The 24-year-old took less than a minute to get on the scoresheet upon her Washington Spirit return
Ashley Sanchez did not take long to send a message to her now-former U.S. women’s national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski — and to whoever replaces him.
Sanchez was named to the USWNT’s World Cup roster but did not see a single minute of playing time at the tournament, as the team ultimately crashed out in the round of 16 for its worst World Cup finish ever.
That result ended up costing Andonovski his job, with the 46-year-old stepping down last week after four years at the helm.
Though Sanchez entered the World Cup with 24 caps, Andonovski opted to use the uncapped Savannah DeMelo ahead of her, with the Racing Louisville standout starting both of the USWNT’s first two games.
After a disappointing World Cup, Sanchez returned to the Washington Spirit on Saturday in a NWSL game at Houston. Less than a minute after coming off the bench, Sanchez made her presence felt.
62': Ashley Sanchez enters the game 63': Ashley Sanchez scores a goal
It was Sanchez’s fifth NWSL goal of the season and her fourth consecutive league game with a goal. The Dash would ultimately level the match in stoppage time, as María Sánchez earned her side a 1-1 draw.
Notes on returning World Cup players from all 12 NWSL teams
The World Cup may still have a final and third-place game to finish, but the NWSL is done waiting.
The league’s break from regular season play concludes Friday, with the Kansas City Current and OL Reign kicking off a full slate of matches.
It’s awkward timing, with a few players still participating at the World Cup, others still recovering from a physically and mentally grueling process, and yet more having come back quickly after the group stage. With 61 different NWSL players going to the World Cup, there are probably 61 unique situations to deal with here.
Pro Soccer Wire knows fans want to know when their team’s internationals will be back in uniform, so we’ve done the relevant social media research and Zoom press conference recording. Consider this a status update for all 61 World Cup participants as the NWSL playoff chase truly gets underway.
Washington Spirit midfielder Chloe Ricketts, who is just 16 years, two months, and six days old, scored in a 4-2 Challenge Cup win over NJ/NY Gotham FC, making her the youngest player to ever notch a goal in a competitive NWSL match.
“My little sister told me I had to score, so that’s what was going through my mind the whole time,” a grinning Ricketts told reporters at Audi Field. [Ashley] Hatch played a beautiful ball straight to my feet, so I could finish it easily.”
The goal capped off a wild game, with the Spirit falling 2-0 behind after just eight minutes, a 70-odd minute lightning delay, the return of veteran Tori Huster after a 629-day battle to come back from a torn Achilles, and Washington scoring three times in 15 second-half minutes to break out of a four-game winless streak in all competitions.
Ricketts shot home from an angle in the 70th minute after Hatch dished the ball her way, capping off a stunning Spirit comeback following the oddity of a long weather delay, a very abbreviated return to play before halftime, and then a second half played in rainy conditions on a sweltering night in the District.
“I don’t think she was good last week,” began Spirit head coach Mark Parsons when asked about Ricketts’ goal and overall play. “This week has been much better, and I think tonight’s performance was very good… She received one ball in the first half, and [Ali] Krieger was right there trying to steal it, and Chloe was like ‘I don’t care.'”
Ricketts’ goal came as the latest development in the NWSL’s youth movement. She was very briefly the league’s youngest-ever player before the San Diego Wave signed Melanie Barcenas, and her debut goal came around 11 hours after the North Carolina Courage announced the signing of U.S. Under-17 captain Riley Jackson.
NWSL introduced the Under-18 Entry List this winter, a mechanism which allows teams — provided they meet certain safeguarding requirements set by the league — to sign players who are under the age of 18 without having to pick them in the draft. Ricketts was the first player signed under those new rules, with Barcenas going pro less than two weeks later.
With the Spirit, Ricketts has seen her role increase as the season has gone on, starting four of the team’s five Challenge Cup matches. Earlier in July, she got her first regular season start in a 2-2 draw opposite Barcenas and San Diego.
“She can dribble and wriggle out of everything, and then, I mean she crushed some big players for Gotham tonight [in duels],” added Parsons. “Bravery in possession, she’s a menace out of possession. It was a good performance.”
The youngest player to score in NWSL league play remains another youngster, Portland Thorns playmaker Olivia Moultrie. In June 2022, Moultrie (aged 16 years, 8 months, 28 days) scored against the Houston Dash.
