually recorded the most impressive save of the group stage, putting in a crucial block against the Netherlands that saved a point for the team and a place in the knockout rounds.

The overwhelming cost of limited freedom

The cost of Andonovski’s approach appears to be everything else that’s recognizable about the USWNT right now. They’ve ceded control of the midfield almost by design, with a resignation that Ertz will control tempo from a deep-lying position. It’s taken further control away from Andi Sullivan, who has lacked reliable passing outlets when she has the ball and struggled to execute a defensive press without it.

With the understanding that the midfield is not intended to hold the ball, Andonovski’s creative players have been tasked with melting into the attack. At times against Portugal, the U.S. lined up with four or five players on their opponent’s backline, waiting for deep-lying players to provide long-ball service without the creative runs necessary to create space.

Andonovski has also settled on playing both of his outside-backs out of position, which has appeared to limit Crystal Dunn and Emily Fox in their movement. Dunn, of course, is a creative midfielder for the Portland Thorns, and Fox plays most freely on the left for the North Carolina Courage. Both players have been mindful of their defensive assignments to a fault in the group stage, sitting back against Vietnam and staying wide rather than filling empty midfield spaces against the Netherlands and Portugal.

Tactics have also taken a toll on the USWNT’s vaunted mentality. As players process their positional assignments in real time, those split-second moments of doubt have disrupted the team’s defensive press and ball progression. Rather than being empowered to play to the team’s strengths, players seem preoccupied with the weaknesses. Those weaknesses are also on display in the team’s substitution patterns, with Andonovski lacking trust in those he brought with him and leaving the team’s depth unused.

Andonovski’s transformation of the U.S. into a team that grinds out results based on conservative tactics is both an indictment of his management of the team over the last four years, and an objective assessment of the team he has constructed. If the U.S. bows out in the Round of 16, he’ll have to answer for both his preparation and his approach.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

It was a long time coming, but Sofia Huerta was finally content.

She’d spent years agonizing over call-ups and camps. Her career, she thought, was made or broken by whether or not she wore a United States women’s national team jersey.

Huerta played for two years on the Mexican national team before deciding to represent the U.S. instead. From 2017-18, Huerta made seven appearances for the USWNT. Then, things came to a halt.

It crushed her.

After nearly a year and a half of absences, with a global pandemic thrown in the mix, Huerta started to work with a life coach and a sports psychologist. Slowly, they built Huerta back up. Slowly, she came to see her career as a success. She hadn’t been a mainstay on the national team and she hadn’t played in a World Cup. But Sofia Huerta — from Boise, Idaho, with Mexican roots to match her last name — was a success. She had an eight-year professional soccer career to prove it.

“I needed to redefine the definition of success, and I needed to change the narrative,” she said. “Just because I’m not on the national team doesn’t mean I’m not successful. It doesn’t mean I’m not a great player.”

So as the 2023 World Cup approached and Huerta received call-ups, the process didn’t hold as much weight. The idea of playing on the USWNT was still a dream, but it no longer held her back. If she didn’t make the final roster, Huerta would be content.

“I really started working on staying present,” Huerta said. “Not thinking about the past, not thinking about the future, just thinking about today. It just makes things easier on yourself, easier on the mind.”

She’d walk her dogs and enjoy her new partnership with Lotto, an Italian sportswear company she grew up admiring and now represents as a brand ambassador for their U.S. crossover partnership with DICK’s Sporting Goods, announced Friday. She’d play for the NWSL’s OL Reign, a team she says “changed her life” when she signed with them in 2020.

“I just focused on the Reign and being the best I can be for them,” Huerta said. “Because ultimately, that is going to have me playing my best soccer, which is what would get me called up for the World Cup.”

And if she didn’t represent the United States, it would be OK. Huerta felt free knowing that.

“I’m just playing and having fun,” Huerta said a few days before the U.S. roster drop. “Because ultimately, it’s Vlatko’s decision. It’s out of my hands. I just have to keep doing what I’m doing, and hopefully, he will choose me.”

He did.

As soon as Huerta let go, the national team came back to her. The universe is funny that way.

Huerta was selected as one of seven defenders to the 23-player World Cup roster representing the U.S. in New Zealand and Australia this summer. Outside back is not her natural position, but rather one she’s made her own through hard work and faith.

The 30-year-old started out as a forward, playing her college soccer at Santa Clara and the beginning of her NWSL career with the Chicago Red Stars and Houston Dash in the attack and midfield. But eventually, it was clear that Huerta had a knack for defense, and the USWNT had a need. If she was going to make the roster, Huerta would have to make the switch full-time.

Huerta thought she would when she was traded to Houston from Chicago in 2018. Instead, she spent most of her minutes playing midfield. Finally, when Huerta got to the Reign, she moved to defense.

Despite the chaos, constantly shuffling positions made Huerta stronger. And now with the USWNT, she is considered an irreplaceable crossing specialist.

“At this point, I have nothing to lose because I’ve been told no so many times in my career,” she said. “Being pushed out and then coming back up creates a lot of strength in itself. But I think at this point, my mentality is a lot less anxiety and a lot more excitement. I appreciate where I am as a player now.”

This cross from Sofia Huerta 🔥 #SheBelievesCup pic.twitter.com/0UD2uQ1QUT

— ESPN (@espn) February 20, 2022

When the United States opens World Cup play on Friday against Vietnam, Huerta will be there, representing two communities.

The first is Idaho, and all the rural communities where kids still dream of playing soccer but don’t always have the resources to do so. Huerta was always a talented soccer player, but there were no club teams nearby, and her family couldn’t afford the big price tag that came with sending her to college showcases.

“My career has not been easy, whatsoever,” Huerta said. “I was never with youth teams. It hasn’t been linear, hasn’t been a guarantee. That’s what makes my journey so unique, and I love to be a representation for people who feel like that.”

Huerta, 30, is also proud to represent the Latinx community. Showcasing that part of her identity has always been a priority, but became even more of one when she left the Mexican national team.

Wearing “Huerta” on her jersey is the ultimate honor for the defender. She’s one of two Mexican-Americans on the national team, along with midfielder Ashley Sanchez. Her name represents her father, who has been her biggest source of inspiration, and her heritage.

“I think it’s important for that community of young boys and girls to see that name, and know that they can do what I do,” Huerta said. “I represent those who don’t have an easy journey.”

Eden Laase is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

LAS VEGAS — Aliyah Boston flipped her cascading pink and white braids. She hit the stanky leg and flashed a smile.

Then, the WNBA rookie scored the first bucket of the All-Star Game. Boston finished with six points and 11 rebounds in 19 minutes as her Team Wilson ultimately fell to Team Stewart, 143-127, on Saturday night.

Three months ago, Boston was in college. On Saturday, the Indiana Fever star looked at home as her name was announced among the All-Star starters to a cheering Las Vegas arena.

INTRODUCING...#WNBAAllStar starter, Aliyah Boston!!! 👏 pic.twitter.com/BdQ750qxRT

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) July 16, 2023

Boston was more than ready for this moment. Not just the All-Star Game, but the league in general.

She was ready when she was taken first overall in the 2023 draft. She was ready when opposing teams triple-teamed her throughout the 2022-23 college season just to attempt to slow her down. Boston was ready during her National Player of the Year campaign in 2021-22, and maybe even before.

The term “pro-ready” has been suctioned to Boston’s name for a long time, and for good reason.

“She was ready in college. And not just during her senior year, before that,” Stanford senior Cameron Brink said. “It doesn’t matter what level she’s playing at. She’s going to be dominant.”

In her rookie season with the Fever, Boston is averaging 15.4 points, 8.4 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.3 blocks and one steal while shooting 61% from the field. That shooting percentage is better than her career and season marks at South Carolina, an amazing feat when you consider the increase in talent from college to the WNBA.

Boston’s physical skills have lent themselves well to the WNBA, where she is able to use her strength to displace defenders and her touch to finish around the rim. It’s a skill set with which anyone who watched or played against Boston at South Carolina is familiar.

Boston has recognized the increased physicality in the WNBA, but it didn’t take the Fever forward long to adjust. Even in her first WNBA game, against the Sun on May 19, she had 15 points, nine rebounds and a block while shooting 60% from the field.

That stat line came against Brionna Jones, one of the league’s top post players, and Boston had no issues with the matchup.

“She is definitely the strongest player I’ve played against,” said Brink, who faced Boston in several high-profile NCAA games, including the 2021 Final Four. “She’s solid. She can will her way to the basket. She has great hands. She’s a great rebounder, and she has a midrange game as well. She’s the prototype low post, honestly.”

Aliyah Boston with the first bucket of the #WNBAAllStar game. 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/yhHlx4eX6u

— Indiana Fever (@IndianaFever) July 16, 2023

Then, there’s the defense. Boston was a two-time Defensive Player of the Year in college, known specifically for her rim protection. She made opposing guards think twice about driving the lane, and posts had to utilize extra creativity to get the ball to the rim.

Her shot-blocking has also translated to the WNBA level, where she averages 1.3 per game, tied for eighth overall in the league.

North Carolina guard Deja Kelly can’t help but laugh when she thinks about playing Boston during her sophomore season.

“I felt bad for my posts,” she said. “They could not move her. She was literally bullying them all game. And they’d laugh if they heard me say that. We were making fun of them.”

Kelly admits that she didn’t fare too well driving against Boston, either.

“She probably got a block or two off on me,” Kelly said. “Her presence is definitely felt when she’s on the court. When we played [South Carolina], our goal was not to drive the paint. I was getting to my midrange, shooting outside shots because I knew better.”

