Alyssa Thompson did her homework the day before her first professional soccer game.
And we’re not talking about studying formations, watching movies or practicing technique. Instead, Thompson huddled in a corner of the Angel City practice facility and worked on a high school essay.
Given her talent and attitude, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Thompson, the NWSL team’s biggest and most lucrative off-season signing, is just a teenager with three months left at Harvard-Westlake. For her teammates, some of whom were preparing for college when Thompson was born, homework became a source of entertainment.
“They just say, ‘Oh, I remember I had to do that,'” Thompson said. “It was funny doing schoolwork [when] we all practice.”
On the pitch, however, Thompson lectured on her Angel City debut on Wednesday, when she started and scored an impressive goal in a 3-0 preseason win over Mexico’s Club America at BMO Stadium.
If there was any doubt that Thompson belonged at that level, she dispelled it in the first five minutes.
“You couldn’t tell on the field that she was an 18-year-old,” said Angel City coach Freya Coombe.
A year ago, Thompson played football in an all-boys league and skated on the track at Harvard-Westlake. She has since competed in a U20 World Cup, started two games for the senior team and was drafted No. 1 in the NWSL draft in January when she signed a three-year contract with Angel City.
Now comes the transition to pro-play.
Thompson said she went to school with her sister on Wednesday morning — English lessons — and then battled the nervousness by sleeping in the car while her dad drove her to the game that afternoon.
But she added, “I feel ready.”
This is how she played on Wednesday, she took the ball in the fifth minute on the side of Club América, dribbled through three defenders and ran a fourth 12 meters down the middle of the field, then neatly passed goalkeeper Itzel González and that Bal with your left foot in the middle of the net.
In terms of goals, it was spectacular. Goals falling on a teenager’s first real touch as a pro, it was otherworldly.
“I’m still sucking it in,” said Thompson, who played 76 minutes, as she walked nervously through a post-game press conference with a giggle. “It’s still shocking, but it’s just an amazing feeling.”
“It definitely helped me relax,” she said of the goal. “I just felt like everything I had prepared myself for up to that point helped me score that goal. It definitely took a weight off my shoulders.”
But the goal wasn’t Thompson’s only contribution that night. As a striker in Angel City’s 4-3-3 formation, she was present at both ends of the field, her ball handling and sprinting speed breathtaking for América. That combination almost resulted in another goal in the 33rd minute, when González’s two-handed late drive saved the ball out of the gate.
Thompson almost doubled the lead in the opening minute of the second half when he fired a ball forward at Claire Emslie, who beat González cleanly but was flagged offside. Paige Nielsen eventually scored the second goal in the 56th minute before Thompson’s back-up Simone Charley struck in the 85th minute.
Now that her pro debut is behind her, Thompson’s next milestone will be the NWSL season opener later this month, then her senior prom and high school — events that are sure to keep her teammates entertained, some of whom have children of their own. Enrollment at Stanford was supposed to follow, but if Thompson was worried about graduating college for benefits, they were taken out on Wednesday.
“Going into that environment, I’m happy with the choice I made and I’m going to use everything for it,” she said. “I’ll try not to look back at what could have happened and just be in the now and what I can do.”
Source: LA Times