One of the most important players on the team that won the 2025 NWSL championship played in just three matches all season. Tierna Davidson, the captain of NJ/NY Gotham FC, went down with a torn ACL on 28 March, and was quickly ruled out for the rest of the year. It was a brutal moment for the center-back, who had torn her other ACL three years prior.
The injuries were low patches in the 27-year-old’s already prolific career. In 2019, she left Stanford to turn pro; she was drafted by the Chicago Red Stars as the No 1 pick in the NWSL college draft. That year, at just 20, she was also named to the USWNT World Cup squad that would win the tournament.
Davidson won bronze with the USWNT at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but, in preseason training for Chicago in 2022, she suffered her first ACL injury. Even though she was cleared to play, she was left off the USWNT’s 2023 World Cup roster. It made her return to the squad for the 2024 Paris Olympics gold-medal run that much sweeter – and in turn made the second ACL tear early last year, just a few games into her second season at Gotham and first as the team’s captain, an even bigger disappointment.
Davidson’s experience helped her as she navigated the road to returning for this NWSL season, which Gotham opens Saturday at expansion side Boston Legacy.
This time around, she told the Guardian, she knew what emotional and mental challenges to expect during the recovery process. She was also more mature, and had a different perspective on “my playing career and the game in general”. This outlook, combined with Gotham’s “fantastic” medical team, made a difference. “Physically, I feel in a better place,” she said, compared with her 2023 return.
“Not to say that it didn’t present its own unique challenges and not to say that it was easier,” she said. “But I would say it was definitely helpful to have previous experience, as much as you would wish that you didn’t have that.”
Even while unable to play, Davidson maintained an important role at Gotham. In the news conference after Gotham won the championship in November, veteran Emily Sonnett said: “Tierna doesn’t show a lot of emotion, but man is she jumping around right now. That’s the glue, guys: Tierna Davidson.”
It wasn’t easy. On Instagram a few days after the championship, Davidson wrote of the season, “There were days I felt connected and productive, and days I felt like I was failing in the role I care about so deeply as a captain.”
While injured, Davidson had to figure out how to lead without being on the pitch: “How do you create those connections with your teammates? How are you able to help lead the team, when you can’t be in training every day, and you don’t get to experience what everybody else is experiencing, and you’re not on the field in moments when people need guidance or you can provide that sort of stability and support?”
But one thing helped her feel better about her contributions: her teammates’ positive feedback. “I am very appreciative of Sonnett for what she said in that presser,” she said. “And for all my teammates and the feedback and encouragement they gave me throughout my journey.”
Now that she’s cleared to play, Davidson is raring to go – with a hint of caution. “It’s been a long road to get to this point, but I’m feeling good, and I’m feeling almost anxious to start the season,” she said, adding that Gotham starting their season early to play in the Fifa Champions Cup in January has only made her more eager to play.
“One of the difficulties of coming back from an injury is you’re cleared to play and you can theoretically do everything that you are supposed to do. But that’s not always at the quality that you expect of yourself or at the speed that you expect of yourself.”
“We have a really good mix of very promising young players as well as very well-established veteran leaders,” she said. “So I’m excited to get back out on to the field and in some ways to not feel as much of the pressure to be a captain and be a leader, because I have so many great people around me that can also shoulder that job as well.”
“Having grown in that way as a leader off the field, being able to layer in, Now how can I also help in a very tangible way on the field as well?, I think can only grow my ability as a leader, which I’m very excited about,” she said.
Davidson doesn’t just play for Gotham; she is also targeting a return to the USWNT as they gear up for World Cup qualifying later this year. But she knows re-entry has to be strategic. “I’m excited to be back in with the national team when the time is right, and that’s up to [head coach] Emma [Hayes], and that’s up to me as well. The conversations have always been that we’re gonna do it the right way, and make sure that it’s beneficial to both the pool and myself.”
“To balance the desire to get back, but also know that it’s important that I feel like Tierna the soccer player again, I feel like Tierna the teammate again, and to not do that too early, is important,” she said. After all, “You always want to show up in that environment 100%.”
Even though Davidson hasn’t been in a US camp since February 2025 – which included one game when she wore the captain’s armband – she is involved with the team as the president of the USWNT Players’ Association.
