The U.S. women’s soccer team is competing in the semifinal match against Germany in the 2024 Paris Olympics on Tuesday and a Connecticut woman is a major force on the U.S. team.
Alyssa Naeher, 36, of Stratford, is the goalkeeper for the U.S. women’s soccer team in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
This is her third Olympics and she credits the support of her family – her mom, dad, twin sister and younger sister – for staying by her side and helping her reach her dreams.
“Probably the coolest part about it is each person in my family has kind of been a support in very different ways,” Naeher said.
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“I have a twin sister who also played and we kind of shared that. We had our younger sister who, she supports me for me. She doesn’t know all the stats, she doesn’t know all the different stuff, but I actually kind of like that too,” she added.
“And my parents obviously. The sacrifices that they made for us growing up with just driving all over the state, up and down the East Coast,” she said.
Going back to the beginning, Naeher’s love of sports started with basketball before she developed her love for soccer.
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“You grow up in Connecticut and it’s like UConn basketball is like our version of professional sports,” Naeher said.
But then a trip to the 1999 World Cup in New Jersey ignited the spark for soccer.
“I don’t know that I thought at that moment like this is what I want to do, but it was like, this is really cool. It was such an amazing experience,” she said.
She went on to play both baseball and soccer, graduated from Penn State in 2009 and now plays for the Chicago Red Stars.
Seventeen years after the World Cup that sparked her love of soccer, Naeher was the backup goalie in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and then the starting goalie in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, when the team won a bronze.
While the team won a bronze, the games in Tokyo ended in heartbreak for Naeher.
She suffered a leg injury during the semifinal against Canada and could not play in the bronze medal game.
“To be injured after such a high of the quarterfinal, winning a shootout and everything feels like it’s going so well, and then go from such a high to such a low so quickly is, that’s the cruel part of sports,” she said.
Through it all, Naeher has persevered.
“Probably anything that you can experience or think through a career, I’ve experienced it,” she said.
And her family has been there along the way.
“My family’s been with me every step of the way for the last 30 years,” she said.
How to watch
The game begins at noon ET/9 a.m. PT, with live coverage on USA Network, Peacock and NBCOlympics.com.
