The making of Naomi Girma: Inside the rise of Chelsea and the USWNT's most-expensive women's player of all time

It’s not hard to find people to talk to about Girma. She’s made such a positive mark in the places she has been throughout her career to date that it’s incredibly easy to get people on the phone to chat all about her. “I could talk about Nay all day,” Wesley laughs, after taking time out of her own day to talk about their time together in San Diego and, before that, at Stanford.

Paul Ratcliffe, head coach of the latter’s women’s soccer program since 2003, noticed this impact during the centre-back’s four-year stint at college. When he would meet with his players and speak to them about how they were settling in, three or four would pick out Girma as their best friend on the whole team. “That's the kind of connection she has with her team-mates,” he tells GOAL. “They all adored her.”

It's something he cites as a “testament” to Girma herself, but also to her family. Born in the Bay Area of California, her father founded Maleda Soccer Club, centred around the region’s Ethiopian community. “There is a church and people would gather there, but there wasn't any other gathering other than holidays, I guess, so it was kind of an easy way for everyone to stay in touch and for the kids to just get active,” Girma told GOAL previously. “It was a really good community bonding thing and it still happens now. My dad isn't as involved because me and my brother are in our 20s, but the kids still get together and play, and I think it's just great for everyone.”

It's no surprise that Girma, who started playing soccer at Maleda, has been stood in such good stead by a family that creates and contributes to this sort of community space. “They're hard working people, they're caring, they're intelligent,” Ratcliffe says, remembering his first impressions of the whole family. “For me, one of Naomi's strengths is her character, her overall character. She's just a great human being. Obviously, it's a testament to Naomi and how she wants to be, but it definitely starts with the family.”

Those personal traits would help mark Girma out as a true leader as her growth as a player really took off. Aged 13, she was playing in national-team camps and, aged 15, she’d committed to Stanford, one of the best programs in the country for college soccer but also, in a nod to her off-pitch talents, an academic powerhouse. Maya Doms started at Stanford the year after Girma and, knowing she was going there, watched all the Cardinals’ games. “Even though she was a freshman, she was one of the key players,” Doms remembers of her future team-mate. “I guess I sort of idolised her even before going there.”

By the time her sophomore year rolled around, Girma was the team captain, a relatively unheard of feat. In her first season with that armband, she would lead Stanford to a national title. Unsurprisingly, when her time at college came to a close, the defender was selected by the San Diego Wave as the first overall pick in the NWSL Draft.

“Sometimes the younger players take a while to get going in the league, but you could just tell right away with Nay, especially when we had the pre-season games, I felt like she was an international player,” Emily van Egmond, the 158-time Australia international who was Girma’s roommate in San Diego, tells GOAL. “I didn't even feel like she was a rookie. She came out and she just had that presence about her already, and she just fit straight in. I remember sitting with some of the girls and we were just saying, 'Nay, we can't even classify you as a rookie. You're like a veteran!'”

Within a few weeks, Girma’s debut for the U.S. women’s national team would follow, kickstarting a year that would end in her being crowned Rookie of the Year, Defender of the Year and being named to the NWSL Best XI, having helped the Wave become the first expansion team to reach the post-season. Under the tutelage of former England defender Casey Stoney, Girma thrived in San Diego and helped the team win two major titles before departing at the start of 2025. That success has translated to the international stage, too, with her an incredible performer in the USWNT’s Olympic triumph last summer.

That, though, is to make Girma’s rise sound simple; it has certainly not been. One of the first big setbacks came right after the high of that national title in 2019, when the defender tore her ACL. It’s a dreadful injury to sustain, the type which players can take months to feel like themselves again after, even once they’ve returned to action. Girma’s attitude throughout the recovery, though, was remarkable.

“Not only was she able to carry herself in such a strong way through her own rehab, but she also was able to still be the leader and the team-mate and the captain that she was at the time to the rest of us that were playing,” Wesley remembers. “She had such a positive impact, even from the sidelines.”

“She was there with us at every practice, every game,” Doms adds. “It almost felt like she wasn't injured, because she was still kind of, in a way, coaching us, giving us pointers as a team and just sharing her wisdom. It didn't really feel like she was injured. Maybe the results reflected that! We obviously missed her vision and her security as a defender on the field, but her involvement with the team never really went away, even though she was injured for that long.”

Girma’s discipline in her recovery wowed those around her, too. “I feel like it was the fastest year I had ever seen for her to recover,” Ratcliffe recalls. “Her dedication to all of her rehab and getting back to full strength was tremendous, and it shows your character when you go through adversity like that. In my eyes, Naomi has the highest level of character.”