This leadership role means she is at the forefront of the team’s advocacy work, alongside Sam Coffey and Naomi Girma, the other members of the union’s executive committee. At the SheBelieves Cup in February, Coffey was asked by reporters about the team’s relative silence when it comes to recent pressing social and political issues. The Trump administration’s crackdown on queer and trans communities, immigrants and other marginalized groups is at the front of many fans’ minds; the USWNT built a legacy on fighting for equity, with players at times speaking out directly against the president.
“I think we do need to be better in the ways that we’re being vocal and standing up and speaking out about a myriad of topics,” Coffey said then, adding, “I think we can rest assured that we are doing that work, and that we are going to figure it out and figure out what it looks like for us and what feels authentic to this team, because no team is the same.”
Davidson’s injury has meant she hasn’t been able to be a part of conversations in camp. “I’m a little bit removed from things, given that I haven’t been in the environment for a year,” she said. “I definitely don’t want to misspeak for the team.”
She said she believes that the team does have a duty to speak out. “I absolutely think it’s an important responsibility that this team really uniquely has in our country, and really, on the worldwide stage,” she said. “This team was founded by women who knew how to stand up for not just themselves but also for others: for those that didn’t have a voice, for those that are not heard, for those that don’t have power. And I think that’s always been the culture of the US women’s national team – we have a welcoming community for our fans, we have a welcoming community for players. And I think that that has to always be our DNA. That is something that every generation of players have done as they’ve come through this team, and that’s now our responsibility to carry on.”
“I think it’s very important that we continue to be involved as players individually but also collectively as a national team, and being able to put our weight behind those types of words just because we do have that platform and we do have that attention, which not everybody gets,” she said.
“There’s a learning curve as you come into the national team and you realize that people listen to you, and what you say, what you believe, and who you stand for is talked about, and is listened to, and carries a lot of weight,” Davidson said. “And I think that players can decide for themselves what is important to them, but I think it’s also important that us as a team kind of collectively decide what are the social movements, who are the groups of people that we want to make sure that we’re listening to and that we’re protecting, and I think that we can always do more.”
The legacy of the USWNT’s fight for progress is front of mind for Davidson. “Something that’s very important is that we have inherited a team and an environment that is better than it was 10 years ago, it’s better than it was 20 years ago. And I think it’s now our responsibility to make sure that though hopefully we don’t ever have a generation that has to do a fight like we did for equal pay. You have to continue to better our environment,” she said. “And I think part of having that kind of bone to fight for what’s good in our environment also means that you have to have that to be able to fight for what’s good and what’s right in our communities, for our fanbase, for the society at large. And I think it’s a very scary time to do that, and I think it’s daunting for many people, but I think, again, our voice collectively is so strong and so influential, and it’s important to use it for good even in a time – and especially in a time – when there’s a lot of hate and vitriol in our environment.”
Davidson said the USWNTPA is always working behind the scenes with other players’ unions around the world. “We’re very involved with both our own interests but also helping the NWSL keep moving up and improving standards and safety and pushing forward for that PA,” she said. “And I think that we’re now doing that also worldwide through Fifpro. … I think it’s so important that we use our work through our PA as kind of a standard-setting for a lot of international teams.”
And speaking of the broader football world: the American-Irish dual citizen said playing abroad is something she has thought about. “I’ve always wanted to be able to use that [Irish citizenship] to my advantage, to be able to play in Europe. Whether that will happen, I don’t know,” she said. “That’s not really top of mind right now as I’m trying to get back for Gotham. I think it would be cool to play kind of in the birthplace of soccer, but for now it’s definitely all boots on the ground here in New Jersey.”
While the defending champions have a target on their back, Gotham still believe there’s room to grow; after all, they only just squeaked into the playoffs last year.
“We all recognize that we weren’t exactly the pinnacle of consistency when it came to our performances last year and we’re really hungry to hit that stride,” she said.
The roster’s depth will be critical – in addition to the regular season, Gotham will play in the Concacaf W Champions Cup and the NWSL Challenge Cup. General manager Yael Averbuch West brought in key reinforcements, including Norwegian winger Guro Rieten and veteran midfielder Savannah McCaskill, along with several rookies, headlined by striker Jordynn Dudley. They’ll join the likes of Rose Lavelle, Esther González and Jaedyn Shaw.
“We have rookies who’ve never played a professional game and are looking to start basically a 10-month season, all the way to people who have been playing for 10-plus years and know the league at the back of their hand,” Davidson said. “Everybody’s going to play a really significant role, so I’m super excited to see how that plays out.”
Leave a Reply