Boston’s seamless transition into the WNBA doesn’t stop with her game skills. The 21-year-old has the mindset of a pro, something that started in college while playing for three-time National Coach of the Year Dawn Staley. She made a point to learn everyone’s assignments on defense and studied aspects of the scouting report that didn’t even apply to her.

That hasn’t changed.

“Aliyah is special, man,” Fever coach Christie Sides said in May. “She wants to learn. She’s asking questions, good questions. She’s watching a lot of video. She’s doing extra work with the coaches.”

Boston enjoyed her All-Star weekend, accompanied by her parents and older sister. She walked the Orange Carpet in an Adidas set and got her nails painted pink and white to match her hair. She even knocked down a halfcourt shot during practice on Friday.

But she also set out to learn. Surrounded by elite post players, including fellow South Carolina alum and All-Star teammate A’ja Wilson, Boston had role models aplenty.

“When you look at the level of intensity that all of these women play with, it is truly special,” she said. “I really look at all of them to see how I can improve my game, because they all have a lot of experience over me and it’s just nice to see where they’re at right now.”

While Boston looked up to an older generation of posts during All-Star weekend, current college players looked up to her. A few months ago, they were in the same league. Now, Boston is an All-Star starter.

Her success gives them something to aspire to.

“To already be an All-Star is insane,” Kelly said. “She’s out there getting 20 and 10 [in WNBA games], and it’s light work. I think it’s super dope.”

Eden Laase is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

OL Reign forward Bethany Balcer will never forget her first professional film session. It was 2019, and she was at the player apartment complex in Tacoma under former Reign (and current U.S. women’s national team) head coach Vlatko Andonovski.

Balcer had just beaten incredibly long odds, making the Reign roster after a strong preseason as a non-roster invitee. She had gone undrafted in the NWSL following an exceptional career at NAIA program Spring Arbor University.

“I knew nobody, and I walked in and just sat in the back,” she says, recalling how she then struck up a conversation with longtime Reign defender Lauren Barnes.

Barnes also remembers meeting Balcer for the first time.

“I heard about Beth before coming in, and how unique — or not even unique — her story is, just like different,” she says. ”She didn’t go to a major DI college.”

A player making an NWSL roster without ever playing Division I soccer was incredibly rare at the time, and still is today. Balcer broke the mold that season, winning Rookie of the Year after scoring six goals and registering two assists while playing in every single one of the Reign’s regular season matches.

“I was really excited,” Barnes says of hearing about Balcer’s background. “Because I think stories like that, for one, give hope for the growth of women’s soccer.”

Balcer’s story is well-woven into NWSL history at this point, but her next act might be even more impressive. Known affectionately to teammates and fans as “Boats,” in a reference to the size of her feet, Balcer is now a consistent starter for the 2022 NWSL Shield champions. Immediately recognizable by her signature headband as she scores off towering headers, Balcer has shown both the continued ability to score goals and an underrated playmaking ability.

“I think my first two or three years in the league, I really struggled to truly understand that I belonged,” she says. “Because I said all the time I didn’t want to be a one-year wonder, like I just had this year and then fell off the face of the earth and couldn’t follow it up with a good second season.”

Far from a one-season wonder, Balcer is now the fourth-longest tenured player on the Reign roster. Her only predecessors still playing for Seattle are Barnes, Megan Rapinoe and Jessica Fishlock, who have all been with the club since the NWSL’s inaugural year in 2013. Balcer idolized that trio early on and still looks up to them today.

“I still think of her as like my little one coming in, but I kind of laugh now,” says Barnes. “She’s been here for five years, so she’s been here almost half of my career at that rate. So, she’s kind of paving the same path that our OGs have done for ourselves.”

Among the Reign veterans’ big personalities, Balcer’s confidence on the field has coincided with her clear desire to be a leader in the locker room. She didn’t get a chance to build on her rookie season in routine fashion in 2020, when the NWSL regular season was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic and recast as the one-month Challenge Cup.

The next year came with its own upheaval, as former Reign manager Farid Benstiti resigned for reasons that were later identified as excessive weight-shaming. Original head coach Laura Harvey returned to the team mid-season, and her management has directly correlated with Balcer and her teammates easing into their current roles.

Outside of the tumultuous circumstances beyond Balcer’s control, the 26-year-old has always been open about her journey with mental health, including when she suffered a panic attack during the 2020 Challenge Cup. She now feels that her openness is an important part of the way she navigates being a public figure.

“I’ll never forget the first time I really shared about it,” she says. “The response I got was so overwhelmingly positive, and I was actually shocked because I was like, oh, this really is like a taboo topic. And this really is something that just never gets discussed.

“I don’t want anyone to feel like they’re ever alone, or anyone to think that I have it all together just because I play professional soccer and I’m playing well. Like that’s not the case at all. I think I just really tried to see my current career in terms of a whole life perspective.”

Balcer says she has a love-hate relationship with social media, a tool that athletes in women’s sports use to raise awareness and market themselves, but also can give a skewed representation of reality. Balcer famously called out the NWSL for the Chipotle gift card she received for winning Rookie of the Year in 2019, pushing for better bonuses for NWSL athletes that perform well during the regular season. Her honesty in that moment also went against overly curated messages of false positivity, a position Balcer takes intentionally on social media.

why is equal pay important? i got a $50 gift card to chipotle for winning rookie of the year in 2019. that's it. we need a CBA in this league and we need to move forward, not backwards

— Bethany Balcer (@bethanybalcer) September 21, 2021

“I want people to know the real Bethany 100% when I’m not on the field,” she says. “Because that’s just 90 minutes that people see, when there’s so many more minutes and hours and days in the year that I’m existing just like anybody else. So, I think it’s just really normalizing and making my experience, I guess, more human to everybody else.”

The way Balcer carries herself hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“She’s definitely one of our leaders now on the team, she’s well respected in the locker room, and she performs,” Barnes says. “You have all those three things that really gain trust and respect from your coaches, your coaching staff, your players, and then be able to also teach the next generation.”

Balcer’s confidence off the field has positively influenced her role on the Reign. In the NWSL, she’s played both on the wing and as a central forward. Recently, she’s also sat back as a playmaker in the absence of Rose Lavelle, who’s been dealing with a leg injury since mid-April. The position isn’t completely unfamiliar — Balcer played attacking midfield throughout her college career and has natural goal-scoring instincts.

“She probably doesn’t even know this, but as a younger player, senior players like myself, I’m like, ‘We need to get the ball to Beth, like she will score goals for us,’” says Barnes. “She’s definitely one that has to take on that pressure now, and I think she’s done it so gracefully, and passionately.”

When Balcer is at her best, the rest of the team follows, as seen in the Reign’s 2-1 win over the San Diego Wave on Saturday. Balcer scored two goals with her head to give the Reign all three points. Her 11 header goals since the beginning of 2021 are five more than any other player in the NWSL, according to Opta.

Another header from Bethany Balcer! 💥

OL Reign are back ahead, can they keep their lead? 👀 pic.twitter.com/Uqs0eM2XN1

— Attacking Third (@AttackingThird) June 25, 2023

The Reign play a free-flowing, creative style of soccer that allows players the freedom to be their best selves. While the system might sacrifice a clear scoring outlet, the closer Balcer is to goal, the better the team’s odds are of coming out on top.

“We don’t just have one person who’s leading the charge,” Balcer says. “Every single person plays a pivotal role, and that’s seen in our team goals. But then there’s some nitty gritty goals that just come out of nothing, which is a really good quality to have, too.”

It’s no accident that Balcer does well in a number of roles given her unique background.

“I feel like I’m not your typical player,” she says. “Unorthodox, I think that’s the word. I think that’s my kryptonite.

“I obviously made it into this league in the craziest of ways, and that is still a shock to me sometimes. But there was something special about me that my coaches at the time told me to let them see, and I feel like that’s what got me here, and that’s what’s gonna sustain me throughout my entire career.”

Balcer’s ambitions go beyond her already-decorated club career; she’s participated in camps with the U.S. women’s national team and still has a desire to represent the national team at a major tournament someday. But for Balcer to pick up the mantle of leading the club in the years after Barnes, Rapinoe and Fishlock would create a legacy of its own.

“I think for a club to be successful year in and year out, that it’s not necessarily just players you bring in, but it’s a legacy you leave,” Barnes says. “I hope she outplays me, Pinoe and Jess by a decade.”

Despite three NWSL Shield-winning seasons — an accomplishment any Reign player will tell you is the most difficult in American women’s soccer — the club is still searching for its first NWSL Championship to send the original trio out on a high note. But for Barnes, seeing players like Balcer grow and succeed has re-introduced a love of the game that goes far beyond wins and losses.

“There does come a point in our career where you’re gonna obviously hang up the boots,” she says. “But sometimes you feel like you can’t do that until someone’s taking your position.”

Barnes considers Balcer to be the new face of the Reign, while the striker herself embraces being the conduit toward the next generation of Seattle stars.

“I’ve been like a sponge,” Balcer says. “Just continuing to absorb everything that’s around me from the older vets than me, and then just using that to help out the younger kids.”

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

Sophia Smith wants more.

She always has. More wins. More goals. More soccer.

It’s why she told her parents when she was 12 that she needed to leave her local club, and drive three hours round-trip every day to play for Real Colorado. Why she once scored seven goals in a half, and then got into an argument with her coach when he took her out.

It’s why she left Stanford after just two seasons, to join the NWSL.

It’s why at 22, she’s regarded as the future and the present when it comes to United States women’s soccer. Why in her third year in the NWSL, she won the 2022 league MVP and Championship game MVP awards.

It’s why Sophia Smith doesn’t like scoring goals, she needs to score goals. The same way she needs food and water. Smith needs to feel the ball hitting cleat, and then see it hitting net.

