Enter, Sophia Smith, a talented U.S. women’s national team forward without a World Cup appearance, on a sun-drenched Saturday afternoon at Eden Park. Exit, Sophia Smith, the youngest USWNT player to score multiple goals in her World Cup debut. No longer a mere player on a world’s stage, instead she is “THAT girl,” as teammate Alex Morgan said.
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From Colorado to Stanford and the youth national team to the No. 1 overall draft pick for the Portland Thorns and 2022 NWSL most valuable player, Smith has been preparing for this moment for years. While observers of the NWSL have known the depth of her talent for two years, she officially introduced herself on the biggest stage yet — less than three weeks before her 23rd birthday. She ended Saturday involved in every USWNT goal in the 3-0 defeat of Vietnam: scoring two, and providing an assist.
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But what makes up “THAT girl”? It’s much more than a nose for goal and a killer left foot. Behind her smile and shrug is an athlete that relishes one-on-one challenges, beats defenders from anywhere, reads a defensive shift and breaks it down herself. She has the feet, the brains and the stomach for the pressure of leading the USWNT. Smith is pure ruthlessness with a smile.
She’s THAT girl. Great team win💥 pic.twitter.com/6r9IV9XJcG
— Alex Morgan (@alexmorgan13) July 22, 2023
On Saturday, after the long wait to determine if her second goal stood, Smith celebrated. She drew her hand across her face as if to zip her lips, then threw away the key. For the casual observer, perhaps, it looked like a warning to people to stop running their mouths. But that would be stopping at “THAT girl” Sophia. For those who watched the 2019 NCAA College Cup, it was clear that Smith had in fact copied Stanford goalkeeper Katie Meyer’s iconic celebration after saving a penalty en route to winning the title.
“That was for Katie,” Smith said in the mixed zone. It was a planned celebration she worked out with center-back Naomi Girma. Led by Girma, Smith and some other USWNT teammates put out a campaign ahead of the World Cup opener promoting mental health — a project they did in honor of Meyer, who died by suicide in March 2022.
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“That was pretty iconic what she did in the College Cup, and we just want to honor her in every way,” Smith said
The celebration also served as a reminder that there is another element to the sort of life-changing attention a World Cup can provide. The players face an extraordinary challenge of focusing on winning the games in front of them with protecting their own mental and emotional well-being. Only days ago, Smith had told reporters that her World Cup experience had felt surreal so far, and that the fact she was playing in the tournament might actually finally hit her during the first match.
The nerves were there against Vietnam, she admitted afterwards, despite the fact that she usually doesn’t get nervous. But she was also ready to dance through the leading questions as swiftly and sure-footedly as she had danced through defenders only minutes before, shrugging aside inquiries on if the USWNT had scored enough goals on Saturday or if she was already thinking about winning the tournament’s golden boot.
“I tell everyone: I want to win a World Cup and whatever comes with that comes with that,” she replied, simply.
As much as Smith is insulating herself from outside pressure (she’s deleted Twitter from her phone, “best thing I’ve ever done”), she’s taking full advantage of her stage beyond the show on the field.
Smith is aware of just how much she is being talked about, and that is only going to get more and more intense as the team progresses through this tournament.
“I feel it, I definitely feel it,” she had said on Wednesday. “It means people believe in me. I say that all the time. But I try not to overthink it, and it means that I just need to keep being myself, doing what I’ve been doing, and not put too much pressure on myself.”
The frenzy around her isn’t within her control. But she’s also not afraid to engage with it, to play with it a bit, either. Just take Nike’s campaign built around her for this World Cup, titled “Nice To Beat You”.
Smith embraces being the villain on the field. She’ll pull that feeling out for anything, whether it’s the shrug celebration she went with at last year’s NWSL championship to silence her doubters, or even over her NWSL team’s divisive jersey design. “We love the haters,” she said. “Keep it coming, because that just makes winning feel even better.”
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The energy seems to power “THAT girl”, but maybe there’s some sort of magic around her debuts too.
In her 2020 NWSL debut during the Fall Series, she scored 17 minutes after stepping onto the field. That same year, USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski called her “the most comfortable rookie in the NWSL that we’ve seen”, in an interview with The Athletic.
“It was almost like she walked onto the field like she had a hundred games under her belt,” he said. “That showed in her game, that showed in her movement, it showed in the way she composed herself in the game.”
Three years later, Andonovski might well have said the same thing about her World Cup debut — though this was Smith’s 31st appearance for the USWNT. But the difficulty level between the NWSL Fall Series and the World Cup is like the difference between a round of putt-putt and playing in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
“Being on this team, it just comes with a big target on your back, it comes with pressure, it comes with a big platform. We all know this is nothing new, even the young players who haven’t played in the World Cup,” Smith said. “We know that — the veterans (in the squad) make sure we know that.”
Luckily for everyone prepared to watch her at this World Cup, that combination was something she found exciting.
“All we hope to do is continue on that legacy, and do things that teams have never done,” Smith continued, saying that her generation of players had accepted the pressure. “It’s what life has become now, and I think it’s fun. I love it.”
Smith’s next stage awaits her on Wednesday, game two against the Netherlands in Wellington/Te Whanganui-a-Tara. The spotlight does too. She’s ready to play many parts though — whatever this team needs from her.
There’s a World Cup to win, after all, an eventful history still to write.
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(Photo: Robin Alam/USSF/Getty Images )
Meg Linehan is a senior writer for The Athletic who covers the U.S. women's national team, the National Women's Soccer League and more. She also hosts the weekly podcast "Full Time with Meg Linehan." Follow Meg on Twitter @itsmeglinehan
