Claire Hutton: The USWNT prospect that Vlatko Andonovski would be ‘shocked’ not to see Emma Hayes call upon in the near future

Hutton's explosive first season in the NWSL has only continued a theme from throughout her young career, that of performing beyond her years. When she was in the seventh grade, she joined the varsity team at Bethlehem High School. When youth national team duties made it hard for her to keep playing for the girls’ side as a junior, she played with the boys. That’s an experience that has certainly helped her make the step up to senior women’s soccer.

The all-state and all-American honors she earned in those early years unsurprisingly mean Hutton has been involved in the U.S. youth set-up for a while now, too. The midfielder was the third-youngest player on the roster at the 2022 CONCACAF Women’s Under-17 Championship, scoring six goals as the U.S. triumphed; she hit a sensational strike in the Bronze Medal match at the 2023 Pan American Games, as a U.S. U19 side finished third at a senior tournament; and she has spent all of 2024 playing for the U20s, despite only celebrating her 18th birthday in January.

When Hutton graduated early from high school in the summer of 2023, she trained with an array of NWSL teams and eventually chose to forgo a collegiate career at the University of North Carolina, signing a three-year contract with the Kansas City Current in December.

“No decision was a bad decision, and that’s what people kept reminding me of,” she told Spectrum News. “But at the end of the day, I know where my goals are. I want to make the women’s full national team one day. I want to play in a World Cup and Olympics and all that.”

Since signing that deal at 17, Hutton has thrived. She’s been outstanding for the Current in a superb first half-season in the NWSL, starting all-but-one of its first 16 games and ranking second overall across the division for tackles won.

Asked what made him feel she was ready for such a role in her rookie season, one that surprised the player herself, Andonovski told reporters earlier in the year: “Her performances in training. We see her every day training and we saw her in pre-season, in pre-season matches, and she showed that she can take the role that she has right now, and not just that, but take it to the next level as well. We've been very happy with her, how she's progressing, and we can see how her role evolves from game to game.”

Hutton added to that fantastic start by helping the Current reach the NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup final in August, her first professional goal coming as part of that run. It was then that Andonovski declared: “She’s a player that is not just going to represent this team, but also a player that is ready to represent this country as well.” Asked about her potential to play on the USWNT in the near future, he added: “I think she has to take the right steps, but I would be shocked if she wasn't on the team. She is a seasoned pro, she starts, contributes, and makes us better every match.”

For now, her focus is with the U20 team, for which she’ll hope to continue her brilliant form at the Women's World Cup when it kicks off on August 31. It's 12 years since the U.S. won this youth title, but it heads to Colombia with an extremely talented roster, on which Hutton is one of eight names playing professional soccer in the NWSL.

As a holding midfielder, Hutton is excellent at reading the game. She leads the Kansas City Current roster for tackles won, aerial duels won and interceptions made through the first 16 games of the season, showcasing that ability to protect the defense well.

Physically and in terms of her soccer IQ, the 18-year-old by no means looks out of her depth in the team that sits second in the NWSL standings, and she has some real flair, too. Despite her deep-lying role, Hutton is into double figures for chances created in the league this season, while only the explosive forward duo of Temwa Chawinga and Debinha have completed more dribbles on the team.

It’s her ability to do the latter, owing to wonderful technical skill, that regularly catches the eye when watching this talented teenager play. So often she spins away from the press, dances her way past a couple of opponents and gets herself, and her team, out of a sticky situation in an instant. “There are not many 18-year-olds that can come in and do that,” Andonovski remarked earlier this year.

As her outstanding performances in the NWSL this year have shown, there is not a ton of drastic improvement that Hutton needs to make moving forward. It’s more about refining the qualities that she already has, continuing to grow through experience and, with that, stamping her authority on games more.

“I think that this can become her team and she can dictate the tempo,” Andonovski said when asked where Hutton can grow. “It's not going to happen overnight. It takes games, it takes a little practice and it takes more confidence - individually but also players having confidence in her. But she's already ahead of the game and we'll see a better and better Claire as we go forward.”

Over the last three years, the USWNT has had its issues in the holding midfield role. Julie Ertz operated there as it once again became world champion in 2019 and she was there when it won a bronze medal at the Olympics in 2021, but then she took some time away from the sport to have her first child and eventually retired in the summer of 2023.

Andonovski himself struggled to find the right solution in that role during his time in charge of the national team, and though Emma Hayes has had more success in her first few weeks, it will surely be a delight for the federation to see this promising young player coming through in a position that is not easy at all to fill.

That said, Hutton is quite a different player to Ertz. That’s not a shock, given Ertz was a centerback-turned-midfielder later in her career, and because the 18-year-old has often pointed to a variety of different players as inspirations. As well as an unsurprising answer like Sergio Busquets, she named more attack-minded midfielders such as Andres Iniesta and Kevin De Bruyne as role models when speaking to reporters this season.

“I try to take pieces of each of them and put it into my game,” she said. “My favorite player growing up was Ronaldinho, with his creativity. I know as a No.6 you can't do that as much, because you're protecting the area a little bit more, but I like to just find different pieces of different people and put it into my game.”

Those more creative elements are definitely more prevalent in her game than in other players in that position, Ertz included. Still, there is certainly hope that Hutton can develop into the USWNT’s next great holding midfielder in the years to come.

For Hutton to hit those heights she craves and has the potential to reach - to play for the USWNT, to play at a World Cup, to play at the Olympics - she just needs to continue on this path. This month, she has the U20 World Cup to look forward to with a talented U.S. team, one pooled with Spain, Paraguay and Morocco in Group C. At club level, she finds herself in an excellent place at Kansas City, where Andonovski has put real trust in her and is giving her the game time at the highest level that will allow her to develop naturally, while also offering her the pointers to take further steps.

But the 18-year-old herself also has the attitude that will help her continue such exciting progress. “If you know Claire well, you'll know that she won't settle for anything,” Andonovski said. “She wants to get better at every little thing. She's a total footballer. Her life revolves around the game and her main goal is just to get better every day. She's one of the first ones in the facility and one of the last ones to leave the facility. She continues improving, getting better, watching videos, talking about the game, analyzing training, analyzing games - it's all about the game and I'm not surprised that she's as good as she is.”

If she keeps that up, and maintains the “love for the game” that she says prevents her from feeling any real “pressure” as she plays, Hutton can certainly go a long way in the NWSL and, with that, achieve many of her USWNT dreams.