Sanchez’s newfound consistency should serve the USWNT well
The U.S. women’s national team seems set to truly lean on Ashley Sanchez for the first time, and an offseason evolution means the playmaker is ready for the occasion.
In some ways, this moment has been a long time coming: Sanchez starred at the youth national team level, received her first USWNT call-up at just 17 years old, and led a national title contender in assists as a college freshman at UCLA. Upon joining the Washington Spirit, she claimed NWSL’s Future Legend award in 2020, a stand-in for Rookie of the Year after that season was significantly curtailed by the pandemic.
The California native’s trajectory has always pointed towards a place on the world stage with the USWNT.
That leads to the 2023 World Cup, and an interesting sort of pressure. With Rose Lavelle’s fitness still a major question, the nation will tune in to the USWNT’s Group E opener against Vietnam and in all likelihood, Sanchez will be on the field in her place. Vlatko Andonovski’s side is expected to win handily, but will only do so if they get a strong effort from their central attacking midfielder. More than most players, Sanchez will be under the microscope.
Sanchez is, at her core, an entertainer. That’s obvious to anyone that has seen her play for the USWNT, the Spirit, at UCLA, or with youth national teams. The tricks, the moves, the celebrations all point to a player who wants to put on a show.
Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
It also becomes clear in conversation. An interview about offseason training pivots on a dime into Sanchez laughingly recounting a one-car fender bender she got into days after buying a new Tesla (she and her passenger Emily Fox were not injured, and the car was easily repaired). A misunderstanding in a post-game interview comes with the kind of exaggerated reaction more commonly seen in sketch comedy than the media room at Audi Field.
In front of a crowd of thousands, or just talking to a reporter, Sanchez wants to bring some levity to the table. That informs her style of play, and in terms of raw ability, there are few doubts that Sanchez can deliver at the highest level. The creativity and showmanship that comes out when she’s joking around materialize in highlight-reel goals and assists. She’s the kind of player people pay to watch.
The questions for Sanchez have in the past revolved around consistency: can she impact games when she’s not absolutely feeling it, or not finding the pockets as easily as she’d like? Will the defensive effort be there?
Speaking to Pro Soccer Wire not long before being officially named to the USWNT’s World Cup roster, Sanchez is blunt about how the consistently high expectations placed on her for club and country — a big difference from the first three seasons of her pro career — have sparked a change for her.
“The standards are so high in both places that it’s like, no drop-off,” explained Sanchez. “I’m just feeling really prepared when I do go into [national team] camp because it’s like the same exact environment.”
According to her, that’s a stark contrast from years past, where things like high pressing and defensive effort were simply not part of her job description with the Spirit.
“Obviously, it’s expected at the national team. And I would do it there, and I’d come back and it was like…I mean, no one really cares,” said Sanchez. “But I just think [Spirit head coach Mark Parsons’ system] just helps in a way. I gotta train it a lot, I gotta practice it a lot, [do it] in games. And then it’s not a shock to the system when I go in with the national team.”
Sanchez was speaking about a specific need to put in more hard running without the ball, but it reflects the inconsistencies and instability that have surrounded her at club level. Despite a path that seemed to be leading inexorably to this point, Sanchez has barely experienced anything resembling smooth sailing.
Think about the last few years in the NWSL, and at the Washington Spirit in particular. The pandemic started weeks after Sanchez was selected fourth overall in the 2020 NWSL College Draft. Sanchez’s first pro season, a massively valuable moment for growth, would see her play a total of nine competitive games, all in empty, minor-league stadiums.
Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
In 2021, the Spirit managed to win the league championship in completely unlikely fashion, but were also one of the focus points in the abuse scandal that has changed women’s sports on a fundamental level. Washington’s players — after the dismissal of head coach Richie Burke, one of the coaches found to have committed that abuse — ended up playing a major factor in an ownership change, standing together to demand a sale of the team.
In 2022, a new set of problems emerged. The Spirit could not find their feet amid a grueling, over-stuffed early season schedule. Burke’s replacement Kris Ward was dismissed over a training ground incident, while a team that had talked about its justifiably huge ambitions finished in 11th place.
Her club and international teammate Andi Sullivan, in an interview with Pro Soccer Wire, said it’s been at least as difficult as those facts would make it seem.
