There’s a Youth Movement Taking Over the NWSL

Young stars like Alyssa and Gisele Thompson, Jaedyn Shaw and Kennedy Fuller are part of the league’s first generation of players to skip college and turn pro as teenagers.

Alyssa and Gisele Thompson were born a year apart but grew up more like twins. “We're kind of together 24/7,” says 20-year-old Alyssa. “But it’s really nice.” They do nearly everything together. That has included almost every step of their athletic careers.

They both ran track. They played soccer together, quickly becoming two of the most prominent female youth players in the country, honing their skills alongside boys on an MLS NEXT team near their home in Southern California. They became some of the first high school athletes to land name, image and likeness deals with Nike, signing at the same time. And they assumed the next step would be playing college soccer together.

“Going to college together, going to Stanford, that was always the plan,” says Gisele, 19.

Brigitte Lacombe/NWSL

But the plan changed. When Alyssa verbally committed to Stanford as a 15-year-old in 2020, followed soon after by Gisele, they were on the standard path for young female players in the United States. Nearly everyone played in college. The exceptions were rare and notable. While Europe had its academy system, where the best teenagers can develop in a professional environment, the U.S. had instead always had the NCAA. But, college was increasingly beginning to seem less appealing for elite talent competing in a global landscape.

So the older sister jumped first. In October 2022, Alyssa made her debut with the U.S. senior national team at the age of 17, stepping onto the pitch before a massive crowd at Wembley Stadium against England. A few months later, she decommitted from Stanford and instead decided to enter the NWSL. She became the first player ever drafted straight from high school when taken No. 1 by Angel City FC.  

“It was one of the hardest decisions that I’ve had to make,” Alyssa says. “But ultimately it came down to what I wanted to do and what my dream was. And that was being a professional athlete.”  

Her younger sister was not sure at first if she would join her. But a few months later, she decided that her best path forward was going pro, too. A few days before her 18th birthday in December 2003, Gisele joined her sister at Angel City under a new league mechanism allowing teams to sign minors under specific conditions. “It was so perfectly aligned with us being in L.A., being close to our family, playing for our hometown,” Gisele says. The sisters were sticking to their original plan of being teammates after high school.

It just looked wildly different from what they had first imagined.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” Alyssa Thompson (right) says. “It’s just what you’ve done.” | Brigitte Lacombe/NWSL

They’re among the most visible faces of a youth movement in the NWSL. It began with a wave of star players choosing to leave college early: Sophia Wilson became the first teenager drafted into the league in 2020, leaving college at the age of 19, and Trinity Rodman followed in ’21. The system then received a jolt from a lawsuit. There had been a de facto requirement that players be at least 18 to join the NWSL. Teen phenom Olivia Moultrie sued for the ability to sign a contract at the age of 15. A few months later, she settled out of court, and her case ultimately led to the entry mechanism that allowed Gisele Thompson to sign at 17. (Moultrie is now 19 years old and in her fifth season with the Portland Thorns.) Rosters across the league are dotted with similarly young talents. They’ve become some of the biggest stars in the NWSL.

It’s a change that aligns the league more closely with global development for elite young talent across the sport. It also raises important questions as teams grapple with the nuances of rostering younger players and what it means for their personal growth and well-being. And it comes at a time of transition for the league.

The NWSL kicked off its 13th regular season earlier this month. It has plans for continued expansion in the wake of a big media rights deal and a major new collective bargaining agreement. (For one thing: The draft no longer exists.) The idea of forgoing a college scholarship to enter the league was once unthinkable in all but very rare cases. But a more robust professional environment with higher salaries has made that far more viable. That has sparked meaningful change in the NWSL.

Many of the stars who helped establish the league have now headed into retirement. And it’s a (much) younger cohort stepping into their boots and taking advantage of the opportunity to go pro early.

“It’s kind of crazy to think that we’re part of that first generation going into that,” says Alyssa Thompson. “Really, having this opportunity to be in this position that we are, we obviously owe a lot of it to the veterans. They’ve helped grow the league so much. We wouldn’t be in the position that we are without them … We want to continue the legacy that they brought.”

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No teenager has enjoyed quite as much success in the NWSL as Jaedyn Shaw. Her knack for maneuvering the ball in tight spaces was already clear when the attacker debuted for the San Diego Wave at the age of 17 in 2022. She became the youngest player in the league ever to score in her first game. Shaw then scored in her next game, and in the one after that, and she ultimately broke the record for most goals scored as a teenager. She was among the very first players to enter the league so young. But she had never considered it an impossibility.

Shaw grew up frequently playing alongside boys. They had always known the very best among them might experience professional environments as teenagers: The system had long been set up that way for male talent in both MLS and in European leagues. It did not occur to Shaw that she might not do the same until she was told otherwise.

Shaw verbally committed to UNC at 14 years old, but chose to turn pro instead, making her NWSL debut at 17. | Brigitte Lacombe/NWSL

“I don’t remember growing up thinking twice about it,” says Shaw, now 20. “I was around boys a lot, so that just felt normal. I didn’t realize until I was actually in it that it wasn’t normal for girls to go pro early.” 

College then seemed like the most realistic option. Shaw verbally committed to the University of North Carolina when she was 14: She loved the school and speaks fondly of the staff there even now. But she jumped at every opportunity to be in a more competitive environment. She was invited to train with Paris Saint-Germain at 15. She was in preseason camp with the Washington Spirit at 17. Those experiences only confirmed to her that she was ready for more. “Just kind of feeling out the pro environment, I knew that was something that I could do full-time,” she says. She had come along at just the right moment to get that chance.

