Mallory Pugh burst onto the women’s soccer scene as a teen sensation, receiving her first call up to the senior USWNT at 17 years old. Since then, her career has taken plenty of twists and turns as a veteran of the game at just 23.

A promising start in Colorado

Pugh was born into a family of athletes, raised alongside her older sister Brianna in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. The star forward credits her sister for introducing her to the game of soccer at a young age.

“When I was younger, I always looked up to her and I always wanted to be just like my sister,” Pugh told Kelley O’Hara on the Just Women’s Sports podcast. “So she was playing soccer and I was like ‘well I want to play soccer too.’”

The early introduction to the sport paid off, with Pugh quickly becoming a soccer wunderkind. Pugh remembers being called into a U-14 national team camp when she was still just in seventh grade. By high school, Pugh was a mainstay in the youth national team system, with a USWNT senior roster spot on the horizon.

In her final two years of high school, the young star captured the Golden Boot award at the U-20 World Cup qualifying tournament, as well as the Gatorade National Player of the Year and U.S. Soccer Young Female Player of the Year awards.

Pugh’s early success earned her a call up to the senior USWNT team at just 17 years old, an experience she recalls to O’Hara as being “so weird.” Her first camp with the team, however, ended in success, with Pugh remembering feeling as though she had nothing to lose and playing with freedom. While the hype was palpable, Pugh says she learned not to overthink things and block out external pressure at a young age.

Going pro

Much was made about Pugh’s decision to forgo collegiate soccer and pursue a professional soccer career. At first, the 17-year-old couldn’t see herself in a pro league and decided to join UCLA’s team. After three months, however, Pugh knew it was time to leave the Bruins and forward her career, without ever stepping on the pitch for UCLA. The decision was one she didn’t make lightly, agonizing over whether to join the NWSL for over a year before finally making a move.

“I’ve always told myself I want to be able to inspire younger generations,” Pugh told O’Hara. “I do feel like me stepping out and kind of having to be bold and courageous with that, it did maybe send that signal or send that message that females and people in women’s sports… can leave school early and go professional.”

Pugh joined the Washington Spirit in 2017, notching six goals in her debut season and ending the season as a finalist for Rookie of the Year.

Here's some nifty 1v1 footwork by Mal Pugh to shake her defender. pic.twitter.com/sy5B2tzVg0

— Washington Spirit (@WashSpirit) July 1, 2017

USWNT career

Pugh made her mark on the world stage when she clinched a spot on the 2016 Rio Olympics roster, becoming the youngest U.S. player to ever score during the Games at 18 years old. Though the United States were bounced in the tournament’s quarterfinals, Rio served as a turning point in Pugh’s career, solidifying her place in the USWNT conversation.

Receiving consistent call-ups in the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup, Pugh made the 23-player France roster. For any 21-year-old, simply making the USWNT World Cup team would’ve been a career-defining moment, but for Pugh, the major tournament presented a new challenge for the soccer prodigy. Playing fewer minutes than she expected, Pugh had to embrace her role as a support player rather than a starter.

“Obviously, I wanted to play more, but it wasn’t my time to,” Pugh told O’Hara. “I definitely had to change my mindset and look at it a different way.”

Alongside her teammates, Pugh earned a World Cup title, her first senior major tournament championship.

The year following her run in France, Pugh’s career entered unchartered territory, with the forward left off a USWNT roster for the first time since initially being called into the USWNT. Pugh did not make then new coach Vlatko Andonovski’s Olympic qualifying roster, telling O’Hara, “It was pretty rough, but I am a strong, strong believer in everything happens for a reason.”

After a bronze-medal run in Tokyo, Andonovski started bringing in a range of non-Olympic players into USWNT camps, including Pugh. The Chicago forward was invited to a series of National Team friendlies in Australia but opted out of the Matildas’ matchup. Andonovski did, however, say her decision not to participate would not impact her invitation to the team’s first camp of 2022 in January.

NWSL comeback

While Pugh dealt with falling out of the USWNT ranks, the young star also battled a series of nagging injuries and a handful of trades, playing with three different NWSL teams in the course of three years. In January 2020, Pugh was traded to Gotham FC (formally Sky Blue FC) before landing in Chicago for the 2021 season.