“I think she’s had — and not just lately and now, but her whole professional career — a lot of difficulty with the timing [of when] she came into the league, and the team that she came to, and the challenges that have been presented to her,” said Sullivan.
Despite all of that, Sanchez found her role with the USWNT growing. After getting her first cap late in 2021, she scored her first senior international goal in April 2022. Sanchez’s play may have waxed and waned amid the chaos with the Spirit, but Andonovski kept calling her in with the knowledge that she wasn’t far from being a truly special player at the highest level.
At long last, 2023 has offered Sanchez the stability to move consistently in that direction. Sanchez has responded accordingly, saying she approached this offseason as if it “might be the most important offseason” of her career.
“I think [there] was a lot more added pressure in obviously going into a World Cup year, and my first real opportunity to be on the team,” said Sanchez. “I think I kind of went at it a little bit differently. Me and some of the other players on the national team all trained together in LA, which was really fun and we got really good work in. I think that really helped me.”
That group included Fox as well as veterans like Crystal Dunn, Sofia Huerta, Alyssa Naeher, and Becky Sauerbrunn. In each case, those players aren’t just USWNT regulars, but models of consistency. It’s a dream group in terms of modeling the high standards that are a part of the national team’s internal culture, and in helping steer Sanchez towards this evolution in her game.
Still, the offseason is short, and most of Sanchez’s growth has come in training with the Spirit. On that front, she says that — after admitting some skepticism — the club’s own improvements have surpassed her expectations.
“It’s really funny, because last year, I was in the office of [Spirit general manager] Mark Krikorian and he was just like, ‘You have to trust me.’ He kept saying that,” said Sanchez. “I was like, ‘You know, I’ve heard this a lot of times, but OK, I will.’ And I think he’s just exceeded everything. Him and Michele [Kang, the Spirit’s owner] have put together the greatest staff group ever.
“I just feel like I’ve grown so much in such a short amount of time, on the field, off the field, professionalism, all the things. When I reflect back, I’m like… I would not have done that last year, I would have thought completely different. I just honestly think they’ve been great in my development, on the field and off the field.”
That manifests most specifically in a changed mindset when it comes to pressing. While the Spirit and USWNT play different systems, the No. 10 for both teams cannot be a passenger, and Sanchez says she’s been able to transform her mentality when it comes to being without the ball.
“I changed my mindset [from] ‘I’m just defending and pressing or whatever,'” Sanchez says with a mock roll of the eyes, conveying how she used to think of that part of the game as a sort of drudgery. “I think when you put your mind on ‘Oh, this can be a really good attacking opportunity to catch them when they’re disorganized,’ or whatever. I think when I thought about it that way, it’s really easy to want to get the ball.”
Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
It has not gone unnoticed. Parsons told reporters in May that in his analysis of the team heading into 2023, Sanchez was “in and out of games, and [her] defending was in and out as well,” before characterizing her as undergoing “a transformation this year.”
Sullivan echoes that sentiment, saying that she’s seen Sanchez become more consistent, and also sharpen her ability to choose the right time and place to showcase her attacking skills.
“People were drawn to her for the Spirit and for the national team because of those moments of just being able to slice something open that no one else could,” said Sullivan. “Since going into the national team, and Vlatko demanding a lot of her and now, this offseason under Mark with a clear style and a clear role and clear standards, she’s just been able to absorb all of that and grow a lot.
“I think that’s credit, obviously to Mark and his coaching, but moreso Sanchez absorbing that information and being coachable and applying the information that he is giving her.”
That last point comes through from Sanchez herself, with the playmaker saying that she’s taken on the “never too high, never too low” philosophy that Parsons has preached since being hired late in 2022. That includes an increased emphasis on video analysis, which comes from both the Spirit and the USWNT.
With a laugh, Sanchez said the enjoyability of those sessions “depends how well I played,” but quickly adds that she’s taking on a more even-keeled approach to analyzing her mistakes. “It’s never as bad as you think it is. But then also, you can’t get better if you don’t watch it and analyze these things.”
Per Sanchez, a high level of specificity is a constant in those discussions, which has been a welcome shift away from coming to her own conclusions from game film.
