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.”
Per ESPN Stats & Information, Naeher’s five combined penalty saves (two in-game and three during shootouts) puts her at a tie for the most among all goalkeepers in the last five Women’s World Cups or Olympics. She’s the only goalkeeper to score a penalty in those five tournaments.
The truth behind Naeher’s success as a penalty-shot stopper and kick-taker is “quite boring,” former USWNT goalkeeper coach and assistant Phil Poole told ESPN this week. Naeher, who was a backup for the USWNT’s 2015 World Cup triumph and the starter for its 2019 triumph, studies copious amounts about her opponents and analyzes all the data she can.
“We have every resource under the sun in terms of providing data analytics, everything there is,” said Poole, who is now the head coach of the USL Super League’s Carolina Ascent FC. “And it doesn’t mean that it’s always right, but it means you make the most informed decision.”
There is strategy, of course. Loyden said the ideas can range from sticking with the notes a goalkeeper has scribbled out on her water bottle about a shooter’s preferred spot, to picking a side. When Loyden was on the USWNT in the early 2010s, she said they toyed with the idea of just diving right every time. That practice never made it to a match setting, but it was considered.
Loyden, who still trains top goalkeepers individually, said Naeher is typically most successful when diving to her right. She also praised Naeher for her ability to get an early jump on lateral movement to the side she will dive, while waiting long enough to mask the movement from the shooting player.
“As a GK, our job hinges on not allowing goals, so there becomes this mental element of like, ‘Alright I’ve let three in,’ and not letting that deter you or get discouraged — that the next one, you potentially could get,” Loyden said. “On the U.S. team we’d always say, ‘If you’re a goalkeeper and you’ve saved one, you’ve done your job, and our team is going to win.’ You’re just looking for that one moment you can make a save.”
Data also plays a role in Naeher taking kicks, Poole said. After 120 minutes, five substitutions have likely been made and there is a high likelihood that several of those changes would be on the forward line, where the team’s best finishers are. Who among the 11 players on the field after 120 minutes is the best penalty taker? That’s the real question, and the answer has led the USWNT to put Naeher at the spot as a kicker.
Hope Solo, Naeher’s predecessor in the No. 1 USWNT goalkeeping job, was an extrovert, a flamboyant goalkeeper who also had a penchant for incredible saves. Naeher is the opposite. She is stoic to such an extreme that it is a running joke with teammates past and present.
It works for her, in matches and especially in shootouts.
“She just has that ability to turn all emotions off,” Loyden told ESPN. “She’s all business. She’s had to kind of develop that mentality as the U.S. No. 1 because she took over the job from a long lineage of the world’s best goalkeepers ever, and she had to step in and figure out how she was going to perform under that amount of pressure. I think for her, taking the emotion out of the position was one of the most helpful things for her.”