It was an innocuous foul in the fourth minute of a group-stage match with Australia, a forgettable moment in an Olympic soccer tournament otherwise packed with excitement and drama. Forgettable for pretty much everyone, that is, except Sam Coffey. The foul earned Coffey a yellow card, her second of the group stage, ensuring she would miss the U.S. team’s quarterfinal match.
And she knew it.
“That’s obviously where my head went—‘this stinks’—but there was nothing I could do but focus on the job I needed to do. I knew I still had 90 minutes to empty the tank.”
She did just that, playing the full match in a 2-1 win, then watching her teammates eke out a 1-0 quarterfinal win over Japan. Back in the lineup for the semifinal, Coffey ’20 Com was her usual reliable presence in defensive midfield, playing every minute in an overtime 1-0 win over Germany; she also provided a moment of offensive magic, playing the pass that led to the assist that led to Sophia Smith—her teammate on the NWSL’s Portland Thorns—scoring the game’s only goal.
Coffey then played 90 minutes in the Olympic final against Brazil, another 1-0 win that marked the Americans’ fifth gold medal and first since 2012. Looking back on it now, she says, “I think especially in the dwindling moments of the game, it’s like, Is this really happening? It’s a moment you dream about your whole life, and now you’re in it. It just felt like the most euphoric moment of my life. Just sheer joy.”
It was a moment shared by Alyssa Naeher ’10 H&HD, the U.S. goalkeeper who added to her lengthy résumé of dramatic saves in big moments, most memorably her game-saving penalty stop during the 2019 World Cup. In the closing minutes against Germany, she saved a point-blank header by fellow former Nittany Lion Laura Freigang with her left foot; she matched that feat in the gold-medal match, palming down a diving header in the 94th minute to protect the lead. Naeher became the first U.S. keeper to post four shutouts in a single Olympic tournament, and the first in women’s soccer history to record shutouts in both a World Cup and Olympic final.
The two Penn Staters took very different paths to their spots in the starting lineup. Naeher has been proving herself one of the best in the world since her days on the U-17 national team, led at the time by current Nittany Lion coach Erica Dambach. “She was clearly a generational talent,” Dambach says. “All her choices were made with her profession in mind, and she had a better foundation than anyone.”
That was evident during Naeher’s four seasons at Penn State, where she was a two-time All-American and the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in 2007. (Says Dambach: “We had a lot of struggles that year, and I can’t even tell you how many games she won us.”) She was no less impressive on the international stage, earning the Golden Glove as best goalkeeper on the U-20 national team that won the 2008 U-20 World Cup. The USWNT’s first-choice keeper since taking over the starting job in 2017, Naeher has posted shutouts in 67 of 111 career appearances with the senior team. She’s also an 11-year NWSL veteran, having spent the past nine seasons in goal for the Chicago Red Stars.
Coffey calls Naeher “a rock for our team, someone who’s been through pretty much every experience. In my opinion, she is the best goalkeeper of all time.” Coffey’s own road to the national team was less of a sure thing. She started her college career at Boston College as an attacking midfielder and earned All-American honors as a sophomore, but she just missed making the 2018 U-20 World Cup team. She transferred to Penn State in the hope that Dambach, one of the most revered coaches in the nation, could help her elevate her game.
“At BC I didn’t have much interest in defending, and I could get away with it. Obviously that’s not how Erica does things,” she says. “I came in with the intention to do whatever it took to achieve my goals, and she and the rest of the Penn State staff instilled the habits that helped me become a complete player.”
A three-time all–Big Ten pick during her three seasons in Happy Valley, Coffey continued to impress as an NWSL rookie, earning a spot on the league’s 2022 Best IX First Team and helping Portland win that season’s NWSL title. There was plenty of buzz about her winning a spot on the national team, particularly given its need for a reliable defensive midfielder, a position she was quickly making her own. But when the 2023 World Cup roster was announced, Coffey was again left off. The Americans—four-time World Cup champs—failed to reach the quarterfinals, and second-guessing and a coaching change soon followed. New manager Emma Hayes took over in May, giving her just two months to decide which players she wanted to take to France. Adding the young defensive midfielder from Portland, Hayes later said, was an easy choice: “They don’t make players like Sam Coffey anymore.”
Though her current role means she’ll never replicate the gaudy offensive numbers—42 goals and 54 assists in five seasons—she posted in college, Coffey brings undeniable value to both Portland and the USWNT with her ability to dictate a game’s pace and jump-start attacks from the back. Beyond her talent, Dambach points to Coffey’s “humility and growth mindset—it was always, ‘Teach me, help me grow.’ At Penn State, she could take over games, and you’ve started to see her do that with the U.S. There were times where she would just step in and win the ball, and then her ability to start the counter as a holding mid is world-class.”
Coffey is just 25; health permitting, she could be a fixture in the USWNT lineup for another decade. At 36, Naeher is closer to the end of her career than to the beginning, but as she showed in France, she’s still at the top of her game. “It’s her professionalism, her consistency, the way she carries herself,” Dambach says of Naeher, who also holds the all-time NWSL records for saves and appearances by a goalkeeper. “There never seems to be an offseason for her.”
Offseasons can wait for retirement. As Coffey discovered, and Naeher already knew, there’s too much joy to play for while they can. “It was the greatest moment of my life,” Coffey says, “and a taste of what I hope is just one of many gold medals and trophies and championships.”
