Tierna Davidson looked like her old self in her first USWNT game in 14 months

In her first national team game and just her third game overall since tearing an ACL 13 months ago, Davidson was quietly outstanding on the field.

Tierna Davidson (left) on the ball in front of Ireland's Lucy Quinn (right) during the second half of Tuesday's game.Read moreJoe Puetz / Getty Images

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published April 12, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

ST. LOUIS — Both the score and the style of the U.S. women’s soccer team’s 1-0 win over Ireland on Tuesday likely left manager Vlatko Andonovski with more questions than he hoped for from the last game before the World Cup roster is set.

But one key player offered a resounding answer for a crucial role: centerback Tierna Davidson.

In her first national team game and just her third game overall since tearing an ACL 13 months ago, Davidson was quietly outstanding on the field. Playing an hour as a preplanned substitute for Becky Sauerbrunn, she registered 55 touches, 42-of-46 passing, one tackle, two aerial duels won, one block, and six of what the box score called possessions won: picking up a loose ball after a rebound, clearance, and so on.

“I think that I’m still working on many aspects of my game that still need to get better,” Davidson said. “Both just from the general run of play, and also from getting back in the swing of things. But I’m feeling pretty good.”

Quietly outstanding is just how the 24-year-old from the NWSL’s Chicago Red Stars likes it. She isn’t a big talker, but has long had elite vision on the field along with her defensive ethic. That translates into a superb long passing touch, and she hit a few on a dime when the Irish defense forced traffic jams.

At times, it looked like Davidson had scarcely been gone for over a year. In fact, Andonovski admitted he thought she’d do more in this game. But he didn’t mind what she did.

“You could tell that she hasn’t played for a long time,” he said. “There were moments where I thought that she could be more assertive with the ball, but she was a little bit more conservative. Which is OK in moments like this, in games like this, when a player is coming back after a long time. It’s understandable.”

It helped that she got a pair of Red Stars games under her belt, and that she was part of the U.S.’ SheBelieves Cup training camp in Orlando in February. It also helped that she has long-standing chemistry with the other centerbacks who are likely headed to the World Cup: Sauerbrunn, Alana Cook, and Naomi Girma.

Davidson played with Sauerbrunn at the 2019 World Cup and 2020 Olympics, and played with Cook and Girma at Stanford: the former from 2016-18, and the latter in the last of those years.

“It really helps,” Davidson said. “With Becky, obviously she’s such a calming and steadfast presence, I can always rely on her to help boost my confidence or just give me some pointers to make sure that I’m sharpening my game.”

As for her fellow Stanford products, Davidson said playing with them “puts me at ease as well, because I know that I have their confidence and they have mine.”

She joked that she and Cook “have a brain cell that bounces back between Seattle [where Cook plays for OL Reign] and Chicago — one of us is the host one week, and the other one the other week.”

In this game, Davidson and Cook lined up together for Davidson’s hour on the field. Davidson and Girma haven’t played for the senior U.S. team together yet, because Girma made her debut soon after Davidson’s injury. But a lot of people would like to see them play together, and Davidson knows it.

There’s just one chance left for that to happen before the World Cup: the U.S. team’s send-off game on July 9 against Wales in San Jose, Calif.

But for now, it’s good enough that Davidson is back, healthy, looking sharp, and giving the American back line a big boost.

“In my mind, there was a lot of anticipation building up to it, and a lot of excited anxiousness, so I’m happy to have it done,” she said. “But it was really great to be back out there. My dad called me this morning and he said to make sure to enjoy the moment and appreciate what it’s taken to get back here. So I tried my best to do that, and it was fun.”