From the time she started playing soccer, scoring was her focus. Even when coaches at the youth level tried experimenting with positions. If Smith was on the field, she had her eye on the goal. It didn’t matter if she was playing defense, or even if she was wearing gloves and a keeper’s jersey on the opposite side of the field.

Every time she scores, Smith goes through the same progression of emotions. First, she feels relief. Like she can finally exhale. Then she smiles. Soccer, after all, still brings her joy. But those emotions don’t last. She sighs, she smiles, and then Sophia Smith goes back to being determined. Now, it’s time to score again.

That’s why her Michael Jordan-esque shrug celebration in the 2022 NWSL Championship game caught her parents off guard. It was so different from her usual post-goal routine. But like everything Smith does, it came with a purpose.

This time, she was sending a message to those who didn’t think she deserved to win NWSL MVP. The ones that thought someone more seasoned should take home the award. Now wasn’t the time for Smith. Not even after she scored 14 goals for the Portland Thorns in the regular season. Not after she became the youngest player to lead the USWNT in scoring over a calendar year, all but ensuring herself a starting spot on the 2023 World Cup team. Not yet.

But with one goal — that ended up being the game-winner — and one shrug, Smith put the doubts to rest. Now is the time.

Her time.

“That’s that,” she said after the game.

And it was. For once, when she scored, Sophia Smith didn’t want more. She didn’t need more. At that moment, she had done enough.

***

Kenny and Mollie Smith still live in the same Windsor, Colo., home where Sophia and her two older sisters grew up. There’s a small and slightly faded Portland Thorns flag in the front yard near the entrance, but other than that, not much evidence that their youngest daughter is one of the best soccer players in the world.

Instead, the house is full of memories. Pictures of the chubby-cheeked Smith trio as little girls. A yard with a replica of the crab-shaped sandbox they played in, this one being used when the Smith’s two grandchildren come over.

Kenny can point to the spot in the yard where the girls tired themselves out on a trampoline — “Every parent should get their kids one,” he says emphatically. The basement where they used to play Polly Pockets is now full of furniture and bits and bobs that Sophia, Gabrielle and Savannah have left behind between their various moves. The home has crisp white walls and a sectional couch that can seat the whole family. “SportsCenter” plays at a low volume in the background.

Visitors to the Smiths’ cul-de-sac home are offered food, bottled water or iced tea when they walk in the door. Stories and photos are at the ready. And when the girls come home, the house feels complete. People used to tease Kenny about having three daughters and no sons, but he was quick to set the record straight. He’s lucky to have them, he says. Both then and now.

Gabrielle still lives close by, and the Smiths have a playroom for her two young kids. Savannah, who followed her father’s footsteps and played college basketball, now lives in California. And Sophia, the youngest, splits her time between Portland playing for the Thorns or wherever the U.S. women’s national team is posted, and living with her boyfriend, former Stanford and current Arizona Cardinals football player Michael Wilson.

When Sophia — or Sophie, as her family calls her — was born, the Smiths were already experienced parents. But as she grew, they were baffled by their youngest daughter. She made her bed every day before school, lined up her collection of cleats and sorted her toys from smallest to largest. Today, Sophia’s room is a time capsule of her life. Her Stanford championship ring sits in a box by her bed, and on her desk bulletin board, she’s pinned the card from the 2020 NWSL draft that reads: “With the first pick, the Portland Thorns select Sophia Smith.”

To an outsider, the room is spotless, marked by Sophia’s intense organizational skills. But Mollie says Sophia would be disgusted to see its current state — a few boxes on the floor of her closet and a stack of miscellaneous objects on her desk. These things will be cleared out the next time she visits, barring the few items her parents can convince her to keep. Among them are a crate full of her favorite pairs of cleats and sweatshirts from each college she visited.

Growing up, Sophia was a mini adult. Partly because her soccer career demanded it, partly because she wanted to keep up with her sisters, and partly because she was born with the mindset that she could do anything.

Sophia as a baby with Mollie

Sophia as a toddler (Photos courtesy of Mollie Smith)

When Sophia was 2, the Smiths moved into their family home. One day, sod was delivered for their yard, but a mixup and a holiday weekend meant no workers arrived to lay it, so Kenny and Mollie had to do it themselves. They put their three girls down for a nap and began landscaping. Every few minutes, one of them poked their heads in the door to check on the girls.

But in between those moments of supervision, Sophia woke up. And like the little adult she thought herself to be, Sophia decided to make a snack. Half a corn dog, the remnants of her lunch, sat on the counter. Sophia had seen her parents use the microwave before and must have thought, “How hard can it be?” She climbed up the counter and smashed her chubby toddler fingers on the buttons.

When Mollie came inside minutes later, the house was full of smoke. Their brand-new microwave had melted at the bottom into a teardrop shape, and nestled into the burnt glass was a charred stick.

“We had just moved in and already had to get a new microwave,” Mollie says with a laugh.

Obstacles never mattered to Sophia. Whether it’s defenders on a field or a steep counter, she’s always been determined to conquer them and get what she wants.

***

Sophia started playing soccer because her sisters played soccer, and much of her childhood was spent wanting to be like them. Gabrielle and Savannah are four and five years older than Sophia, so she spent a few seasons watching before she was able to compete.

But those years on the sidelines were formative. At halftime, she would kick the ball with other little siblings, but when the game was going, Sophia was watching.

“I was locked in,” she says.

Savannah, Sophia and Gabrielle Smith

Sophia playing youth soccer (Photos courtesy of Mollie Smith)

Gabrielle and Savannah stopped playing soccer in middle school, but this time, Sophia didn’t follow suit.

“We all quickly realized that this is something that I was good at and something that I loved more than anything else,” Sophia says. “This is what I was meant to do.”

In first grade, Sophia’s coaches would give their players stickers when they mastered a new skill, and she amassed quite the collection, but Sophia didn’t need prizes to motivate her. As soon as they got home from practice, she would drag Mollie or Kenny into the backyard.

Eventually, they had to get her a rebounding net so Mollie could avoid further injuries.

“It was terrible playing goalie against her,” Mollie says with a laugh. “I was always ducking, because every time I stuck out my arm or hand, I’d end up hurting it.”

Mollie wasn’t alone in her failed efforts at defending Sophia. Even then, she was strides ahead of her peers. By the time she was a preteen, dominating the local competition wasn’t enough for her. The best players were in Centennial, competing for Real Colorado, an hour and a half drive away from Windsor.

The program, led by Lorne Donaldson, who now coaches the Jamaican women’s national team, is responsible for producing several elite soccer players. In addition to Sophia, Donaldson coached Jaelin Howell and Mallory Swanson.

Playing for Real was never the plan, but when the opportunity arose, Sophia knew it was right for her development.

She doesn’t set goals. At least not in the traditional sense. The awards she won in 2022 weren’t on a vision board, and neither was Stanford or the NWSL. She doesn’t waste her time with the minutiae of greatness. Those steps are impossible to predict, anyway.

“I don’t think I could have pictured a year like last year where everything just went right,” Sophia says.

Instead, she focuses on the big picture. One massive goal with no real end point — being the best.

When Sophia hoisted the NWSL Championship MVP trophy, then-coach Rhian Wilkinson stood next to her star player and prophesied Sophia’s ability to stand alone atop the list of great American players.

“She has that in her,” Wilkinson said.

Sophia knows it, too.

There was no “ah-ha moment.” No red, white and blue confetti dancing in her mind. Sophia had a Fathead poster of Mia Hamm in her room growing up, and Donaldson says that is the closest comparison he can find when people ask who Sophia plays like. But she didn’t fall asleep looking at the poster and dreaming of being better than one of the greatest players in U.S. history.

“There was no exact moment where it clicked,” Sophia says. “As I progressed, and with the success I’ve had, the environments I’ve been in, the players I’ve been exposed to who are the best in the world, who have won World Cups, Olympics, done all of that — it made me realize that I can keep getting so much better.”

Real Colorado was one of the first steps to greatness.

No one told Sophia she had to do it. She figured it out herself, like she always does, and presented the idea to her parents. It was a sacrifice for everyone. For Sophia, it meant leaving school early in order to avoid rush hour, and putting her organizational skills to good use tracking assignments from the car. Mollie got a new job that gave her the flexibility to take Sophia to and from training sessions. The team practiced four or five times a week — not enough for Sophia, who often coaxed Kenny or Mollie into driving her on off days to get extra workouts in.

“I’ll never complain,” Mollie remembers her saying. “I’ll never complain one time. Can I please go down there and play soccer?”

“She understood the commitment,” Mollie says. “And she never did complain.”

***

When the USWNT played Jamaica in the Concacaf W Championship last July, Donaldson tried to warn his players about Sophia.

About her speed, her skill, her hunger to score. They knew she was talented, but they also knew Donaldson had spent years coaching the American star. Perhaps, they thought, he was exaggerating.

It took Sophia just eight minutes to score two goals.

Perhaps he wasn’t.

“Everyone kind of looked at me like, ‘Oh, Jesus Christ. You were more than right.’ And I just shrugged my shoulders,” Donaldson says. “Because I have seen it. I have seen it not once or twice or 10 times. I have seen it hundreds of times.”

SOPHIA SMITH YOU ARE A STAR. 🤩

What a touch and finish from the 21-year-old @ThornsFC phenom. 💪 pic.twitter.com/x6DGuy6TQ3

— Attacking Third (@AttackingThird) July 7, 2022

Donaldson’s first impression of Sophia at 12 is the same first impression she gives now.

“She hates to lose, and she loves to score goals,” he says.

