Lindsey Heaps is a natural in the Champions League. But will other USWNT stars fit well in Europe?

Although some of Lindsey Heaps’ games in Europe aren’t easy for American fans to watch, the chances that do come along show why she’s so comfortable there.

The 31-year-old midfielder plays for her club, France’s OL Lyonnes, as more of a facilitator than the do-it-all general she’s often been cast as with the United States — not just by fans, but by coaches over the years.

It’s easy to focus on Heaps not scoring, especially given that she started her career as a forward before moving into midfield. But her last game for OL, against Spain’s Atlético Madrid in the Champions League, showed a different side of Heaps.

She completed 42 of 44 passes that night, continuing a pace of a 90% pass completion rate in Champions League games this season, and had eight defensive recoveries. The players around her did most of the creating, especially midfielder Melchie Dumornay and wingers Tabitha Chawinga and Kadidiatou Diani.

Any team would dream of having OL’s squad of superstars. The club was the standard-bearer in Europe long before American businesswoman Michelle Kang bought it in 2023 (she also owns the NWSL’s Washington Spirit and England’s London City Lionesses), and it has remained at that level.

No team in France comes close to OL’s 18 league titles, all won in the last 19 years — as in, every season except one. Nor is any team in Europe close to OL’s eight Champions League triumphs from 2011-22, even though Barcelona is the continent’s top team right now.

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Heaps has three league winners’ medals and one from the European Cup, and could add to both totals this season. OL is running away with the French league, and earned a round-of-16 bye in the Champions League thanks to an unbeaten group stage run.

“It’s unbelievable, I think this year especially,” she told The Inquirer. “New coach, new culture a bit, standards, competitiveness. The training is unbelievable in everything that we’re doing, and obviously you see it on the pitch as well. But we take each game at a time, and we just keep rolling.”

That new coach is a familiar name: Jonatan Giráldez, who joined OL from the Washington Spirit in the summer. It was a controversial move, since Kang was accused of taking from one of her teams to boost another.

But that claim is above Heaps’ pay grade.

“Honestly, I think I speak for everyone on the team: he is such a quality coach,” Heaps said. “You just learn so much, and even for me, I want to continue learning, or looking at the game in a different way, or tactical adjustments, or things like that. … He wants us to win so badly, and he wants us to do so well as players, and he cares about us — he cares about how we do and how we perform, but also us as people.”

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Giráldez returned the praise.

“A very, very important player,” he said of Heaps. “Her role on the field is beyond the tactical, because she’s able to understand a lot of situations on the field — when the team has the ball, when the team doesn’t have the ball. … I’m very happy to have her in the team.”

Heaps mentioned the team’s “training environment” a few times in the interview, praising the high standards there. That counts for a lot, especially among U.S. national team stalwarts.

For lack of a better way to put it, the top American players have long relished getting their butts kicked on a daily basis, whether by the NWSL’s competitive balance or the famed ferocity of U.S. practices.

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Heaps is the latest in a lineage from Mia Hamm through Abby Wambach, Heather O’Reilly, Julie Ertz, and Carli Lloyd, all of whom spoke just as bluntly (and sometimes more so). Now Heaps wants to pass it on to a new era.

She gets to do that in Lyon, not just with the national team. The club’s squad includes 22-year-old American midfielder Korbin Shrader and 18-year-old Lily Yohannes, the latter of whom is starting to meet the hype as a generational talent.

Unfortunately, Yohannes hasn’t gotten to play much in the Champions League this season. She didn’t play at all against Atlético Madrid, where the tactical matchup would have been a great lesson.

Heaps also wanted that, but she preached patience.

“We all need to remember that she’s 18 years old,” she said. “At the end of the day, she needs to keep doing her thing, because she’s been playing so well — she’s been playing well with the national team, she’s training well here. And like I said before, it is just such a competitive environment.”

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But Heaps is not immune to the buzz around Yohannes, and didn’t mind indulging in some.

“I know these games mean a lot for her, but her ceiling is so, so high,” she said. “I just said to her that no matter what, in a few years from now, you’re going to remember games like this that maybe you don’t come into. But you’re going to be a starting player and a non-stop player, and I believe the best midfielder in the world soon to come.”

Yohannes has played her entire career in Europe, and Heaps has played eight of her 14 professional years there. The American contingent across the Atlantic keeps growing, with Penn State product Sam Coffey soon to join it at England’s Manchester City.

Will playing overseas fit other Americans as well as it does Heaps? The question is always on the table, but it’s in bright lights above Trinity Rodman’s head right now. Her standoff with the NWSL over getting paid what she’s worth — with Kang on her side, trying to structure a contract within the league’s salary rules — has naturally led to European suitors chasing her.

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It might also reveal a truth that Europe’s chattering class doesn’t like admitting. Very few European clubs are truly at a high enough level to be right for elite U.S. talents.

Lyon is one for sure, but there would be an even bigger uproar if Rodman moves there. Barcelona is another, but the Spanish giants don’t sign Americans. Manchester City, Arsenal, and Chelsea measure up in England, but Chelsea’s roster looks too loaded to have room for Rodman right now.

Beyond them? Paris Saint-Germain was in that class, but has fallen hard this year. Germany’s Wolfsburg is far from its past glories, and Bayern Munich still has a ways to rise. Real Madrid and Manchester United have stars, but their ownerships aren’t trusted to build truly top programs.

The highest tier is really just the first five clubs you read above, and that’s not much.

Then add in Rodman’s huge commercial impact, which would be diminished going abroad — less so in England, but still notably.

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Many clubs outside England also have poor attendances. OL averages just over 5,000 in a 59,000-seat stadium despite all its stars. PSG plays almost all its French league games at a 1,500-seat field within the bigger club’s practice facilities, far out in the Paris suburbs. Both are a far cry from the 15,259 that Washington averaged this year, or the even bigger crowds in Los Angeles and Portland.

Not for nothing, then, did U.S. legend Tobin Heath — who played for PSG, Manchester United and Arsenal amid many years in American leagues — recently say Rodman should stay in the NWSL.

“I advise a lot on players going or staying, and 95% of the time, I will usually say go,” she said in an interview on fellow former superstar Megan Rapinoe’s podcast. “I think that her game will be 1000% louder here. I think she can be the face of the league.”

At the time Heaps was asked, the NWSL was still putting together its new High Impact Player rule. She had heard about it, but the details hadn’t all been published yet — including the controversial rules on how players qualify. So Heaps chose her words carefully, but she had plenty of them.

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” she said, tying in what she has seen over the years from MLS’s Designated Player rule. (Her husband Tyler is San Diego FC’s sporting director.). “If you want some of the best players in the world to come and play in the NWSL, some things do have to change. … We want to continue growing the league. So, what’s the best way of doing that? We’ve got to get the best players there.”

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It was also easy to think Rodman’s situation would be settled by now. Heaps wondered if it might not just come down to salary, but she encouraged Rodman to do what she feels is right.

“Trinity needs to do what’s best for her,” Heaps said. “The money is kind of on the side of it — obviously, that’s a big thing for us professionals. But Trinity, she’s going to make the decision that’s best for her, and I think that’s the most important.”