“Before, when I would watch film on my own, I was like, ‘I think I could do something better here,’ but there’s nobody telling me exactly what I should be doing,” explained Sanchez. “Now it’s like, I know it’s expected of me, so it’s easier for me to analyze, but they also give me feedback: ‘You’re in good space, but you need to face up. You need to be out of the shadow, two feet to the right.’
“I think that just made it really easy on the field, to be remembering things like that. And I can kind of be like, ‘OK, this is exact same play, and I need to do this.’ And then it usually works out, so I think they know what they’re talking about.”
All of which adds up to the Sanchez of 2023: still extravagantly talented, but now a player that her teams can rely on in all phases of the game. This is the Sanchez that the USWNT will be looking to at the World Cup:
The flair she’s known for is obvious, but consider everything else at play in this moment. Washington had just fallen behind 1-0, on the road against the Portland Thorns. Sophia Smith golazo, Providence Park is roaring.
It’s a gut-check moment for the Spirit, and as Dorian Bailey’s cross kind of creeps through, it’s running away from everyone.
This is where we see the difference. The cleverness and skill level involved in Sanchez’s heel flick — and it’s intentional, as you can see from how she finds Ashley Hatch with her eyes — is staggering, but she’s doing this at a full sprint. This play is a lost cause, and Sanchez had to put in major work to deliver that bit of magic. There’s no waiting for the moment the defense stands off of her, but rather an insistence. She’s not accepting a gift, but rather changing the game, as a protagonist.
Data bears this out with the Spirit. In 2021, with Sanchez on the field, the Spirit were barely breaking even, with FBref saying Washington’s expected goals per 90 minutes were merely a plus-0.05 above how they did without her. In 2022, that number fell into minus-0.07, meaning Washington fared slightly better when one of its best players was not on the field.
In 2023? That figure has jumped dramatically, with Sanchez’s plus-0.38 the best total on Washington’s roster.
As a player whose own in-game actions depend heavily on what the attacking midfielder in front of her is doing, Sullivan’s perspective may offer the best summary of Sanchez’s maturation.
“I’m looking at things that she has to deal with, and I’m blown away,” said an effusive Sullivan. “I think she is really growing more resilient [in] handling things, and I think that’s — honestly that’s how you survive the national team. Things don’t get easier. You get better at handling those difficult moments and you bounce back quicker and you stay steadier, and I think I see that more and more from her every day, and it’s really cool to witness.”
Heading into the World Cup break, and the chaos is back
The NWSL is heading into its World Cup break, and the vibes are all over the place.
Some teams could use the break to make some tweaks, get healthy, or even go for a wholesale adjustment. By contrast, a few others may just be hitting their stride, and will be understandably frustrated to have a couple of weeks without more games to build on their current momentum.
Naturally for this topsy-turvy league, the teams that need the break are closer to the top of the table, while most of the teams that are settling into a groove are the ones just outside the playoff places. In a couple of weeks, the NWSL has gone from the brink of “we might not have a serious race for postseason spots” to “everyone’s in the mix.”
For one last time before the World Cup gauntlet begins, here’s your Weekend Take-Off.
The only predictable thing in the NWSL is its unpredictability
The National Women’s Soccer League is not a normal league.
Last week, the major through-line for this column was that the league’s six playoff teams were already threatening to separate themselves. This past weekend’s schedule paired the teams in playoff places with teams on the outside, and could have more or less sealed a haves and have-nots stretch run (give or take the Houston Dash clinging to the contending pack).
Instead:
Wrote last week that it was now or never already for the bottom 6, and they appear to have chosen "now" https://t.co/i8cvUldj3c
The teams entering the weekend sitting seventh or worse went 3W-2D-1L against the top six. The Kansas City Current and Orlando Pride got road wins against the Portland Thorns and Washington Spirit (arguably the two most consistently good teams in the NWSL in 2023). The Chicago Red Stars got a shutout! Up is down, left is right. That’s our league.
We talk all the time about NWSL parity, but this was parity to the point of parody. Of course the NWSL had a weekend where the teams that can’t win all rise up to beat the teams that can’t lose.
After a long, rocky road, the Spirit’s 2023 Pride Night marks a turning point
It took 11 seasons, but the Washington Spirit finally took some serious pride in their Pride Night.
