FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It is the last word mic drop for Alyssa Naeher.
After backstopping the U.S. girls’s nationwide crew the Olympic gold medal final summer season in Paris — this system’s fifth general and first since 2012 — after which asserting her retirement from the worldwide recreation, Naeher was voted the 2024 U.S. Soccer Feminine Participant of the 12 months, the federation introduced on Saturday.
Naeher, who additionally led the Individuals to the 2019 World Cup title and received one other as Hope Solo’s understudy in 2015, grew to become simply the second goalkeeper in USWNT historical past to win the award within the 40 years it has existed. Solo claimed it in 2009.
“That is an unbelievable honor to cap off what has been a really particular 12 months with this crew,” Naeher, who performed her ultimate two video games for the USWNT late final 12 months versus England in London the Netherlands in The Hague, stated in a press release.
“This crew is made up of a particular group of gamers, coaches and workers and all 12 months you may really feel that power, and that we had the chance to realize one thing nice. I used to be impressed all 12 months lengthy by my unbelievable teammates; the work we put in, the dedication to the crew and our objectives, and all of their love and help.”
Naeher, who final month was named The Greatest FIFA Ladies’s Goalkeeper of 2024, is the twenty first totally different girl to snare U.S. Soccer’s most prestigious honor and considered one of solely a handful of defensive gamers, becoming a member of Julie Ertz in 2017 and 2019 and heart again Naomi Girma, final 12 months’s recipient.
Naeher allowed simply two objectives and performed each minute of the Individuals’ six matches on the Paris Olympics. She saved clear sheets in all three knockout video games, together with the 1-0 overcome Brazil within the ultimate at Parc des Princes. She additionally made an audicious cease in further time in 1-0 semifinal victory over Germany. No different keeper in girls’s soccer historical past has pitched shutouts in each an Olympic ultimate and World Cup ultimate.
Final March, the 36-year-old Connecticut native grew to become simply the third USWNT keeper to seem in 100 worldwide video games, becoming a member of fellow program legends Solo and Brianna Scurry. All through her profession, she additionally drew plaudits from teammates, coaches and followers for her calm demeanor off the sector and her all-business method within the nets — a welcome reprieve from the fixed drama that surrounded Solo’s profession. Naeher responded with related class to Scurry’s public doubts about her means earlier than the 2019 FIFA Ladies’s World Cup, letting her performances do the speaking because the Individuals took residence a fourth world title that summer season in France.
Naeher, who will proceed to play professionally for NWSL membership Chicago Stars, conceded simply 11 objectives in 18 video games for the nationwide crew in 2024, shedding simply as soon as.
The dignity is a becoming one for a participant whose affect was usually overshadowed throughout her 11-year U.S. profession, however who will nonetheless go down as probably the greatest within the historical past of essentially the most profitable worldwide crew of all time.
The USWNT is presently coaching in South Florida forward of February’s SheBelieves Cup.
Doug McIntyre is a soccer author for FOX Sports activities who has lined the United States males’s and ladies’s nationwide groups at FIFA World Cups on 5 continents. Observe him at @ByDougMcIntyre.
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