Coaching Sophia is part of his professional highlight reel. Coaching against her?

“Terrible,” Donaldson says. “It’s like a father coaching against his daughter.”

Donaldson is one of the few people in Sophia’s life outside of her immediate family that still call her Sophie. To her boyfriend, and everyone who met her at Stanford, she’s Sophia. To her coaches, and everyone who reads her name on a roster, she’s Sophia. She even asked her grandparents to call her by her full name.

But to Donaldson, she will always be Sophie. He’s watched her grow the same way Mollie and Kenny have. He’s proud of her the same way they are. And he’s fought with her the same way a parent would.

In her early days playing for Real Colorado, the team traveled to Portland to play back-to-back games on a Saturday and Sunday. It was February, rainy and miserable. The conditions didn’t impact Sophia, who scored seven goals in the first half of game one.

Donaldson told Sophia that she wouldn’t be playing in the second half. She’d already done enough.

She pushed back.

Donaldson’s halftime talk to the team went out the window, and instead, he spent 15 minutes arguing with Sophia about whether or not she should keep playing. Donaldson started with the obvious.

We need you for tomorrow’s game, he said.

Sophia responded. She wouldn’t be tired. She could play another half and play tomorrow.

So, Donaldson moved on to a new tactic. He lied.

I know the opposing coach, he said. It would be disrespectful to put you back in.

Sophia had an answer for that, too. It wasn’t her problem. Why was he coaching in this league if he couldn’t handle it?

Donaldson pivoted again.

What if the other team does something stupid, he asked. What if they get mad and break your leg?

If they were going to target her, Sophia retorted, they would have already done it.

No matter how many counterarguments she came up with, Donaldson held firm. Sophia didn’t go back in the game. And she hasn’t forgotten.

“To this day, she hasn’t forgiven me,” Donaldson says with a laugh. “I think she just wanted to see how many goals she could score. She wanted to hit double digits.”

Donaldson couldn’t be mad at Sophia, not even then. That hard-headedness made her great. Players need to be coachable, but they also need to push back. He encouraged her fire.

“I always tell my players, ‘When you are on the field, you have to be a b–ch. Once you get off the field, you can go back to being nice.’ The more of a b–ch you are, the more games you win,” he says.

Sophia’s ability to know when to stoke the fire and when to put it out is part of what makes her an elite goal scorer.

There’s a formula. It starts with natural instinct. Donaldson says you’re either born with it or you’re not. Sophia was. Good technique is a must, but it can always be improved. Instinct can’t. Neither can a sixth sense for the goalkeeper. A true goal scorer can sense where the keeper will be in relation to the net, how they’ll react, and the proper angles to counter their moves.

They also have to be fearless.

Sophia has that, too.

Growing up, Sophia was a bit of a daredevil. She liked to stand at the top of the stairs, yell to whoever was walking by and fling herself onto them.

“No fear,” Mollie says. “She was just expecting, knowing that we would catch her.”

Once, when she was 6, Sophia balanced on her family coffee table to play Wii Dance. It was a glass table with a wooden rim, and Sophia perched herself on the edge of it, stomping her feet. Then, she stepped back and crashed through the glass.

Her little sweatsuit was sliced like it had gone through a shredder, but Sophia was unharmed and unphased.

“She’s not afraid to take chances,” Kenny says. “She’s never worried about making mistakes.”

***

Sophia Smith being named to the USWNT’s 2023 World Cup roster was a foregone conclusion. To most people, at least.

Kenny and Mollie planned to go watch her play in Australia and New Zealand — “If she makes it,” they said back in April. But they don’t make travel arrangements in advance. The family doesn’t take anything for granted. To them, nothing is official until Sophia excitedly forwards them an email, or screenshots her invite and shares it with the group chat, like she does every time she’s tabbed for a national team appearance.

Last year, in addition to all of her NWSL accolades, Sophia Smith led the USWNT in scoring and was named the U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year.

Sophia excelling on the soccer field is all but expected now, but for the Smiths, these moments never lose their shine.

“It’s always exciting, because it’s her dream,” Mollie says.

There’s a picture of young Sophia Smith and former USWNT star Abby Wambach that circulated the internet last year. The Smiths can’t remember the exact circumstances of the moment. They think it was a Colorado Rapids game where members of the USWNT made an appearance, but the details don’t matter. What matters is that Sophia saw Abby Wambach and insisted on waiting in line for a photo, no matter how long it took.

“She was going to stay there until she met her,” Mollie says with a smile.

well @AbbyWambach, you were a big reason this moment happened for me. you inspired me to follow my dreams. thank you. 🙏🏽 https://t.co/NLNIonyW5y pic.twitter.com/54azfKYIGK

— Sophia Smith (@sophsssmith) December 1, 2020

It’s a memory that reminds the Smiths of just how far Sophia has come, and in a short amount of time.

“It feels like yesterday that we were driving her back and forth to Denver,” Kenny says.

But here she is. About to play in the World Cup for the first time.

It’s been three years since Sophia turned pro, and three years since she made her first senior national team appearance.

The USWNT is experiencing extreme turnover. The 2023 World Cup roster has just nine players who have appeared in previous World Cups, and the few that are on the team — established stars like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan — are much closer to the end of their careers than the beginning. But Sophia is just getting started.

That’s why many have taken to calling her the “future of U.S. women’s soccer,” a moniker that Sophia rejects. She may be the future, but she’s also the now, and she’s ready to prove it.

“I don’t love ‘the future’ saying because I feel like I can do this right now,” she said on a CBS Sports show in April. “I know I’m young, but I don’t think age really has anything to do with it.”

There’s that fire.

It hasn’t gone away. It’s evolved. Sophia’s game has, too.

So far this NWSL season, she has seven goals but also five assists through 12 matches, compared to three assists in a full 20-game season last year. In goals, Sophia is second in the league; in assists, she is first.

When she was younger, Sophia says she felt like a failure if she didn’t score during a game. Now, she’s still scoring, but she’s contributing in other ways as well.

“She can supply, she can be the facilitator now,” Donaldson says. “Which is good. At this level, she’s going to be marked heavily. So she has to find another way to impact the game.”

Sophia is about to turn 23. That’s where the future of U.S. women’s soccer comes in. Because the Sophia that’s about to play in the 2023 World Cup is more than capable, but she’s nowhere near as good as she will be.

“Whatever team she is on, no matter how talented, she is always going to end up being the best player on that team,” says Michael Wilson, Sophia’s boyfriend. “History has shown that. She just wants to be the best at whatever she does.”

***

Every time Sophia comes home to Windsor, people want to see her. Even if they only knew her tangentially growing up, Sophia being home is big news. It’s not every day that your town produces a soccer star.

But Sophia rarely wants to see anyone. She’d rather stay in the house she grew up in. Organize her room. Make coffee with the espresso machine she gave to her mom. Play with her niece and nephew. Call Michael. Take care of the people who’ve always taken care of her.

“She always wants to do the right thing,” Wilson says. “Both on the field and off the field. She’s extremely genuine and has pure intentions. I don’t think you get that from a lot of different people.”

Growing up, Sophia missed out on a lot of teenage milestones in order to play soccer at a high level. She had to quit basketball after her freshman season, she missed dances and sleepovers. But none of that bothered her. Missing moments with her family does.

When she gets on a plane, Sophia takes a video scanning the first class cabin because Mollie likes to see the luxury. She does the same for her sisters when she checks into a fancy hotel. Her niece is trained to look out the door for packages because “Auntie Sophie” sends her toys from Amazon almost weekly. And as a Nike athlete, Sophia ships half of the gear she gets to her sisters.

“They’re people I can trust,” Sophia says of her small circle. “They’ll always have my back. Always support me. Regardless of what I’m doing.”

Family is atop Sophia’s pyramid of priorities. She knows who she is with them.

Sophia is also firm in her identity on the field. She’s playing soccer at the highest possible level, scoring goals, and now facilitating. She’s a proven winner and a tenacious competitor. She’s an MVP and a World Cup participant.

All of that is clear.

But off the field and outside of her bubble, Sophia worries. What else fits into that pyramid? She wonders if she’s doing enough to find herself.

During the pandemic, Sophia discovered a passion for reading. She likes romance novels, her favorite being “Archer’s Voice” by Mia Sheridan, and she will read anything by Colleen Hoover. Sophia loves skincare and shopping. She likes a good cup of coffee — oat milk vanilla lattes are her favorite — and breakfast burritos. She’s still hunting for a good one in Portland.

But often, she feels that it isn’t enough. Often, she wants more.

“My whole life has been soccer,” she says. “When you hear my name, soccer is attached to it. But it’s like, ‘OK, what do you like to do outside of soccer? What are your hobbies? What are your goals in life?’ That’s something that I’m really trying to work through.”

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A post shared by Sophia Smith (@sophsssmith)

These are the questions she talks about with her inner circle. In her childhood home, or over acai bowls with Michael.

He takes a different approach.

Michael imagines a long career for Sophia where she plays soccer until “she’s 35 at least.”

Then, he says, she will have 65 years to figure out who she is outside of the sport.

“To be the best in the world, you have to put every ounce into it,” Michael says. “Then, when you are done with that, you can figure out the rest.”

Sophia sees a clear division between who she is as a soccer player and who she is off the field. But perhaps there can be some crossover.

That’s what Donaldson sees when he thinks of Sophia’s life after soccer. He thinks of her every time he’s in Jamaica, teaching kids about soccer as a tool to help them out of poverty. He thinks about her when he sees racial divides within our world. He thinks about her when he’s coaching kids who want to be like Sophia, the way she wanted to be like Abby Wambach.