At the time, in the spring of 2022, the league had not yet officially lifted its age restriction policy. Moultrie had settled her lawsuit the year before and signed with Portland. But while the league had announced that it would review its policies, including considering further exceptions for specific players under 18, no such exceptions had yet been granted. The next one went to Shaw.

“It was obviously a hard decision, but a decision that I felt very at peace with,” she says, now with the North Carolina Courage, not far away from where she might otherwise have played in college. “I haven't looked back on it since.”

As the U.S. women look to stay competitive in a tough, crowded global landscape, there has been increasing focus on elite player development. The NCAA programs built by Title IX once helped the U.S gain an advantage over the rest of the world. But that advantage is long gone. The college season is relatively short, at barely three months, with varying levels of competition. It’s enormously different from the rigor of the European academy model and its early pathways to professional opportunities. The calculus of playing NCAA soccer no longer made as much sense for talented young players such as the Thompsons and Shaw. They instead saw the best opportunity in going pro as soon as possible.

“It’s crazy to think how fast it all changed,” says Bugg. “It’s kind of weird when people say ‘the next generation.’ I feel like it’s the present.” | Stephen Brashear/USA TODAY Sports

The NWSL lifted the age restriction ahead of the 2023 season. Its new youth entry mechanism came with a slew of conditions: Players under 18 must have separate locker rooms to change and shower. They cannot be waived or traded without consent or selected in expansion drafts. They must live with a parent or guardian. More than a dozen players have since entered the league under the mechanism, and they have been the first to figure out what it means to play, grow and live under this new model in the NWSL.

Most already knew each other from youth national teams and the club soccer circuit. They now share a junior sisterhood of sorts.  

“Knowing that other girls are doing the same thing as me is really cool,” says 18-year-old defender Jordyn Bugg, who joined Seattle Reign FC last year at 17. “Because they have different experiences from me, but to come together and be like, Oh, we’re some of the first people to do this, is really a cool statement to open that pathway.”

They all know what it’s like to play with teammates old enough to be their moms. They all know what it’s like to adjust to the speed and physicality of the pro game on the fly. And they all know just how much it means to turn 18. If that’s a milestone birthday for anyone, it’s especially so for a player in the NWSL, who gets to celebrate by leaving the youth locker room behind and joining their adult teammates. “I graduated!” Angel City midfielder Kennedy Fuller jokes a week after turning 18 and taking her space in the main locker room. “It was so cool to be able to do that.” Every casual bit of conversation there felt like its own birthday present.

Fuller was also originally set on going to college. Like Shaw, she had been committed to UNC, and she was so certain of her choice that she did not talk to other schools. Yet she got a similar feeling of security from her first visit to Angel City. It did not feel like it would be easy. But it felt hard in a way that she thought she needed. Fuller signed with the club just before she turned 17.

“I felt so comfortable being uncomfortable at Angel City,” Fuller says. “I felt comfortable being myself, but in a place where I could be uncomfortable to get better, which was important for me. It was a place where I felt like I was going to develop not only as a player but also as a person.”

Fuller, who turned 18 on March 9, recently “graduated” from the team’s youth locker room to join her teammates in the main locker room. | Brigitte Lacombe/NWSL

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The question of how these young players develop is one that many around the league are watching carefully. That applies to those who are going pro as minors, of course, but also to those who are forgoing years of potential growth in college to enter the league at 18 or 19.  

“On the one hand, I don’t think an age restriction is the answer to this question,” says NWSL Players’ Association executive director Meghann Burke, noting that any potential line would come to feel arbitrary, whether drawn at 16, 18 or 21. “But on the other, I also think it’s important for teams to be well-equipped to support not just the soccer development, but the emotional, social, physical development of these young people that they’re signing.”

Those vulnerable teenage years are crucial for anyone. And even for players who find themselves immediately successful on the pitch, there’s no shortcut for the messy, complicated process of figuring out who they will become off it.  

“Growing up, it was just soccer, soccer, soccer, and that’s incredibly important and it definitely got me to where I am,” says Shaw, who won an Olympic gold medal last summer with the USWNT. “But I think I’m balancing that now over the course of the last year or so. I’ve really learned the power of connection.”

Every player is different. What drives one talent might stifle another. There will always be phenoms for whom the standards do not fit. A 14-year-old is not a 17-year-old, who is not a 19-year-old. (The youngest player to appear in the league is 14-year-old Mak Whitham, who signed a contract last year with Gotham FC and made her debut this March, subbing on for the closing minutes of a game last weekend.) If there are flaws in the college system, there are likewise flaws with the youth club system, and there is no clear answer to where the best place for promising talent might be in the U.S. There are plenty of players for whom college is still a clear best choice. And the question about how to craft the best, safest environment in the league for young players is actually one about how to craft the best, safest environment for all players, Burke says.

Angel City, where Fuller and the Thompson sisters play, has seen the benefits of welcoming younger players into the league. | Jessica Alcheh/USA TODAY Sports

“We see better coaches and medical staff coming into the NWSL, that doesn’t just benefit the young people, that benefits everybody,” says Burke. “We’re still growing and learning and evolving … I think you’re seeing a vast improvement in our technical and medical staff year over year.”

The landscape has shifted dramatically here from just a few years ago. “It’s crazy to think how fast it all changed,” says Bugg, who had always planned on playing in college before deciding that she would grow the most by going pro instead. These young players represent a shift already well underway. “It’s kind of weird when people say ‘the next generation,’ ” Shaw laughs. “I feel like it’s the present.” She has a point.   

“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” Alyssa Thompson says. “It’s just what you’ve done.”

She would know. Thompson scored the first goal of the year for Angel City, expertly beating out a defender, tucking the ball into the corner of the net. Her assist had come from Fuller. And back on defense was her sister Gisele.