Trinity Rodman and Sophia Wilson give the NWSL a star-studded season kickoff game
Rodman played her first game with her big new contract, and Wilson played her first game since returning from maternity leave, in front of another sellout crowd for women's soccer in Washington.
WASHINGTON — You usually don’t have to look too far in the NWSL to find a matchup with familiar names on the field. But Friday’s season opener had a kind of buzz that the league hadn’t seen in a while, as Trinity Rodman’s Washington Spirit hosted Sophia Wilson’s Portland Thorns.
Rodman played her first game for Washington since recommitting to the city with a historic new contract. And the nation’s capital only got to see her sparingly last year, thanks to back injuries that hobbled her and still linger.
Wilson, meanwhile, played her first official contest since returning from maternity leave. She hadn’t been in action since November 2024 and hadn’t shared a field with Rodman since that September — when the league happened to have a Spirit-Thorns game a month after the duo led the U.S. to Olympic gold.
“Having ‘Soph’ on the field, even if it’s playing against us, I think is great,” Rodman said. “For the league, obviously, but for her as an individual, to be that young having a baby and then coming back so quickly, in my opinion. … I’m so proud of her for doing it.”
So, yes, this was an occasion on the soccer calendar. And there were a few echoes of history, too, being in the nation’s capital.
Almost 25 years ago, Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain helped launch the Women’s United Soccer Association across town at the old RFK Stadium. It was an occasion back then, and it was an occasion now: The Spirit announced a sellout of 19,215 just before kickoff, and the real crowd looked the part.
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New Portland manager Robert Vilahamn cited the big crowds across the NWSL as part of why he wanted to go to the city that historically has had the league’s biggest fan base.
“In England, they have a few games and a few teams that do it, but you kind of trick the system a little bit, because many games it’s just 1,000 people, and it’s quite old stadiums,” said the 43-year-old Sweden native, who previously led England’s Tottenham Hotspur. “Women’s football in this country is the No. 1 in the world, and I think that’s why I want to be here. It’s so competitive. There’s so many people supporting this sport and these female players.”
Another expert witness was in D.C. earlier on Friday. Alex Morgan stopped by Audi Field for a few hours in the afternoon, joining Spirit owner Michele Kang and NWSL vice president of sporting Sarah Gregorius at a sponsor’s charity event.
Hamm started the lineage in 1999, and Morgan helped the U.S. make its first World Cup final since then in 2011, then went on to her own superstardom. Who better to ask about two names who now top the box office marquee?
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“The NWSL, I’m sure, wants to keep the best talent in the world here in the U.S. and bring some of the other best talent from around the world into the NWSL,” Morgan said “Trinity and Sophia are two of our most prized possessions in the U.S., and so having them play against each other … I’m excited to watch it just like everyone else is.”
The big crowd didn’t get all that it wanted, particularly the thing it wanted most. Portland won the game, 1-0, with a goal from one of the U.S. national team’s up-and-comers: midfielder Olivia Moultrie. The midfielder is now a former teen phenom, having turned 20 last September, but her talents are blossoming for club and country.
“I want to be helping my team win games, competing for championships. I want to be competing with the national team and growing my role there,” Moultrie said. “So, yeah, I’m happy, but at the same time, this is who I want to be, so it’s not like a surprise to me. I think there’s just a lot to build off of, and obviously excited for Soph to get back and be able to play with her too.”
Wilson played as a substitute, not a starter, since she isn’t at full-game fitness yet. Her entrance drew a polite cheer at the stadium where she won the 2022 NWSL championship as a Thorn.
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“I’m going to be very patient with myself and my body and give myself a lot of grace,” she said. “But I feel really good where I’m at, and just continue to build. It might not be a straight path back to to feeling 100%, but I’m just taking my time, and I’ll get there.”
She especially appreciated playing as a mother for the first time. Wilson’s daughter, Gigi, made the long trip east, accompanied by many unofficial aunts in the Thorns locker room.
“It was so special, just the fact that she’s up in the stands,” Wilson said. “She did not watch — she slept the whole game — but I think that she’ll look back on this and think it’s really special. Everything I do, I just do to make her proud.”
Wilson and Rodman now go their separate ways for a while, but perhaps not for too long. If there are no complications, Wilson could rejoin the national team next month for a three-game series against Japan.
She is already starting to look like her old self, even if it was just for a few minutes.
“Having, still, so much body control in positioning — you saw her bodying [the ball] and holding it out the corner,” Rodman said. “I wanted to run 70 yards to kick it between her legs because she’s so good at it. … It’s so amazing to see her come back from a pregnancy, having the baby, and then coming in like that, being able to play the first game of the season.”
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