“She’s going to be one of the greatest spokespeople in the future, for female athletes especially,” Donaldson says. “The way she treats kids, the way she looks at life. She’s from a mixed family — her mom is white, her dad is Black — she sees people as people. She doesn’t see people as being separated or segregated.”

***

When the World Cup is over, and Donaldson no longer has to worry about Jamaica playing Sophia and the United States, he wants to sit down with his former player. Just to talk. Not about soccer but about life. He will ask her questions, and maybe she will have answers, maybe she won’t. Maybe her first World Cup will have opened her eyes.

It will change her life. As a soccer player, definitely; as a person, maybe. She might leave Australia and know herself better. And she might not — both are OK. Because Michael is right. She doesn’t need to know, not yet. But she wants to, and when Sophia wants something, she makes it happen.

Kenny and Mollie keep Sophia’s room ready for her in Windsor. Anytime she wants to come home, it’s there, just how she left it. Growing up, she changed it often. An interest in interior design spawned from hours spent playing “The Sims” with Gabrielle and Savannah, and Sophia always had a new idea for her room.

Kenny pulls back the door to show a blank white wall. Sophia used to keep all of her name tags and passes from every camp, tournament and college visit posted on that wall. He’s not sure when she took it down. But at some point, Sophia decided she didn’t need it any more. That part of her life is over, and she doesn’t waste time on the past. She also doesn’t waste time on the future. She’s said as much.

She wants to contribute to the USWNT, now. She wants to score, now. She wants to know who she is, now.

But there’s a spot right between the present and the future. That’s where she is. She’s Sophie and Sophia. The future of U.S. women’s soccer and the present. The answered questions and the unanswered questions.

It’s like when she scores a goal. The instance between relief and refocus. The Jordan shrug.

And though Sophia Smith will always want more, the Jordan shrug of life is not a bad place to be.

Eden Laase is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

In some ways, U.S. women’s national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski has one of the toughest jobs in women’s soccer, especially when it comes to the decisions he has to make about his roster construction. The USWNT’s depth has been tested due to unexpected injuries, and Andonovski nonetheless has had to leave a number of very talented players home from the 2023 World Cup.

There are a few players on the bubble not dealing with injury who very likely could have made the USWNT 2023 World Cup roster. These are the biggest surprises and snubs from the team’s roster reveal Wednesday.

Ashley Hatch, forward

It feels like a harsh rite of passage in a way for a player to, through no fault of their own, find themselves on the very edge of a USWNT World Cup roster after months spent in camp with the team. In 2015, that player was Crystal Dunn; in 2019, it was Casey Krueger; and this year, it is Washington Spirit center forward Ashley Hatch.

Hatch wasn’t beaten out by any one player, but rather by a concept shift and more pressing issues elsewhere on the pitch. Rose Lavelle’s lingering injuries made way for Savannah DeMelo earning a surprise spot, while Becky Sauerbrunn’s absence might pull Julie Ertz away from the midfield. A spot had to be sacrificed, and Andonovski felt he had enough cover from players who can start both centrally and on the wings to eliminate the backup center-forward role entirely. It’s difficult to argue against the way Andonovski has shifted things to make numbers work throughout the roster, but the loss of Hatch could alter the attack even further.

Sam Coffey and Jaelin Howell, midfielders

Andonovski moved away from developing Howell and Coffey into 2023 World Cup defensive midfielders months ago, making their exclusion less of a surprise as it is an ongoing frustration. Coffey has the distributive skills and sophisticated spacing of a veteran far beyond her years, and Howell is the kind of disruptor USWNT fans are used to in the position.

Together, they’d make the perfect addition to the USWNT’s midfield numbers. Individually, they have been left to develop further with their club teams rather than within the U.S.’s punishing system that requires players to cover a significant amount of ground, have an elite defensive presence and distribute the ball.

Tierna Davidson, defender

Davidson fell prey to timing in many ways, as her return from an ACL injury coincided with her club, the Chicago Red Stars, struggling mightily on the pitch. Chicago has changed its formation multiple times while Davidson has tried to get her confidence and timing back in both a three- and a four-back system.

The result became a defense that couldn’t stop leaking goals, and while club issues were not enough to keep entrenched goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher off the World Cup roster, Davidson never got a chance to resume the elite play she had been known for.

Casey Krueger, defender

Davidson’s Red Star teammate, Casey Krueger, hasn’t seen her personal form dip despite Chicago’s issues, but multiple small decisions Andonovski faced likely kept her off a World Cup roster once again. Krueger has been fit and effective on both sides of the ball this season and is still one of the best American 1v1 defenders in the world. She can also play center back when asked to, possessing the type of versatility the U.S. usually prioritizes.

But after controversially being the last player off the plane in 2019, Krueger doesn’t have World Cup experience, and the loss of Sauerbrunn likely had Andonovski looking for someone who had been in that position before. He opted for crossing specialist Sofia Huerta to break down low blocks, and longtime veteran Kelley O’Hara to offset the defense’s experience gap despite dealing with a few lingering injuries herself.

AD Franch, goalkeeper

Franch has won a World Cup and an Olympic bronze medal with the USWNT, and she had worked her way back into consistent camps through stellar performances in 2022. But Franch’s form hasn’t been quite the same in 2023 as Kansas City deals with defensive injuries, leading to the 32-year-old being benched in favor of Cassie Miller.

The U.S. has a long history of expecting goalkeepers to have different levels of form for club and country with how many variables can exist in a club environment — Alyssa Naeher being a primary example. But Franch’s inability to get back on the field, combined with the excellent form of Aubrey Kingsbury, was just enough to push Andonovski into a late switch for his third goalkeeper spot.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

The day has finally arrived; the USWNT’s 2023 World Cup roster has been announced. Head coach Vlatko Andonovski has put together a 23-player squad with a balance of veteran experience and incredible talent, but many questions remain as to how the group will gel in time to attempt to capture a historic third-straight World Cup title.

The U.S. has been ravaged by injuries in the last year, forcing Andonovski’s hand with some of his decisions. But he’s also adopting a few calculated risks that could either pay off in the biggest moment, or spell disaster for a relatively inexperienced group.

Here are three takeaways from Wednesday’s roster reveal.

This is a brand-new USWNT

A main takeaway from the 2023 World Cup roster is much-discussed but perpetually relevant: This version of the USWNT couldn’t look any more different than the team that won a World Championship in 2019. Fourteen of the 23 players selected for this year’s tournament have never participated in a World Cup before, and a number of projected starters did not play in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Sophia Smith is going to be relied upon heavily in the USWNT attack in her first major tournament, while Lynn Williams feels like a seasoned veteran despite preparing for her first World Cup. Emily Fox is a penciled-in starter at outside back, even with this being her World Cup debut, and the starting center-back pair will almost certainly have never performed on this big of a stage before. Emily Sonnett is the only center-back named to the roster with World Cup experience.

The U.S. midfield will be anchored by Andi Sullivan in her first major tournament, and fellow midfielder Savannah DeMelo is the first player since 2003 to be named to a World Cup roster without having registered her first appearance with the USWNT. Eighteen-year-old Alyssa Thompson made a last-minute surge into roster consideration after Mallory Swanson suffered a major knee injury, representing the next generation of star power rising in the USWNT ranks.

None of this is bad news — these are the players ready for this tournament — but it is a data point to consider. The U.S. likely made a mistake at the Tokyo Olympics for sticking with an aging roster, and in 2023 they have swung the pendulum in the opposite direction. No U.S. team is going to get the opportunity to call itself a rebuild, but everything Andonovski’s squad does in Australia and New Zealand this summer will be about both building for the future and chasing history in the present.

Endless creativity

The midfield section of the USWNT roster has a clear imbalance to it, by design and likely by necessity. Rose Lavelle hasn’t played any competitive game minutes since mid-April, and while Andonovski said he is confident she’ll be healthy by the time the group stage begins, she’s probably not going to be completely game-fit by World Cup kickoff. Thus enters the roster’s biggest surprise in DeMelo, whose attributes as a playmaker for Racing Louisville this season proved undeniable despite her inexperience with the USWNT.

Usually the need to bring a backup midfielder due to injury is bad news for other players in the same positional group, but Andonovski has taken a different approach. In making room for three creative midfielders in Lavelle, DeMelo and Ashley Sanchez, Andonovski cut a spot from his frontline — the traditional backup No. 9 spot that Washington Spirit forward Ashley Hatch has held for over a year.

Hatch did nothing to warrant a last-minute drop, but the trade-off makes sense in the context of who else fills out the attack; Sophia Smith and Lynn Williams can both play centrally as well as out wide. Andonovski also referenced Trinity Rodman, and Alyssa Thompson can slide into the role for short periods, all of which will be necessary to make sure that Alex Morgan can get the rest she needs throughout the tournament.

The question that hangs over this particular compromise is whether Andonovski will trust any of the three attacking midfielders to run a dual No. 10 system against defensive-minded sides (Lindsey Horan cannot play every minute of a World Cup), or if the team is simply carrying an extra player who will not feature much in the tournament.

Making room for specialists

Rosters of 23 players frequently do have room for those who bring one particularly elite skill and might be needed in certain games to break an opponent down. But the thinner depth charts at a few core positions due to injury and form make some of Andonovski’s choices a bit risky.

Losing captain Becky Sauerbrunn to an injury has made the center-back position a precarious one, as 2019 starter Abby Dahlkemper is still recovering from back surgery and Tierna Davidson has struggled since her return from an ACL injury. But Andonovski did not make the same adjustment to the backline as he did with the midfield; he’s only bringing three center-backs in Alana Cook, Naomi Girma and Emily Sonnett. Central defenders have the ability to carry more minutes than positions with greater distances to run, but the USWNT head coach has always favored calculated rotation.