Theme nights at Audi Field come and go, as they do at most stadiums. Fans who are particularly engrossed in the game, or who use halftime to buy a pupusa rather than watch the on-field festivities, might go home at full time without even knowing what the specific event was.
On June 3, being oblivious to the theme in place was impossible.
For one thing, it’s hard to even get into the stadium due to the lines the team’s Pride Night giveaway is attracting. Most nights, a table by Gate B has one or two fans grabbing an item funded by a sponsor and moving on.
On this night? Dozens are queued up to collect a full-sized Pride flag — these end up being ubiquitous throughout the stadium — before posing for selfies with their prize. A drag performer is belting out Tina Turner’s hits up at Gate A, and a table where fans can sign up for the Spirit Squadron supporters’ group is slammed. Kickoff is 45 minutes away, and people are beaming like the Spirit just walked off with a big win.
The vibe couldn’t be more different than in years past. Pride Night events have only rarely had official support from the team, and were held at distant, spartan venues or almost entirely spearheaded by fans themselves. The fact that 2022’s Pride Night was held at Segra Field (an exurban stadium that fans refer to as if it were an exorcised demon) rather than Audi Field in the District was just one point of contention on a long list.
“We have always had Pride,” Spirit Squadron vice president Meredith Bartley explained to Pro Soccer Wire. “It has just been small scale, what we could accomplish at the [Maryland Soccerplex] as a small supporters’ group, fighting incredible odds.”
“So to have this whole, entire — it’s festive. It’s awesome. People are grabbing flags, wearing them as capes, people are really into it. It feels incredible to have this, and we’ve come so far.”
Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
In the NWSL’s early years, the Spirit — despite annual requests from fans and even players— never held a Pride event of any kind while its original owner Bill Lynch was the club’s controlling stakeholder. The team did hold military-themed nights, but otherwise steered clear of anything that could be construed as involving political opinions.
U.S. women’s national team stars Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger, who would later get married, manufactured moves away from the club. The team’s refusal to celebrate Pride was not the only reason to want out, but this particular issue seems high on their list. Krieger — a Virginia native and arguably the club’s most beloved player at the time of her departure — later told Power Plays that during her time with Washington, she “didn’t feel like I was playing for a club that really respected me and supported me and my lifestyle.”
In 2016, the Spirit hosted one of the most infamous nights in NWSL history. Lynch ordered staff to play the national anthem 25 minutes before kickoff to prevent Megan Rapinoe from having a platform to continue her support of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police violence against Black people nationwide. In discussing that choice with reporters, Rapinoe said she felt Lynch was homophobic, a charge Lynch denied.
Following a dismal 2018 season, Lynch sold most of his stake in the club to Steve Baldwin, but LGBTQ fans could be forgiven for seeing that as only the most modest step forward.
On one hand, Baldwin promised fans a Pride Night in a public statement within months of taking over as majority owner, and followed through in June 2019.
Adding to the distrust, Baldwin would spearhead a 2020 trip that saw him and several players go to Qatar for what the club called a “cultural exchange.” While Baldwin would defend the trip in an interview with The Athletic, the Spirit Squadron would issue a statement criticizing the trip, noting Qatar’s history of “government sanctioned intolerance and discrimination towards both women and the LGTBQ+ community.”
That rocky history played out amid the generally tough experience that came with being a Washington Spirit fan. Until a staggeringly unlikely run to win the 2021 NWSL championship, the club’s high-water mark was a heartbreaking loss on penalties in the 2016 final, and its lows included two of the worst seasons in American women’s soccer history. Even that 2021 triumph was inexorably linked to the abuse scandals that rocked the entire league that season, with the Spirit among the most directly involved after bombshell reports revealed abusive conduct from Burke and a hostile working environment linked to former team president Larry Best.
All of which is to say this year’s Pride Night comes with a mix of feelings around Audi Field. The joy is palpable, but for long-time fans, there is also relief, and a certain level of wariness.
It’s not hard to figure out why. The club’s checkered history off the field lends itself to skepticism, even as Michele Kang’s ownership has seen the club’s staff and resources grow in a way that makes a large-scale Pride Night celebration possible. It’s a huge step, but one step doesn’t heal the scars of a fraught history packed into just 11 years.
