Nothing in soccer can match the drama of a penalty shootout, and there are few individual moments more exhilarating than when a goalkeeper saves a shot during penalties.
U.S. women’s national team goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher does it regularly. And, over the past year, she has also emerged as the USWNT’s most reliable penalty-kick taker, scoring from the spot herself. It’s a rare combination at the international level that could come in handy again on Saturday when the USWNT faces Japan in the Olympics quarterfinal.
On March 6, Naeher saved three penalty kicks against Canada in the semifinal of the Concacaf W Gold Cup. She also stepped up and buried the USWNT’s fourth kick to help the Americans advance and, eventually, win the tournament. It was déjà vu 34 days later. Naeher saved three Canadian spot kicks and buried the USWNT’s fifth to win the SheBelieves Cup.
“It’s incredible, you guys. Is it not incredible?” interim USWNT coach Twila Kilgore said moments later as she struggled to come up with more sufficient words for the feat. “I mean, nerves of steel.”
Now, the USWNT heads into the knockout stage of the 2024 Olympics knowing that a penalty shootout might be needed as a means of advancement. Naeher’s presence in goal gives the Americans confidence that they can advance against any team in that scenario.
Former USWNT goalkeeper and current TV commentator Jill Loyden has a simple word to describe Naeher’s talents: “ice.”
Goalkeepers who also double as set-piece or penalty-kick specialists are rare. Brazilian men’s goalkeeper Rogério Ceni is the most famous outlier, having scored over 100 goals for São Paulo in two decades at the club, almost entirely from free kicks and penalties. A goalkeeper striking a free kick or penalty during the run of a game remains mostly unheard of for a reason: If something goes wrong, the approach leaves a team with an unmanned goal.
Former Mexico men’s international Jorge Campos was even more maverick. Campos played for nearly two decades on teams across North America and could frequently be found charging out of his goal into attacking positions or switching his position to play striker later in a match. It was the kind of thing typically only seen at youth levels, and it was wildly entertaining for neutrals.
Campos was animated and flashy. Naeher is none of those things.
“Alyssa is just so even-keeled,” longtime USWNT teammate Alex Morgan, who missed out on the 2024 Olympics roster, said earlier this year after Naeher’s second three-save-one-goal shootout performance. “She just shows no emotion. We always talk about celebrating our goals, penalties and all, and she’s just Steady Eddie. I know that there’s nerves under somewhere, but she’s never going to show them. She’s just someone that continues to show up in big moments.”
The irony of Naeher’s rise to penalty-shootout fame is that it began in her lowest moment.
The Americans were eliminated from last year’s World Cup in a penalty shootout (after a scoreless draw) against Sweden in the round of 16, marking the worst finish at a major tournament in USWNT history. Even there, though, Naeher left a mark on the shootout.
She saved Sweden’s fourth kick, then stepped up to hammer a shot down the middle to convert the USWNT’s sixth kick. After Kelley O’Hara missed the Americans’ seventh kick, Naeher initially saved Lina Hurtig‘s initial shot, but the ball spun backward toward goal. Naeher quickly readjusted and swatted it away again, then sprung up and wagged her finger to indicate that it did not cross the line.
Time then stood still in Melbourne, Australia, as 25 seconds passed before the referee confirmed the ball had crossed the line. Naeher stood still in disbelief, shaking her head and waving her hand to motion that she saved the ball. After a few minutes, as the reality of defeat sunk in, an image appeared on the stadium screen showing the computer-generated image of the goal-line decision, and an indiscernible amount of space between the ball and the goal line to indicate it had crossed — a millimeter within the automated system’s margin of error.
That memory will never leave her mind, but she has tried to not allow it to be an active part of her mind.
“I approach each [shootout] individually and separately, and you want to win — you want to come out on top,” she said when asked directly about whether that moment in Melbourne motivates her. “My approach has always been staying in the moment, one tournament and one opportunity at a time.”