Instead, Andonovski has stacked up on outside-back depth, bringing crossing specialist Sofia Huerta and the oft-injured Kelley O’Hara to support his likely preferred starters, Emily Fox and Crystal Dunn. O’Hara brings veteran experience to a backline that needs it, but if the center-backs struggle against top opposition, the lack of options could become an issue. Andonovski said that Julie Ertz is another center-back option in the case of an emergency, but she hasn’t played there for the U.S. in over four years.

Megan Rapinoe is another locker-room leader who is traveling with the team in a specialist’s capacity. The original plan Andonovski outlined was to give most of the minutes at left wing to Swanson, and insert Rapinoe into matches for her dead-ball and crossing ability. With Swanson no longer available, a committee of players will now have to cover left wing. Rapinoe has the type of leadership and elite talent on the ball (including from the penalty spot) that could help the U.S. secure more than one victory. But if Andonovski finds himself leaning on her fitness more than he planned, the U.S. attack and full-team defending could suffer.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

Jaedyn Shaw has looked like a seasoned professional in her second year with the San Diego Wave, but nothing could quite prepare the 18-year-old for a new challenge earlier this season. Shaw scored the opening goal in an April 29 game against the Orlando Pride, her third of the season, and most memorably played against Brazil and NWSL legend Marta for the first time.

“I was like, oh my gosh, so starstruck, trying not to freak out in the middle of the game,” she told Just Women’s Sports in May, a big smile breaking out on her face. “I had her jersey and all that stuff.”

Shaw wants to be just like the legendary Brazilian No. 10 someday, but her ambitions as a professional soccer player go far beyond one singular idol. She also wants to be able to dribble the ball like Neymar, and drop a pass on a dime like Kevin de Bruyne.

“I feel like players that brought a lot of joy to me when I was younger,” she says.

In her first full season as a professional, Shaw is already well on her way to building her own name in NWSL and U.S. women’s national team circles. Wave manager Casey Stoney has described her as a player whose “vision and ability to pick a pass that breaks a backline is some of the best I’ve seen in the game, and I’ve been in the game a long time.”

She’s earned equally high praise from teammates already starring for the U.S. women’s national team, and she’d like to join them there someday.

“I think Jae’s gonna be so good. I mean, she’s already so good,” says USWNT and Wave defender Naomi Girma. “I think she’s gonna get so much better, so she’s an exciting one to watch.”

JAEDYN SHAW IS THE TRUTH 😱pic.twitter.com/SRJ7F1LwcL

— San Diego Wave FC (@sandiegowavefc) March 26, 2023

When she lists her idols, there is joyful irony in Shaw talking about herself as a young player in the past tense, as she was once one of the youngest signings in NWSL history. The league only opened up pathways to roster spots for players under the age of 18 in 2021, after then-15-year-old Olivia Moultrie took the NWSL to court in order to sign with the Portland Thorns.

Since Moultrie’s fateful ruling, the NWSL’s youth movement has been in full effect. Shaw entered the league in the middle of 2022 as a 17-year-old, scoring a goal in her first three professional appearances. Now, she’s not even the youngest player on the Wave anymore. That honor goes to 15-year-old Melanie Barcenas, who became the league’s new youngest signing in March.

A new generation of women’s soccer players making the decision to forgo college eligibility to sign with professional clubs has raised eyebrows in the U.S., where custom has dictated that you get your degree first, then go play pro soccer. In the early days of the NWSL, the monetary value of a college scholarship from a top program easily outweighed the salaries offered in the league, and pro careers were short.

Times — and salaries — have changed, with more players making the jump and showing a faith in the stability of the NWSL that did not always exist. For Shaw, it was always a matter of not if, but when.

“I feel like in the back of my head, I had always wanted to go pro,” she says. “Whether it was one year of college and then pro, whatever, do the full four years, which wouldn’t have been likely for me. I feel like I would have really wanted to push my ceilings early.”

Before Shaw joined San Diego, her desire to push her ceilings had already taken her all over the world. In her early years playing soccer, she primarily developed as an indoor player. As a child, she went to Brazil to train with girls and boys at Santos FC and flew to Barcelona to play football tournaments, before switching to outdoor soccer around the age of 12, as she remembers it.

“My biggest thing was always, I always played with boys, whatever level it was. And that was one of the main things that would change whatever club that I was playing for,” Shaw says. “I’d be at a club and they’d be like, ‘No, you can’t train with the boys because they’re academy’ or whatever. So I had to go to another club.”

Shaw’s experiences playing with boys also shaped the way she understood the professional pipeline. It’s not uncommon in men’s soccer for players to sign with pro clubs as teenagers and then develop through an academy system or with a club’s senior team.

“​​I guess I saw it so much with the boy’s side that I was just like, ‘Oh, I can just try it, or just maybe make my own path,’” she says.

That path hasn’t always been linear. Shaw originally committed to playing for the University of North Carolina, ultimately making the decision to go pro once that became a viable reality. She then lived in Washington, D.C. for a time, training with the Washington Spirit as the club worked on entry pathways for the teenager.

Rather than having to go all the way to court, Shaw was able to sign with an NWSL team through a unique discovery process (the NWSL has since formalized a separate rule for U18 players to sign directly with clubs).

The only trouble with Shaw’s discovery process was that the team first in line for her playing rights wasn’t the Spirit but the San Diego Wave, who sat atop the league’s discovery list. Rather than Washington signing Shaw directly, they had to pursue a trade for her rights for reportedly up to $250,000, and those talks fell through after the Wave signed her themselves.

The process has been taxing for a teenager, and at some point Shaw had no choice but to block out the noise and focus on what she could control every day in training.

“I lean on my mom a lot,” she says. “I was just like, ‘Mom, you be the bridge between all the stuff that’s going on out there and what’s going on on the field.’ And I think that helped me a lot to just fill that gap.”

Shaw found a very welcoming club environment when she arrived at the Wave, and her whole family has now relocated to San Diego, with her sister the most recent transplant to join Shaw, her brother and her parents on the West Coast. Group pastimes include family bowling outings, seeking out new restaurants to try and a lot of time hanging out at home. Shaw graduated from high school in 2022 and anticipates taking college classes in her own time as she continues to settle into her pro career.

For now, she’s enjoying finally having the clarity of just getting to be a full-time soccer player.

“I think a lot of it was just me not overhyping games and stuff. And just like knowing that I belong where I am, I deserve to be here,” she says.

Another day, another goal, another celly for Jaedyn Shaw 🌊 pic.twitter.com/7EsgxNaQdK

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) April 30, 2023

That clarity has allowed the versatile attacker to continue to carve out her place on the field, showing off facets of her game that make her a valued starter for her club. Shaw was first introduced to NWSL fans as a winger, but this season she has taken on a more traditional playmaking role in the attacking midfield while San Diego deals with absences due to injury.

The switch has actually positioned Shaw closer to the 10, her preferred spot on the pitch. Stoney has recognized her innate ability to exploit certain pockets of space, which can sometimes dictate where she lines up.

“She has an exceptional turn when she can get turned in the pockets and play forward, and we’ve got forwards that love to play with her because she can get you in on goal,” Stoney says.

San Diego at times employs a very direct style of play, which means that the players tasked with holding and progressing the ball are trusted to make quick decisions on the risk level and tempo of their passes. It’s a freedom that can be both exhilarating and daunting, and a level Shaw pushes herself to every game.

“I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to bring to the game yet [in 2022],” she says. “I feel like now I can kind of have more freedom and just grow into the game and be able to direct and just create plays.”

She shares that freedom with Girma, who is usually tasked with springing play forward from the backline.

“I think me and her work well together, just like her movement into the pocket, and me being able to find her,” Girma says. “When you’re dribbling up the field or starting the attack, when you see the movement of your midfielders and forwards, I think it only makes it easier to break teams down.”

Stoney sees the similarities between Girma and Shaw, and believes that her young star’s national recognition will only grow with time. Shaw is already a decorated member of the USWNT U-20 squad, winning U.S. Soccer’s Young Player of the Year award in 2022 after shining at the U-20 World Cup.

“It’s great, unbelievable, [that] I’ve got a center-back that can solve pressure, and I’ve got a 10 or a wide player in Jaedyn that can solve pressure and play forward,” Stoney says.

“Obviously the national team recognition is going to keep coming if she keeps performing. And we need to make sure that we look after her on and off the field, because she’s still an 18-year-old and she’s still young, and we need to make sure that she’s ready for everything that comes her way.”

From playing futsal in Brazil to planning surfing goal celebrations with Alex Morgan, Shaw is ready for wherever her unique path takes her next. After playing her way into the larger USWNT roster conversation this year, Shaw was not named to the 2023 World Cup roster announced Wednesday but would like to be in the running for U.S. camps following the tournament.

“You can see her growing into her role, growing more confident as she’s been playing more minutes and has taken on a bigger role on the team,” Girma says. “And I think she’s handled that really well and has kind of taken it in stride.”

Whether she’s playing next to or against her idols next, Shaw says this year is “all soccer, all the time,” and she’s looking forward to the next challenge.

“Throughout my journey in general, I always loved the high-pressure situations. I always loved the super scrappy games and the sidelines going crazy,” she says, with the same ambition that landed her in San Diego leading the way.

“I want to break ceilings, and I want to be someone that can change the women’s game and help the younger players coming up after me.”

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

Last season, Sierra Enge watched the San Diego Wave take on Angel City FC in September as a fan. She turned on the TV and cheered for both the Wave and the attendance record that the teams were hoping to break.