Even the positives are tangled within negatives. Pulling a trophy out of the wreckage of 2021 is a perfect example. The trade that got Krieger the escape from the club she needed was the first domino in a chain of events that eventually ended with the Spirit drafting Ashley Sanchez, an emerging USWNT star and fan favorite. Seemingly every facet of the club’s history is enmeshed.
“I think unfortunately that that is a part of the club’s history,” said Spirit defender Anna Heilferty, who despite being unavailable this season due to injury participated in the planning and promotion of the event. “I think a lot of what we’re doing moving forward is an emphasis on those areas that we’ve kind of maybe overlooked, or not necessarily valued how much impact it can have.”
That odyssey through more lows than highs explains the jubilant atmosphere being in place well before Trinity Rodman’s early goal, or what the team called the largest drag performance in NWSL history.
Drag was a particularly big point of emphasis for this year’s event, especially in the face of far-right protesters nationwide attempting to intimidate performers and attendees. Those protests may be less common in D.C. than in other parts of the country, but the Spirit still wanted to unabashedly embrace the idea.
With those realities in mind, the team’s president of business operations Emma May told Pro Soccer Wire “a considerable amount” of thought went into ensuring that Audi Field was truly a safe space on the night.
“We were proud of what we were going to put forward, and we also are aware of the environment that our world is currently in,” said May. “As an organization, we took additional steps to make sure that we had eyes and ears everywhere in the stadium, and that we were just kind of overtly on the look for anything that didn’t feel right.”
“Drag is flourishing in D.C., but only in the spaces that it’s really created for itself,” added Heilferty, who was done up in drag as part of the team and city’s joint promotional efforts. “It was so important to have [the team] create that safe space for drag to be celebrated, for the LGBTQ community to be celebrated, and I feel like that’s so rewarding.”
Who is ready for the LARGEST #Drag Halftime show in @NWSL herstory?
— Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs #DistrictofPride (@DCLGBTQ) May 29, 2023
Another key aspect of a Pride Night where fans felt truly seen and supported was the aforementioned flag giveaway. There’s no other way to put it: they’re big flags. With temperatures dipping lower than expected as the game wore on, many fans were literally wrapped in their Pride flags.
Event planning involves hammering out as many details as possible, but it also requires some agility when things change. For example, if you order what you think will be thousands of medium-sized flags for Pride Night, only to find a box full of much larger versions arriving for gameday.
For the Spirit, this was a happy accident, but it was one they had to consider from all angles.
“When I got there, and I saw them putting out the massive flags — this is hours and hours before the match — I was shocked, because I knew we were giving out flags, but I had no idea that we were giving out massive, real-size flags,” explained May. “We were not planning that. They were still [supposed] to be pretty big. They weren’t the dinky flags, right? But I did not think they were full size flags.”
May said the operations team had a quick meeting to discuss the possibility that people may be careless with the flags, either holding them up and blocking the view of the game for other fans, or by discarding with them due to their sheer size.
“What if people didn’t like them? What if they were too big, and people were putting them on the ground?” said May in summarizing that pre-game huddle. “That would have been just, it would have broken our hearts.”
The club decided to put its trust in the fans, and the result was Pride colors anywhere a person could look.
“We had no idea how loved they were going to be,” said May. “We certainly worked really hard to make sure that they were the most up-to-date flag, to include intersex, but we did not know. We were so thrilled, and of course now we’re like, ‘well now we can’t give away dinky small flags ever again.'”
Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
All that said, the positivity of the team’s most successful Pride Night does not undo the decade that came before it. As Jim Ensor, a member of 202 Unique (a queer-centered supporters’ group for both the Spirit and D.C. United) told Pro Soccer Wire, there is still a lot of work to be done to rebuild trust.
“You have to remember that at the end of the day, it was just one night, and it was just one event,” said Ensor. “I think everybody is coming at it from — and by everybody, I mean fan-wise and supporters’ group-wise — we’re coming in with a sense of, ‘okay, we’ll give you another shot.'”
“Because you’re trying to do the right thing here. And you’re communicating with us. You’re asking the right questions now. You’re listening. You’re delivering on some of the things that you said you do. So I think we come at it from ‘okay, we get another shot at this.'”
Bartley noted that the local issues with the Spirit are happening in the larger context of the NWSL, a league that has effectively started from zero after the devastating revelations in both the Yates report and the joint league/NWSL Players’ Association investigation.
