‘It’s unrealistic not to think about the World Cup’ – USWNT star Tierna Davidson on her ACL return, becoming a world champion and stepping up for the Chicago Red Stars

Look at Davidson’s career to date with the national team – a World Cup triumph, an Olympic bronze medal and almost 50 caps in the five years since her debut – and her recollection of that first camp is an amusing one. That said, it’s also understandable given the star names that she was sharing a training field with on day one.

“It was definitely a learning curve of showing the respect to players because they were always my role models, but also pushing them to be better as well,” she says. The defender immediately did that well, so much so that she'd become a regular in the team after her debut in early 2018 and go to the 2019 Women’s World Cup with 19 caps to her name despite only going into the NWSL a couple of months before the tournament began.

The trip to France that would end with her being a world champion was just one of many significant events in Davidson’s 2019. In January, she was the No.1 pick in the NWSL Draft, selected by the Chicago Red Stars. Her debut for the club came in April, the World Cup started in June, she lifted the trophy in July, scored her first NWSL goal in August, celebrated her 21st birthday in September and helped the Red Stars reach the NWSL Championship game in October.

“It was definitely a whirlwind,” Davidson says. “I feel like it sometimes required somebody else telling me what was happening and to take a moment and take the moment in, whatever it was, whether it was my first game for Chicago, or winning the World Cup, or making the playoffs with Chicago, or making the finals.

“Sometimes it often took somebody else to be like, 'Hey, enjoy the moment for a second', because it was a whirlwind. It was really just, 'Okay, where do I go next? What do I do next?'”

It’s certainly interesting to hear Davidson reflect on the impact of the 2019 World Cup on her as an individual, especially a few years on: “I think I learned so much about what it means to compete in a tournament, what it means to be professional and also what it means, ultimately, to embrace the pressure of a world stage. It's one thing to handle the pressure and it's another thing to embrace it.

“So many of the veterans on our team did such a great job of coaching up the team to embrace that and to really run with it and let it fuel us. We worked very hard to create a very insular environment where it was very impenetrable. It was the 23 players and it was our staff and that was it. There was no outside noise and I think that was so helpful.

“Aside from the soccer experience and everything that went on the field, seeing how all of these veterans operated off of the field in order to create the success on the field was very impressive.I feel like every time I switch back and forth from environments, there's things from each that I can take to the other and share and really have that cross pollination to get the best out of each environment. So absolutely, definitely, there was a lot to bring back [to Chicago].”

That was certainly evident in the way she, as a 20-year-old, returned to her club and was a stand-out performer as the Red Stars reached a first ever NWSL Championship game.

Davidson's growth just continued from there. She was excellent again for Chicago in 2020 and 2021, helping the Red Stars reach the Challenge Cup final and then another NWSL Championship game. She was probably her country’s best player at a disappointing 2021 Olympic Games, too, coming to the fore as a consistent and reliable performer as the U.S. secured a bronze medal.

However, just as she was getting ready for the 2022 NWSL season to kick-off, Davidson suffered a torn ACL in training that would rule her out for the entire year. It’s an injury that is, sadly, very common in the women’s game, and Davidson is thankful that her partner had been through it before and was able to share her experiences.

“Especially in the early days where everything just hurt and you just wanted to lay on the couch and just be shut out from the world, she would definitely push me to make sure I was doing the exercises, make sure I was getting ice when I needed it and doing the bending when I needed it and celebrating each of the milestones with me,” she explains.

But the injury left her in what she repeatedly describes as a “difficult” place where she was trying to figure out how to be an asset to her team without kicking a ball. “I've always been a player that has very much liked to contribute tangibly to a team,” she explains. “So, to find my value as a team-mate off the field and not being able to contribute value on the field was difficult.

“It was difficult to stomach that and take a step back and try and take a look at myself and say, 'How do I want to be known as a team-mate? How do I bring value to the team that's not in a soccer sense?'”