For Enge, it was an important night in women’s soccer. The sellout crowd of 32,000 fans shattered the NWSL single-game attendance record, and Enge watched her hometown team — one that several of her friends played for — secure a victory over their in-state rival in their first game at Snapdragon Stadium.

“I was like, ‘Wow.’ It just shows how much women’s sports are growing and how much San Diego is just supporting the growth of it,” Enge said.

That moment was big.

This one is bigger.

Enge, who grew up in San Diego County, is now playing for her hometown team and experiencing the rivalry with Angel City firsthand.

The Wave played in Los Angeles earlier this season, coming away with a 2-0 victory on April 23. On Saturday, the two clubs square off at Snapdragon Stadium for their second regular-season meeting of the year. San Diego is coming into the game on a five-match unbeaten streak and in first place in the NWSL standings, while Angel City is looking to find its footing after dropping to 11th.

“I’m just excited to be a part of it,” Enge said of the rivalry. “I feel like just the attendance and the hype around this game last year was so incredible. And then when we played Angel City earlier this season on the road, you can just tell that there’s kind of a different energy around the game.”

From growing up in Cardiff, a beach community located 22 miles from San Diego, most of Enge’s soccer memories and experiences are based in California. Before being drafted 13th overall by the Wave in January, the midfielder played college soccer at Stanford. There, Enge remembers batting Santa Clara in “emotionally driven” matches. She says Stanford didn’t have a clear rival like San Diego does with L.A., but the battles with the Broncos in California were always intense.

“Any time you play against a rival it’s just fun because you know all the girls on the team so well, and it’s that way with Angel City,” she said. “The better you know a team, sometimes the more fired up you can be.

“It’s one of those games where you are a little bit more nervous before, and the first five minutes of the game are probably a little bit chaotic, but after that it is just a great environment.”

Enge has added motivation every time she takes the field for San Diego. Growing up, she never dreamed that her hometown would have a professional women’s soccer team. But San Diego has always been a hotbed for soccer talent, and even now, several of her teammates played with or against her at the club and college levels.

“Southern California in general is just such a hot spot for soccer,” Enge said. “And the ability to be able to challenge yourself every day and play against better players and get yourself out of your comfort zone is something that I think is pretty unique at the youth soccer level. It’s definitely something that you don’t get all over the country.”

Like most aspiring soccer players, Enge spent her formative years watching the U.S. women’s national team. Back then, she didn’t know of any other ways to play professional soccer. Then, she learned about the NWSL and started following the best players in the country.

When she was drafted by the Wave, Enge received a warm welcome from Alex Morgan, another California native and a player she had long watched and admired.

Enge has made a point to soak up every bit of advice Morgan gives her, from how to be a professional to how to stay patient during the challenges of a rookie season. The 23-year-old has started all five regular-season matches she’s appeared in so far for San Diego, playing a full 90 minutes in four of them and scoring her first NWSL goal last month.

hometown kid bags her first @NWSL goal 💙

LFG @sierraenge!! pic.twitter.com/tkXt1nrjab

— San Diego Wave FC (@sandiegowavefc) May 21, 2023

“I’ve been trying to learn as much as I can from her, because she excels in every aspect of being a female athlete,” Enge said of Morgan.

“Honestly, if you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be teammates with Alex Morgan, I would have said, ‘There is no way.’ But it’s been such a special experience.”

Eden Laase is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

Editors Note: This story was co-reported and co-written by Lyndsey D’Arcangelo and Rachel Galligan.

When WNBA free agency kicked off in February, the market was loaded with high-profile players looking for the right fit at just the right price. Since the league’s most recent CBA was ratified in 2020, higher salaries and player autonomy have made free agency a highly anticipated offseason event.

This year was no exception. In fact, it set a unique precedent.

With Candace Parker and Alysha Clark joining the reigning champion Las Vegas Aces, and Jonquel Jones, Courtney Vandersloot and Brenna Stewart signing with the New York Liberty, the WNBA entered what is being dubbed the “superteam era.”

What does this landscape shift mean for the league? We talked to a handful of general managers, coaches, players and former players to get their insight, both anonymously and on record. And they had plenty to say — not only about the future of the WNBA, but also about how the past ultimately led the league to where it is today.

The superteam era

What exactly is the superteam era? That’s up for interpretation, but one thing everyone can agree on is the attention that player movement and star-studded rosters have brought to the WNBA.

As Stewart lit up Twitter in January with ambiguous, emoji-filled tweets about which team she was going to choose, Vandersloot kept fans on edge as she swung back and forth between Seattle and New York before signing with the Liberty, and Parker shocked the world by joining Las Vegas instead of retiring or returning to Los Angeles for what could be her final season.

“Anytime you are bringing eyeballs and attention to the league, it’s a good thing. I certainly don’t think this is unique to the WNBA — we’ve seen it in a number of sports leagues in our country,” said Connecticut Sun head coach Stephanie White.

“I think it’s just that we are catching up, to be honest. The way things are from a salary structure, it’s a great thing that players are in positions now in their careers where they can take less to compete at a high level, and to compete with people and organizations that they want to.”

Despite the perceived novelty surrounding New York’s and Las Vegas’ stacked rosters, superteams are not new. The Houston Comets won four championships in a row from 1997 to 2000 with Cynthia Cooper, Tina Thompson and Sheryl Swoopes, forming the first superteam and established dynasty in the WNBA. The now-defunct Comets built their roster through the inaugural draft and the expansion draft the following season.

This superteam era looks different because it is a direct result of free agency, instead of teams muddling through losing seasons to stock up on top draft picks.

“If you think about Phoenix (Mercury) with Diana (Taurasi) and Brittney (Griner), well, how was that built? Well, they drafted BG the year after Diana sat out for the year. And so they didn’t win a lot of games and they got into the lottery,” said longtime WNBA analyst and former player Rebecca Lobo. “It’s the same thing in Minnesota. How did Minnesota build? They built through the draft by being bad and by getting Sylvia Fowles, who forced a trade to get there.

“There’s just a different taste in people’s mouths when they feel you bought your way there versus lost your way there. But in those examples, those were superteams.”

“I don’t know what everybody’s all wound up about,” said Indiana Fever general manager Lin Dunn. “The Comets were by far a superteam. The Detroit Shock were a superteam. The Minnesota Lynx were a superteam. … I’m excited that we now have two superteams.”

The current CBA stipulates that unrestricted free agents with five or more years of service, veterans who have been cut, and veterans who have completed the terms of their contract can negotiate freely with any team in the league and without another team claiming the right of first refusal. Additionally, franchise-caliber players can only be cored three times in their career, regardless of whether or not they do so with the same team.

With these rules turning free agency into a marquee event, teams with multiple stars and “Big Threes” are here to stay. While it’s easy to see superteams inhibiting parity, those in and around the league believe they’ll help raise both the level of interest in the league and the competition on the court.

“I mean, the buzz surrounding Parker going to Vegas, and Stewie and JJ and Courtney to New York was terrific and kind of broke through mainstream sports and interest and that sort of thing,” said Lobo. “The one thing that you know about the WNBA — games are still going to be competitive.”

“My hope is those two superteams are going to generate an enormous amount of interest in the WNBA,” said Dunn. “And while they’re worried about each other, some of us will sneak up and beat them unexpectedly. The most talented teams don’t always win.”

“It creates people talking about it. It makes other teams and other owners step up to remain competitive,” added a former player. “Just because you form a superteam doesn’t mean you’re going to win.”

Leveling the playing field

New York and Las Vegas were able to lure top-tier free agents to their respective franchises for a whole host of reasons. Location was a factor for some players; fanbase was another. But more than anything, owners with deep pockets were the biggest selling point.

Aces owner Mark Davis and Liberty owner Joe Tsai could not only negotiate competitive salaries, but also offer amenities that other franchises don’t have — like an innovative, newly-built practice facility for the Aces and the prospect of charter flights for the Liberty. In certain instances, those advantages have also gotten the two teams in trouble and led to complaints from their competitors.

In 2022, the WNBA fined the Liberty a record $500,000 for violating the CBA by chartering flights for their players in the second half of the 2021 season. On Tuesday, the league stripped the Aces of their 2025 first-round draft pick for violations related to promises of impermissible benefits when negotiating a contract extension with former player Dearica Hamby. Aces head coach Becky Hammon also was suspended for two games for comments she made in connection to Hamby’s recent pregnancy. Hamby accused the organization of mistreating her due to her pregnancy after she was traded to the Los Angeles Sparks in January.

League penalties notwithstanding, when certain owners have a decided financial advantage, it’s harder for smaller franchises without the same means to compete in the free agency market. Policies like the league’s salary cap and commercial flight rules were written into the CBA with the intention of maintaining a competitive balance.

“This league’s going to be great when you get owners with like, real, real money, you get the billionaires willing to spend. But at the same time, you don’t want to lose the owners who have been part of this for a long time and might not be billionaires but have invested all that they can invest,” said Lobo. “So, that’s the tricky part of it all. You have Tsai and Davis, who in the blink of an eye would say, ‘Yes, let’s charter,’ because they can afford a lot. Whereas other ownership groups, it might make them unable to continue to own the franchise. That’s a tough piece of it.”

Franchises with multiple owners haven’t put any less time and energy into their teams or the league as a whole. But they might end up in a position where they aren’t able to provide the same amenities as the league continues to evolve and player expectations rise.

Implementing a league-wide luxury tax, which would require teams to pay a penalty if their payroll exceeds the salary cap, is a possible solution. But getting everyone on board with that type of change would be a challenge in and of itself.

“If they did have a luxury tax then the players wouldn’t have to take less money,” said one former player. “If you have a luxury tax, then you can go over the cap and you can pay players what they deserve to be paid to be basketball players. We can’t even agree on every owner flying charter — I don’t think the luxury tax is something that will ever pass.”