“We are not there yet,” said Bartley. “There are still some stories that need to be told as far as the front office staff goes. But, we are a lot further along, and we can’t not celebrate just because there’s still work to do.”
May, who like many Spirit employees involved in the event only joined the club in recent months, acknowledged that there’s pressure from multiple angles to get it right.
“It is tricky, right? And so is pulling off massive drag shows. But here’s the thing: we don’t have an option to fail,” said May. “We are in a place in our organization, and the league, where we’ve got new people coming in every single match. We have got to make an amazing impression every single time, because truly, the business depends on it.”
While no one on any side was ready to say this job was done, that’s a level of urgency that has been hard to find with the Spirit, or within the NWSL writ large. Few things could underline the energy behind the Spirit’s shift towards embracing its LGBTQ fans than a current player on the team like Heilferty getting involved with the nitty-gritty of Pride Night.
It’s easy to do a quick video for social media or other de rigueur non-soccer promotional duties that players always have. It’s another to try drag make-up for the first time — Heilferty confessed that, as someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy getting dressed up, she was surprised at how much fun she had with her “drag mother” Shi-Queeta Lee — or help paint a Spirit Squadron tifo that read “District of Pride.”
“The fans, the community around soccer, have been asking for these things. They’re passionate about these things,” said Heilferty. “They want to see their team investing in these topics. And I’m happy to show up in that way, with the time that I’m now given.”
Heilferty was quick to downplay her own role, crediting multiple club staffers and former Spirit midfielder Gaby Vincent (who now works as a Community Outreach Specialist for the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs) for the event’s success. Still, as both a player on the team and a local who knows the team’s past, Heilferty could speak to how this Pride Night might make a longer-lasting impact.
“I think moving forward as a club, it’s a focus for us to return that love and create spaces where they feel safe,” said Heilferty. “I think playing a role in that, as much as I can as a player, was important to me.”
June 3 didn’t mark the first example of Pride being important to the culture around the Spirit, but it is possibly a much-needed turning point for fans who have felt like their care for the team isn’t fully reciprocated.
“I mean, we have always celebrated Pride because that is who we are,” said Bartley. “We celebrate all of our communities, but to have the team and have the front office behind it? It has been incredible, because it feels like my team loves me back.”
The World Cup break isn’t quite here yet, but for this NWSL season, it feels like we’ve hit an inflection point.
The 13th round of matches is clearly past the halfway point in a 22-game season, but it does serve as a sort of act break for the drama that is this league. With players leaving for the World Cup, it’s a moment to take stock on where teams are, and what the stretch run might start to look like.
In short, we really have two groups: a top seven who should be in the battle for six playoff spots through the end of the season, and a bottom five whose hopes are already surprisingly dim.
That might seem harsh on Racing Louisville, just three points out of that top seven, but consider this: the San Diego Wave hold the final playoff spot, and their current points-per-game (PPG) pace has them on course for a 34-point total.
Louisville would need 19 points from their final nine games to match that total, which is 2.11 PPG. A hypothetical team on 2.11 PPG through 13 games this season would have 27 points and be two points clear of the Portland Thorns, who have been outstanding this season.
Barring a collapse from the playoff contenders (none of whom look like they have a lengthy losing run on their bingo card), the teams on the outside have already hit their It’s Go Time moment.
Note to the world: It’s bad to play against Sophia Smith
If Sophia Smith brings her current form to the World Cup, the rest of the world should be on the high alert.
Smith, projected to start for the U.S. women’s national team in New Zealand and Australia, bolstered her NWSL MVP candidacy with a jaw-dropping hat trick as her Portland Thorns won 4-2 in a top-of-the-table clash with the Washington Spirit.
It took something special: the Spirit came into the match with one of the league’s best defensive records, and walked away feeling like they’d largely played well. In an electric 90 minutes that could serve as a calling card for the NWSL as a league, no one had more wattage than Smith.
“[I] thought we turned up and we were fantastic in being brave, and making this more like a game that we wanted to control,” said Washington head coach Mark Parsons.
“But, we played against Sophia Smith.”
Smith’s first goal was a masterpiece. Picking up a smart pass from Sam Coffey, it seemed like the job was to hold onto the ball and wait for support. There were five Spirit players in proximity, and Smith’s angle to her closest teammate Crystal Dunn was blocked.
