Tierna Davidson is almost ready to play for the USWNT again after a long injury absence

ORLANDO — When watching the U.S. women or any other national soccer team, it can be easy to think that however a roster looks in a given moment is how it will be when the next big tournament comes around.

This time, though, it’s different.

With five months to go until the World Cup kicks off in New Zealand, the current U.S. women’s squad is missing key pieces at positions across the field. Many of them are expected to be healthy by showtime in late July. An especially key one is so close to returning that she’s taking part in U.S training camp before the upcoming SheBelieves Cup, though she won’t play in the tournament.

Tierna Davidson has been off the field for nearly 11 months because of an ACL tear she suffered in practice late last March with her club team, the NWSL’s Chicago Red Stars. Her absence put a big hole in the national team’s centerback depth chart, with just three players taking almost all the minutes since then.

Naomi Girma has been outstanding, a near-lock starter at just 22. Becky Sauerbrunn has been a reliable veteran, but she turns 38 in June and time does not wait for defenders. Alana Cook has taken much of the rest of the playing time, and the 25-year-old has been good — but not always good enough. She has made some notable mistakes in recent months that led directly to goals conceded.

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Davidson is expected to return to action for the U.S. in its April gathering for a camp and two games, with opponents and locations still to be announced. It will be a big boost.

“I would say I’m somewhere around 90% or so of the way there,” the 24-year-old told The Inquirer before Saturday’s practice. “I think this last 10% is a lot about fine-tuning — the very small, minute details, things you kind of forget that you have to do and have to do really well in order to be in this kind of environment.”

A good chunk of that 90% was built during a winter rehab stay at German club VfL Wolfsburg, one of Europe’s most famous women’s teams. The Red Stars and Wolfsburg formed an alliance last September. Perhaps this wasn’t how it was supposed to work, but it definitely did.

In fact, it might have worked a little too well. Davidson’s presence in Wolfsburg was announced not by a formal statement, but by a photo of her jogging at a practice last November that the team posted on social media without identifying her. U.S. fans saw it and started sleuthing, and a few days later German media confirmed it.

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“Oh, it was fantastic. I’m so happy that I went,” Davidson said. “They were so welcoming and so professional, so I’m really happy that I chose to take a couple months there for my rehab. It really helped my offseason training, and I got to make some really cool friends and meet some people, see Germany.”

Some of those newfound friends happen to be among the planet’s best players: Germany’s Lena Oberdorf, Alex Popp, Tabea Wassmuth and Jule Brand, the Netherlands’ Dominique Janssen and Jill Roord, and Sweden’s Rebecka Blomqvist. They’ll face Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA women’s Champions League quarterfinals next month, hoping to bring Wolfsburg its third European crown and first since 2014 — with three runner-up finishes since then.

If Davidson goes to the World Cup, she’ll likely see Janssen and Roord again when the U.S. faces the Dutch in a group stage rematch of the 2019 title game. The others could be opponents in the knockout rounds.

“Obviously I knew a lot of the roster playing against them, watching them play, and especially having just watched them play against the U.S. just a few weeks before I went there,” Davidson said, referring to the U.S.-Germany series last November. “It was really very cool to be in that environment, to see how they are not just in a game, but day in and day out in training.”

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And was there a little espionage ahead of this summer, perhaps?

“Not so much,” she said with a hearty laugh. “Obviously, it’ll be fun to hopefully see some of them in New Zealand. But I think it was a lot of me learning from them, of me having to unfortunately focus a lot on myself and what I was doing.”

Davidson said she enjoyed watching from afar as a new crop of U.S. players made their marks in recent months. But she’d undoubtedly rather have been out there with them.

“It’s unfortunately part of what you sign up for when you decide to take the route of a professional athlete, so it comes with its risks,” she said. “But it definitely was difficult. I feel like I was able to learn a lot about myself as a person and as a teammate through this process, which I’m grateful for, but I’m definitely happy to be back on the field.”

The next milestone will come at the end of next month, when the NWSL season kicks off on the last weekend of March. Davidson said she’s aiming to be ready to play for the Red Stars in their opener at the San Diego Wave, led by Girma and superstar Alex Morgan.

“As long as everything keeps trending in the direction that it has been,” Davidson said, “I’m hopeful to be on the field for Chicago in the first game.”

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