“I know for a fact in our organization, we’re on board for charter flights. But we know there are rules in place and if every team can’t do it, we can’t do it, so we play within those rules,” said one assistant coach. “I think what gets lost in it is that only one team wants to charter. And it’s not true … I think the league can educate people on that.”

Dunn believes there’s already a level playing field in the league, as long as every team abides by the rules set forth in the 2020 CBA.

“We also have some other ways for players to make supplemental salaries that are legal, like the time-off bonus. They can stay in the city and they can do team marketing agreements. They can do league marketing agreements,” she said. “There are other ways other than their basic salary to make additional money that is legal by the CBA. So as long as we’re following those guidelines, I think it’s great.

“I think in some instances, when people do something a little out of the ordinary, they assume that people are cheating. And that may or may not be true.”

In early February, the WNBA announced it was investigating the Aces for discriminatory practices involving the treatment and subsequent trade of Hamby after she informed the team of her pregnancy. The league also looked into allegations of pay-for-play offers to current players and prospective free agents, as first reported by Howard Megdal of The Next.

As a result of the investigation, the WNBA announced the penalties this week, which the WNBA Players Association said “miss the mark” in a subsequent statement.

The irony here is that the WNBA implemented a similar practice of supplementing player salaries in order to lure players away from the ABL before the WNBA launched in 1997. Initially, players signed contracts with the WNBA instead of individual teams. And since the WNBA’s salaries could not compete with the ABL’s at the time, the league acted as a liaison, facilitating endorsement deals with car manufacturers or other companies to create additional income for star players.

“I’m sure there are loopholes that were not thought of that have been taken advantage of,” said White. “Look, every team, every player, every organization is trying to find the best advantage they can to win championships. I think that’s where we are right now and that’s where every pro sports team is. Some of the things we didn’t see as potentially happening are happening, so now we just have to re-evaluate. We have to figure out how we address this, how to adjust.”

In response to players’ calls for better travel conditions, the WNBA expanded its charter flight program this season to cover all postseason games and teams with back-to-back games during the regular season. The program will reportedly cost the WNBA an estimated $4.5 million. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has estimated that chartering flights for an entire season would cost the league around $25 million, and she has stressed the importance of building an economic model to fund it long-term.

“The league’s crisis management is not good,” added one analyst. “What Davis and Tsai want to do is just pay for charters, but you can’t do that if the rest of the league isn’t chartering. So how do you pay for charters? You have to build up the economic business model, you can’t just do it one and done — you have to have sustainability. You’ve got to say, ‘We’re going to be able to charter for the next five years, and this is what we’re going to get in return on our investment.’”

When the WNBA raised $75 million from more than two dozen investors last year, Engelbert said she hoped to “move faster on transforming the economics of h the league.” But some have been left wondering how that capital is being used.

“What did Cathy Englebert do with the $75 million in equity she said she got and acquired? Where did that go?” asked one analyst. “Is that even real money or is that just a forecasted expectation of someone making those kinds of gifts to the league?”

Until the WNBA is in a position to implement league-wide measures like charter flights, those close to the league expect players to look to sign with teams that have the most resources and the best chance to win.

“Like 27 years in, are we that advanced at this point that the superteam isn’t necessary? I’m not sure that we are. I think we might need it,” said the analyst. “I don’t like to call it the ‘superteam,’ but that’s what’s happening — players are taking less and going to franchises where they can win. That’s what the guys are doing.”

The good and bad of the CBA

While the 2020 CBA moved the needle for the players in many positive ways, over three years later, the effect those decisions have had on cap space and rosters have become much clearer.

The number of available WNBA roster spots — 144 total or 12 per team — is often referred to in discussions about roster limitations. But since the latest CBA, that number has realistically fallen under 140, with many teams limited to 11 players due to higher salaries for star players and corresponding salary-cap restrictions.

“This is a legally binding agreement that everyone agreed to and maybe didn’t read the fine print,” said one assistant coach. “It’s typical, you dangle a carrot, here’s more money, oh s–t — well, now we can only have 10 or 11 players. Over the long haul, it doesn’t really add up. What we’re running into is what we all knew would happen.”

The hard salary cap was a prevailing theme in our conversations, with many pointing to the trend of players willing to take less to be a part of the top franchises in the league.

“The hard cap right now probably doesn’t seem like it’s working in the way it was intended, ” said Lobo. “The consequence is that players are just taking less money, and I don’t think that’s what the intent was for the cap or teams.”

Layshia Clarendon, as a member of the WNBA Players Association’s leadership committee, was active in negotiations leading up to the 2020 CBA. The current Los Angeles Sparks guard lamented the fact that the hard salary cap agreed to in the CBA has led to veterans getting squeezed out of rosters. The 32-year-old Clarendon has experienced the unpredictability firsthand, getting waived by both the Liberty and the Lynx in the past few years.

“The league would not budge on either counting that contract as a rookie contract or letting it go over the cap, however you spend it right, and allowing more space for teams to keep veterans,” Clarendon said.

“That’s the biggest thing that’s screwing veterans right now and it’s because of the league’s hard cap. With pregnancies and with vet minimum contracts, a couple of small changes could really help our league. It’s only hurting players at the end of the day.”

White, entering her first year as head coach of the Sun after playing five years in the WNBA from 1999-2004, reflected on the early days of the league under the first CBA and how both resources and player expectations have evolved since then.

“All we really wanted was insurance all year around. Now, the options for these women when it comes to building families, sustaining this as a career, while incorporating everything that women have to incorporate, I think it’s awesome,” she said.

“We still want to see change and more roster spots and more opportunities and all of those things that come naturally with building and sustaining a league. But I think the overall ability to compromise on how we best take care of these women who sacrifice so much to play in this league, while we continue to try and grow it for them and continue to try and have more advantages for them while keeping a strong business model so this game can be sustained forever, I think the steps that have been taken have been really good.”

While the WNBA season generally begins in May, leagues overseas run through the winter and finish at any point between the end of February and early May. For nearly three decades, players have been accustomed to playing year-round to supplement their WNBA salaries, often causing them to miss parts of or all of WNBA training camp or even the beginning of the regular season.

The WNBA’s new prioritization policy could restrict that stream of income for many players. According to the rule in the CBA, beginning on May 1, 2024, three-year veterans must be present at the start of training camp or they will face a full season suspension. From now on, players will have to make tough choices between trying out for limited WNBA roster spots and securing a paycheck.

“Those players who don’t know if they’re going to be on a WNBA roster, and then they don’t go overseas because they’re trying to put all their eggs into the WNBA basket with prioritization but then get cut, where is their income coming from?” said one former player.

“That is one negative that I feel like the players should have never agreed to. It’s going to have an impact on the average player. The veterans are already established financially, but you have that four-year, five-year (player) that makes $80,0000 in the WNBA — where are they going to play overseas?”

What’s next?

As the WNBA prepares to tip off its 27th season, many of the league’s shortcomings are once again driving the conversation. Draft picks and former NCAA stars are getting cut from rosters at an increasingly alarming rate, the timeline for expansion remains unclear, and players’ calls for higher salaries and better conditions are growing louder. Meanwhile, Engelbert continues to preach patience with the goal of turning the league into a sustainable business.

“There’s never gonna be enough transparency for people, just in terms of information, and it can always get better,” said an assistant coach. “I just think the league is growing and sometimes we forget we’re not 100 years old — not even 30.”

It’s easy to compare the WNBA to the NBA or other professional sports leagues that have been around for much longer and pick out all the shortcomings. But looking at the league today compared to where it was in its first decade, the big-picture growth is evident.

“We’re starting to build on some of those big-time problems because we actually have player movement, have money to be thrown around in different ways, and have owners who are willing to push the boundaries of the league,” said Clarendon. “I think it’s a big marker of growth. So I’m excited about it from that perspective, from a bird’s-eye view perspective. I think it’s like we’re really at a shifting point for the league.”

Much of that shift has stemmed from free agency and players having more autonomy over their career choices. When the league’s top stars choose teams like New York and Las Vegas, other organizations are incentivized to invest further and remain competitive.

“When you start losing free agents because you feel like you’re not investing as much as you should,” said one former player, “then something has to change or else you’re going to continue to lose players in free agency, because they’re always going to prefer another team over yours.”

As roster-building gets more competitive, those in and around the league want to see the WNBA clearly communicate and enforce the rules. The WNBA’s investigation of the Aces for alleged under-the-table payments, for example, was the result of what one current head coach described as an inevitable issue in the current league climate.

“You’re trying to put together the best possible team that you can. When there is a lack of clarity in exactly what you can do — every organization is looking for ways to move the needle. It doesn’t mean it’s right, wrong or indifferent; it’s just the way that it is when there is not a lot of clarity,” the coach said.

There will be an opportunity to address all of these issues in future negotiations, with the current CBA set to expire in 2027.

“Every CBA is so important. We don’t know what we don’t know. We are continuing to learn about the business model, the evolution of the players and their mentalities and what they want out of this experience,” said one head coach.

“We all have to remind ourselves that there is a bigger picture and we have to figure out how to keep the competitive advantage. There’s not always that balance. We may not ever have it, but how do we get as close to it as possible is the challenge.”

Lyndsey D’Arcangelo is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports, covering the WNBA. She also contributes to The Athletic and is the co-author of Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League. Follow Lyndsey on Twitter @darcangel21.

Rachel Galligan is a basketball analyst at Just Women’s Sports. A former professional basketball player and collegiate coach, she also contributes to Winsidr. Follow Rachel on Twitter @RachGall.