Normally this isn’t a huge problem for opposition defenses. Best case, you make a tackle. Worst, you contain and win the ball later.
Against Smith? Seven seconds later, she’s celebrating one of the best goals anyone will score this season.
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 24, 2023
The Spirit equalized within two minutes after Ashley Sanchez — who was one of several players to put in a top-tier performance in this game, only for all to be overshadowed by Smith going supernova — delivered a spectacular backheel to Ashley Hatch on the doorstep.
Washington has been good all year at turning these potential momentum-swing moments to their advantage. But, again, they played Sophia Smith.
The 22-year-old got a bit lucky after blocking USWNT teammate Andi Sullivan’s attempt to flick an awkward bounce out of danger. Instead, the ball fell kindly for Smith, and in a flash, it was 2-1.
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 24, 2023
“When I’m dribbling towards the goal, if I see a sliver of an open net, I’m taking a shot,” Smith told reporters after the game before adding a casual remark that may read as a terrifying threat to the other 31 teams at this World Cup. “Recently, I’ve had some good luck with shots from distance. So, I’m gonna keep doing that.”
Sanchez would equalize seconds after the halftime break ended, but once again, Smith had the immediate answer. This time, she ran into an improvisational toe-poke from Hina Sugita that caught the Spirit back line stepping up. Smith’s finish was a little easier this time around, but no less clinical.
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 24, 2023
“Obviously, Sophia Smith’s a great player,” said Sanchez after the match. “When you give her time on the ball, you know bad things are gonna happen.”
Smith ‘the one percent tonight’
Following the game, Parsons acknowledged that his team were punished for some very small mistakes by a very special player.
“Let’s be honest: In those moments, I think 99%, you don’t concede a goal,” said Parsons. “And Sophia Smith decided that she was gonna be the 1% tonight.”
“I have to go into this tournament feeling like my best self, feeling like my most confident self, and I knew this game was important in doing that,” said Smith in evaluating her own performance. “Because if I were to leave this field and feel like I didn’t do what I needed to do, and I wasn’t myself, it’d be a stressful time.”
It seems like she’ll be completely relaxed, then, as her second hat trick in a season that has only seen 13 rounds of games was possibly her best showing as a professional. Even Christine Sinclair, her club teammate and playful banter target, was left wondering if playing a USWNT with Smith would be a good or bad thing at the World Cup.
“I believe the path [for both teams] would mean we’d be playing in the World Cup final, so why not? Let’s go for it,” reasoned the most prolific international goalscorer on the planet, before having a second thought. “Maybe not if she’s in the form that she was in tonight.”
What connection could a USWNT forward have to an NBA legend?
Even U.S. women’s national team players lean on a family connection every now and then.
U.S. Soccer pulled out all the stops in a roster announcement hype video, getting President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden to introduce what turned out to be a list of mostly non-soccer celebrities to congratulate each player for making the squad.
The connections varied, with Alex Morgan getting a shout-out from her friend Taylor Swift, while one Megan (Rapinoe) got a message from another (Thee Stallion). College connections and shared home states, came up more than once, but in some cases the link was a little more personal.
Trinity Rodman, for one, has known the big name chosen to help announce to the world that she was going to her first World Cup for a long time.
“Mine was cool. Uncle Shaq,” joked Rodman while speaking to reporters on Thursday about Shaquille O’Neal, the famously tall former NBA legend and friend of the family through her father, former Chicago Bulls star Dennis Rodman. “Obviously Shaq and my dad were friends and stuff, and he saw me at a really young age… It was awesome. And he’s super cool.”
𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄!
We asked a few friends to help with this year’s World Cup roster announcement
— U.S. Women's National Soccer Team (@USWNT) June 21, 2023
There may have been more degrees of separation for Andi Sullivan and actor Rainn Wilson, but the link wouldn’t have happened without someone close to the Washington Spirit midfielder.
“I love The Office. I also just found out that my husband was involved in the suggestion of that,” explained Sullivan, whose husband Drew Skundrich plays for the Colorado Springs Switchbacks of the USL Championship. “When I told him about it, I was like ‘oh my gosh, they know me so well,’ and he was like, ‘no, Andi, I know you so well.’ So, I love that so much, and I love Rainn Wilson.”
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