da bwin： The defender discusses her experiences with the U.S., overcoming injury and being a young leader in one of the NWSL's most regular play-off teams

da esoccer bet： It was September 2017 and Tierna Davidson was in camp with the U.S. women’s national team for the first time. The 18-year-old was part of a roster that included names like Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Julie Ertz, Becky Sauerbrunn, Tobin Heath – and Kelley O’Hara wasn’t about to let her stand there in awe. ‘Yell at me,’ the World Cup winner and Olympic gold medallist said to Davidson, playing on the left of the teenager in a back four. ‘I need to hear you communicate.’

“That was just a bit of a wake-up moment because I was like, 'I don't want to tell you what to do because of course you know what to do. You are going to know what to do much better than I know what to do',” Davidson tells GOAL, reflecting on that first USWNT experience. “But for her to give me that permission almost and tell me, 'No. Do it', it's very helpful.

“I was definitely nervous. I think everybody experiences this when they go into the camp for the first time, but stepping onto the field with players that you've watched on TV for so long, that have been your role models for so long, was a bit surreal. You feel like, 'Am I supposed to be here? Am I meant to be here? Have I been dropped off at the wrong place?' But really, it was surprisingly welcoming.”

Less than two years later, Davidson would be a World Cup winner herself and a No.1 draft pick, chosen first overall by the Chicago Red Stars in 2019. She became a key player for club right away and, immediately after becoming a world champion, helped it to reach the NWSL Championship game in her rookie season.

Today then, despite still being only 24 years old, she is an experienced head given what she has seen and done already. The defender is only one appearance away from hitting a half-century of caps for her country and she’s a massive leader in a very young Red Stars’ dressing room.

Some of the experiences that have resulted in that status have been incredibly positive, such as the World Cup triumph in France. Others have been rather the opposite, like the ACL tear she suffered last year. All of them, though, have been important in shaping Davidson into a player that should not only have a big impact at this summer’s Women’s World Cup, but many more to come…

GettyNo time to be starstruck

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.

AdvertisementGettyA whirlwind of a year

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?'”

GettyLearning from the best

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.

GettyAdding value off the pitch

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?'”