From Penn State to World Cup and Olympic stardom, Alyssa Naeher reflects on her soccer career

“It’s been the greatest honor to be a part of the U.S. women’s national team,” Naeher said as she prepared to play her final games for her country.

Alyssa Naeher working out during a U.S. women's soccer team practice in July at Rutgers before she headed to the Olympics.Read moreJonathan Tannenwald

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published Nov. 27, 2024, 4:56 p.m. ET

Long before Alyssa Naeher was an Olympic gold medalist, two-time World Cup champion, and goalkeeping hero for the U.S. women’s soccer team, she was a youth prospect who got to know a coach with deep Philly ties.

Bordentown-born, Huntingdon Valley-raised Erica Dambach wasn’t just the coach who recruited Naeher to Penn State in 2006. Dambach also brought Naeher into the U.S. youth national team program in 2004 and sparked a fire that has stayed lit for 20 years.

“Being part of the youth system playing under Erica at 17, that really helped guide where I wanted to go to college, knowing that I wanted to go and play pro and put myself in a position to be on the national team,” Naeher said Wednesday in her first news conference since announcing her upcoming retirement from the program.

The now-36-year-old was a two-time first-team All-American with the Nittany Lions, in 2007 and ’08. She also won the 2008 under-20 World Cup with the U.S. under another renowned coach: Tony DiCicco, leader of the 1999 World Cup legends.

“To play for Tony DiCicco at the time was incredible,” Naeher said. “He treated us like he treated the ’99ers and like he treated the full team. I think that prepared me and others who were on that team for what it would be like to be at a senior World Cup someday.”

It was no coincidence that Naeher played for DiCicco again when she started her pro career in 2010 with the Boston Breakers in Women’s Professional Soccer, the league that preceded the NWSL. (Or that her under-20 teammates included fellow future stars Alex Morgan, Sydney Leroux, and Meghan Klingenberg.)

“You always looked big picture — big dreams, big goals of Olympics and World Cups and being on this team,” Naeher said. “But everything came with incremental steps and trying to make small improvements around your game and what areas it would take [that] you needed to get better at in order to put yourself in the best position to get the opportunity. And then make sure when you got your opportunity, you were ready for it, you could grasp it and hold on.”

Naeher will step down from the national team after its upcoming games in Europe. On Saturday, the Americans face England at London’s Wembley Stadium (12:20 p.m., TNT, Telemundo 62, Universo), with over 80,000 tickets sold for the clash of the reigning Olympic and European champions. Then they visit the Netherlands on Tuesday in the Hague (2:45 p.m., TNT, truTV, Universo) to close out the year.

“It’s been the greatest honor to be a part of the U.S. women’s national team,” Naeher said. “Obviously, everything that we accomplished on the field in World Cups and Olympics, but everything off the field, as well, and what this team has always fought for and what this team has always stood for.”

That part, she admitted, is “something that I didn’t expect to really be a part of, necessarily, when I wanted to be a professional soccer player when I was a kid. But I think something that’s special about this team is it’s so much bigger than just the soccer aspect of it.”

Next year, Naeher will just play for her club team, the NWSL’s Chicago Red Stars, while the U.S. starts a new era in net on the way to the 2027 World Cup.

“You get to the end of any year, any season, and you just reevaluate where you’re at — mentally, physically, emotionally,” she said. “Three years from now, I’ll be 39 and 40 going into what would be the next World Cup and Olympics. I feel very proud of the career that I’ve had and what we’ve been able to accomplish as a team in these last 10 to 15 years, and I feel very fulfilled with what we’ve been able to do.”

Naeher admitted that “it takes a lot out of you, honestly,” and “I don’t do anything halfway.”

All those opposing stars she stared down facing penalty kicks can attest to that.

“If you can give 100% to it, then keep going, and with that in mind, I kind of just felt like this was the right time,” she said. “Coming off of the Olympics, having the year that we had, entering into a new cycle, a new stage for this team, it just felt like I’ve given everything I have to give to this team.”

She has set an example for generations of goalkeepers to come, just as Hope Solo — an all-time player, even with her off-field controversies — and Briana Scurry did before her.

“I think what I’ve tried to at least show and instill in the future generations is just the power of preparation: the mindset going into training, the preparedness of what it looks like to be able to play at this level,” Naeher said. “Having that balance of pushing each other each and every single day in training and then also supporting whoever’s on the field at any given time, because you know it’s going to come back around to you, and you’ll get that same support when you are on the field.”