Lindsey Heaps has been a trailblazer for USWNT stars in Europe - an historic Champions League triumph would be perfect send-off before Lyon star returns to NWSL

In the early years of Heaps’ career, the situation regarding USWNT players abroad was extremely different. When the NWSL was founded in 2012, salaries for two dozen USWNT players in the league were subsidized by U.S. Soccer. As such, it was no great surprise that the rosters for the 2015 and 2019 World Cup tournaments, both of which the U.S. won, were entirely made up of players in the NWSL.

Furthermore, the USWNT would have training camps outside of FIFA windows, for which foreign clubs were not required to release players. Speaking to the Athletic about these elements previously, two-time world champion Kelley O’Hara admitted: "That kept a lot of us Stateside."

U.S. Soccer was understandably keen for the NWSL to succeed. It was the third iteration of a professional women’s soccer league in the country, after both WUSA (in 2003) and WPS (in 2012) folded. Keeping USWNT stars in the league would likely help ensure greater success. Over time, it was taken as a given that to be on the national team roster, a player almost certainly had to be playing in the NWSL.

Heaps spent four years in France with PSG and developed into a top player, scoring 54 goals in 76 appearances. She learned from some elite talent on the same roster, played regularly against a star-studded league rival in Lyon and experienced the Champions League, where she could play against more of the world’s best teams and players.

But when USWNT boss Jill Ellis selected her squad for the 2015 Women’s World Cup, Heaps wasn’t included. Indeed, she wasn’t really in the picture, winning two caps in 2013 after a first call-up from previous head coach Tom Sermanni, then none in 2014.

After a conversation with Ellis, Heaps would return home in 2016 to sign for the Portland Thorns, a move that helped her successfully secure a ticket to the 2016 Olympic Games. "At the time, you kind of needed to be in the U.S," she said, speaking about making the USWNT roster.

From there, Heaps became a mainstay. She played 24 games for the USWNT in 2016, despite coming into the year with only six caps to her name; was a key player in the 2019 World Cup win, in a full-circle moment in France; then, she made her 100th appearance for her country in 2021.

Of course, that she returned to the U.S. was key in that regard, but what she learned in her four years in France also helped improve her into a player that was good enough to be a key starter for one of the best national teams on the planet.

With her place in the USWNT nice and secure, and a new collective bargaining agreement between U.S. Soccer and the USWNT Players’ Association set to stop the process that saw the federation pay NWSL wages of national team players, the opportunity to return to Europe felt like it was presenting itself – and Heaps, always keen to improve, took it.

In January 2022, having won everything possible in her time in Portland, Heaps joined Lyon in a loan deal that would later become permanent. "When you play a lot of time in the NWSL, like I did, I wanted a different challenge," she said last year, reflecting on the decision to return to Europe after four years in the U.S.

Today, she is no longer the lone American across the pond. She was when she was included on the 2023 Women’s World Cup panel, becoming just the second player ever to represent the U.S. at the tournament while being based abroad. But that was also because of an injury to Catarina Macario, who had recently followed Heaps' lead some nine years prior and forgone college to turn professional in Europe, with Lyon.

A year later, Arsenal’s Emily Fox and Korbin Shrader – then of PSG, now of Lyon – joined Heaps to take the players-based-abroad tally on the 2024 Olympic roster, which would win gold, up to three.

Emma Hayes' latest squad, which played a triple-header against Japan earlier this month, featured seven players outside of the NWSL. Among them, goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce is an example of someone who earned her first call-up while abroad, which feels like a significant development - the kind of which may not have happened if someone like Heaps hadn’t blazed a trail by showing both the value in playing abroad and what American players can add to teams in Europe.

Shrader, who now plays alongside Heaps at Lyon, is another who has followed that path across the pond. The midfielder skipped her final two years of college to sign for PSG in January 2023, with a first USWNT call-up following in November of the same year. Speaking about her team-mate this week, Shrader remembered seeing her career from afar as an aspiring young athlete and thinking: "Oh, maybe someday I'll do the same thing." It’s a comment that speaks volumes of Heaps’ impact.

"She's just had an incredible career, and she's still having an incredible career. I think her coming over here and the talent that she has, that combination just opened a lot of doors," Shrader added. "Playing alongside her has been amazing. It's just amazing to learn from someone like that and to watch really closely what she's doing and to take advice from her. She's that type of person, too, to just give us advice, to help anyone that's coming in, new players and younger players."

Indeed, in 2017, when Swanson became just the second American woman to forgo college to turn pro, she reached out to Heaps. "I asked her how her experience was at PSG and she told me honestly," she explained. "She said, 'I'm here for whatever you want to decide', but wasn't forcing anything."

Given those qualities, it’s perhaps no surprise that, as she has accumulated more experience with club and country, Heaps has developed into a real leader, so much so that she’s become captain of the USWNT. Shrader noted how much the players around her feel "all of that leadership and talent".

Lyon will hope to benefit from Heaps’ qualities as they enter the final few weeks of the season. It’s going to be an emotional time for the 31-year-old, with Shrader explaining that there were “a lot of tears” among the squad when it was revealed that Heaps was departing at the end of the campaign to sign for the Denver Summit, the NWSL’s newest team. But the focus is firmly on going out on a high, with one trophy already in the bag and another three still on the table.

Of them all, the Champions League would be the most special, and perhaps the most fitting, for Heaps to get her hands on. It’s the competition that lures so many Americans across the Atlantic and it is the hardest to win, with Heaps just one of seven USWNT stars to lift the title, having done so back in 2022. No one from that exclusive club has ever won it twice.

There are other layers to the semi-final clash with Arsenal, too, which begins with the first leg at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. Heaps herself is a fan of the Gunners, for one, but most notable is that this was a tie at the semi-final stage last year, one that Lyon had control of after a 2-1 win in north London, only to suffer a stunning 4-1 loss at home a week later. Arsenal would go on to beat Barcelona in the final to win the title.

“It's been a while since we got to lift that Champions League trophy. I know that we're all feeling that and we know what happened last year,” Heaps said this week, speaking on The Captain, her new podcast series with former USWNT team-mate Sam Mewis. “I think there's a little bit left in our hearts about that. We do not want it to happen again.

“This is the pinnacle of a club team, winning this trophy. It means so much,” she added. To get to do so again, in what is likely her final season in the competition, would be something of a fairytale finish.