Figuring out how to do that is what Davidson picks out as “the most difficult and the most rewarding part” of her time on the sidelines. “I tried to go to every training that I could,” she explains. “Going into training, being able to watch what's going on, being very in the know of who's playing where, who's doing well, who needs help, what the coaches are trying to get out of players and just, at the very basic level, being present. I think that goes a long way because sometimes it's difficult when you're out of sight, out of mind.”

Her comeback was special, too. Chicago played the San Diego Wave in its first game of the 2023 season, meaning Davidson would make her return to the pitch in her home state of California.

“It was a lot of hard work,” she admits. “Honestly, [there was] some doubt in myself of, 'Am I going to get to where I need to be? I certainly don't feel like the same player'. I'm still working through that. I think a lot of people say that it usually takes six to nine months after you've returned from this long-term injury to really feel like ‘yourself’ again.

“The first game of the season, and the first game back with the national team, I was happy in a way for it to be done because there was so much build up to it and I was just a bit anxious. But it was so nice to be able to be back out on the field with my team-mates. To actually be able to be on the field and compete and be doing all the work with my team-mates was really quite rewarding. To have that experience, and to have my family there - I had a lot of people there supporting me - it was a very special game for me. There was definitely a good cheering section for me in that game.”

The Red Stars suffered a disappointing defeat in that opening game, Alex Morgan scoring an 89th-minute penalty to give the Wave a win and deny Davidson the truly perfect return. It was one of six defeats Chicago was dealt in its first eight games of the NWSL season.

Davidson admits that the group was not “under any illusions that it would be the same Chicago team” this year after a lot of big departures during the off-season. Morgan Gautrat, Danielle Colaprico and Vanessa DiBernardo all left the club after six, eight and nine seasons, respectively, while an injury to the free-scoring Mallory Swanson in April was a huge blow.

There has also been a lot of turnover with the Red Stars’ coaching staff in recent times, with long-serving coach Rory Dames banned from coaching in the NWSL in January after he was found to have been emotionally abusive toward players by an independent report.

“I think we're still trying to get those puzzle pieces to all fit together,” Davidson says. “On paper, we have a very young team, so I think it's just going to take a little bit of time to really get all on the same page. It's funny because I think this year is the first year that not a single rookie is older than I am. Last year, I think we still had a few that were older than me!

“It is weird to have that feeling of, 'Oh, I don't feel like I am in the position to tell you what to do' - but then I'm also like, 'Oh, no, wait, I've had four-and-a-half years of experience at this professional level'. It is my responsibility to impart that on people and to hold that standard with the rest of the veterans."

There might be a World Cup on the horizon, but putting her best foot forward in the NWSL and looking to get on a run of results with the Red Stars - which the team has started to do - is Davidson’s focus right now…

That said, the defender admits that you can’t not think about a World Cup when it’s only a few months away. “The roster seems to be a lot less set than it was in 2019,” she says. “This cycle, both with a lot of new faces and with a lot of people returning from injury right at the deadline, there are a lot of question marks about who's going to fill what space.

“I think it was easier in 2019 to stay present in the moment of Chicago and just play and not think about that too much. This year, especially with the position that I'm in, only just coming back from injury, not having a lot of games under my belt to show what I can do, it has certainly been more in the forefront of my mind to try and make sure that I get back to the form that I expect from myself and the form that they would expect for me at the national team level.

“I am really trying to just stay with the mindset of, 'If I do what I need to do here in Chicago, things will take care of themselves’. It's not in my control whether I get put on the roster or whether I don't. Really what I need to do is control what I can control and that is performing and playing for the Red Stars. At the present moment, that's my mindset but, of course, it's unrealistic to say that I don't think about it.”

From the outside, though, there are few that don’t have Davidson in their projected USWNT roster. Her experience, her maturity and her versatile talent are all qualities that can benefit Vlatko Andonovski’s side in New Zealand this summer - and she’s still only 24 years old.