The moving around certainly impacted Pugh’s rhythm before she found her footing with the Red Stars. The 2021 NWSL season served as a renaissance for Pugh, who notched four goals and four assists, ending the year as MVP runner-up. Pugh also led the Red Stars to a surprise NWSL Championship game appearance, where they fell to the Washington Spirit in a closely contested battle.

Although Pugh missed the team’s semifinal match against Portland due to COVID-19 protocols and left the final early with an injury, Pugh’s season was a resounding success.

Still just 23 years old, Pugh has plenty of time to get back on track and continue her rise as one of the world’s best young talents.

💥 CUE MAL PUGH 💥

First playoff game, first playoff goal 🤌#CHIvNJNY | https://t.co/bONPZnnmCJ | #NWSL21 pic.twitter.com/uyuHikPPz2

— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) November 7, 2021

What’s Next

Pugh ended 2021 announcing her engagement to partner Dansby Swanson, shortstop for the Atlanta Braves.

The soccer star’s future with the USWNT is still very much a topic of conversation, with the World Cup cycle about to get underway. Pugh will have to compete against a deep forward pool to stamp her mark on the roster after missing an exciting Australian series in late 2021.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With recent transfers Talia von Oelhoffen and Kiki Iriafen joining first-team All-American JuJu Watkins and the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class at USC next season, the Trojans look to transition from an up-and-coming squad to a legitimate title contender. 

Former Oregon State graduate student von Oelhoffen is the latest collegiate talent to commit to the program, announcing her transfer Monday via ESPN. She follows ex-Stanford leading-scorer Iriafen in the jump to the pair’s one-time Pac-12 rival.

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The 5-foot-11 Washington native was a two-time All-Pac-12 guard during her time at Oregon State. But after the recent dissolution of the Pac-12, the Corvallis side found themselves without a permanent home conference going forward. Many big name players opted to take their skill elsewhere as a result, with von Oelhoffen’s fellow ex-Beaver Raegan Beers announcing her own departure to Oklahoma on Monday.

According to DraftKings, USC is now tied with UConn for the second-best betting odds to win the 2025 NCAA women’s tournament. Dawn Staley’s tested South Carolina side, poised for a repeat performance, holds down the number one spot.

Last year, LSU loaded up in the transfer portal after beating Iowa to win the 2023 national championship. The Tigers were clear favorites coming into the 2023-24 season, but were bounced in the Elite Eight by Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes. Shortly thereafter, star transfer Hailey Van Lith opted to transfer a second time, this time signing with TCU. 

Yet while history proves that an excess of star power doesn’t always translate to on-court chemistry, on paper, USC sure looks ready to hold their own — in 2025 and beyond.

The United States and Mexico have withdrawn their joint bid to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup, per a Monday afternoon release from U.S. Soccer and the Mexican Football Federation.

According to the statement, they will instead focus on developing a "more equitable" bid for the 2031 tournament, with the ultimate goal of "eliminating investment disparities" between the men’s and women’s tournaments.

The federations went on to cite the upcoming 2026 Men’s World Cup in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as an opportunity to build support for local infrastructure, improve audience engagement, and scale up media and partnership deals in preparation to "host a record-breaking tournament in 2031."

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"Hosting a World Cup tournament is a huge undertaking — and having additional time to prepare allows us to maximize its impact across the globe," said U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone. "Shifting our bid will enable us to host a record-breaking Women’s World Cup in 2031 that will help to grow and raise the level of the women’s game both here at home as well as across the globe."

The decision leaves just Brazil and a joint bid from Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands in the running for the 2027 host spot. Brazil — the rumored frontrunner — has never hosted a Women’s World Cup, while Germany hosted the 2011 tournament as a solo venture. 

Furthermore, this postponement doesn’t mean the U.S. is a shoo-in for 2031, as it's been previously reported that 2022 UEFA Women's EURO host England is considering their own Women's World Cup bid. FIFA is scheduled to confirm the winning bid after the FIFA Congress votes on May 17th.