That adversity, however, was nothing in comparison to the tragic news that came just a few weeks before Girma’s first season in the NWSL. On March 1, 2022, Katie Meyer, Girma’s best friend and college team-mate, died by suicide. Meyer was an incredibly popular person, as showcased by the outpouring of love in the wake of her death.

“The truest friend I ever had,” Girma wrote on the Players’ Tribune. “The most unapologetic, positive, caring person in the world. The first person to be open and talk about her feelings. The first person you’d turn to when you needed to talk about yours. And the last person you’d think would take her own life.”

That Girma would go on to have the incredible season she did shortly after that news broke is almost unfathomable. But more inspiring is the work she has been doing to continue Meyer’s legacy and help young people who are struggling with depression, anxiety and more.

Along with international team-mates Sofia Huerta and Sophia Wilson, the latter of whom was part of the same incredible Stanford team, and partnered with Common Goal, Girma helped launch a mental health initiative on the eve of the 2023 Women’s World Cup. “Through this project, Katie’s spirit, her warmth, and her legacy will live on. We will make sure of that,” she wrote.

Speaking to Wesley and Doms, it’s evident how close that Stanford team was. The memories they bring up are not big trips and special occasions, but the little day-to-day laughs they would have, going out to team dinners, hanging out on weekends and enjoying each other’s company. Though in different places today, they’re all still in touch, rooting for each other.

Doms is currently in Italy, representing Sassuolo in Serie A, and she and Sierra Enge, playing for French top-flight side Strasbourg, have been talking about taking a trip to watch Girma and Catarina Macario, another Stanford alumni, play for Chelsea in the near future.

“Naomi is obviously a very known and famous player now. In a way, me and Sierra talk about how we kind of fan girl over her, even though she's one of our friends," she says. "But it'll be amazing to see her.”

There is plenty to be said of Girma’s character and humility then – but there is also plenty to be said of her as a world-class soccer player. "She's the best defender I've ever seen," Emma Hayes said during last summer's Olympics. “I've never seen a player as good as her at the back. She's got everything: poise, composure, she can defend, she anticipates, she leads. Unbelievable.”

That leadership is something that everyone is quick to point out. “She is a great communicator. She never seems to lose her cool. She's intense but composed at the same time,” Wesley explains, clearly trying to emphasise how important and impressive these traits are. “I think it's so helpful as a team-mate to have someone that can immediately give you the direction and it's in a concise, clear way. It just goes a lot better, rather than someone raising their voice or not using too many words. I feel like that's one of the biggest things.

“She ultimately just leads by example. I don't think there's anything she asks of her team-mates that she would not and could not do herself, and I think that speaks volumes. She just always gave her maximum effort every single performance and I think it was contagious. As someone playing next to her, I wanted to do just that, so I think her example and her just overall leadership made her a really, really good team-mate.”

It's not just appreciated by her fellow players, either. “She's the best kind of leader, for me,” Ratcliffe adds. “The thing that I loved about Naomi is usually, your star player is not going to be the player that everyone looks to, that models all the right behaviours. But Naomi is that star player that's modelling all the right behaviours, acting like she's one of the weaker players on the team, that she has to outwork everyone to stay at the top.”

It has all culminated in Girma becoming an Olympic champion, a world-class defender and the most expensive player in the history of the women’s game, all before her 25th birthday. With that comes the attention that might take some adjusting to for a player who, in Doms’ words, has “never really made it about her”. But it’s a spotlight anyone who knows Girma is adamant she has earned.

“It's funny thinking about how people talked about her when she was in college, [about] how much potential she had,” Doms remembers. “To see that come true and all that being super deserving... She's one of the people that you want to be proud of and they deserved everything that has come to them in their success.”

“I don't think there's anyone I know that could say a bad word about Nay,” Van Egmond adds. “She's great to be around. She likes to have a laugh. She just has a really good balance of... You've got the professional side, obviously, when you're a footballer, but then she's got that fun side as well off the field. It's her as a person more so than her as a footballer.

"She's put a lot of time and effort into her studies as well. She went to Stanford, so that speaks for itself with where she sits academically, but she's just a good person, she comes from a great family, and for someone who's quite young still, it probably seems like she's been on the football stage forever, but she's just got a very good head on her shoulders.”

All of that should stand Girma in good stead for what comes next, playing for a club like Chelsea that is expected to win. Of course, the 24-year-old has already dealt with that pressure at national-team level – and won an Olympic gold medal despite it. As such, it doesn’t feel like a question of whether she will be successful in England, but rather just how high the heights will be for a player who has all the tools needed to be the best defender in the world for the foreseeable future.