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2024/2025 gk chart / 2024 pride v 2025 current / 2024 v 2025 sanchez / 2024 v 2025 tara / 2021 v 2024 v 2025 sonnett / michelle cooper outside back / claudia martĂnez p1 / claudia martĂnez p2
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recently (like 3 days ago) i made the call that michelle cooper could be following some form of a kelley o'hara arc with the uswnt. then i actually looked into it. and yeah, michelle cooper can follow a kelley o'hara arc.
for those unfamiliar, a history lesson. kelley was an incredible forward to start her career off. her senior year at stanford she got 26g/13a, and ended her time there with 57g/32a in 87 appearances, a mac hermann, and the most unfortunate final game of a college career. in her time with the u20 usynt she had 24 goals in 35 appearances. during her time in the short lived wps (drafted 3rd) she played in the midfield a bit more, and that was when pia decided "hey, if you want to play you're playing out back" and kelley was like "fuck this but okay i guess." and then like 6 months after her first start as an ob she was an olympic iron woman and got a gold medal out of it, and then became one of the most prolific outside backs the usa (and world) ever knew. and retired with 2 nwsl championships, 2 world cups, a gold medal, a bronze medal, and 6 concacaf trophies as an outside back, when she would've likely been cut from the forward pool, or at best languishing in the depth chart, due to how many talented forwards there were.
and now to the coop of it all. coop played college ball at duke, where she picked up the mac hermann award, and in her 40 appearances she scored 31 goals, 16 assists. she was drafted #2 in the 2023 class to KCC, where she's been since. in 2023 she had 3g/1a, 2024 3g/3a, 2025 6g/3a. she was called up to the uswnt in february 2025 and has established herself since then. and then against brazil we saw in the first half her showing off defensive chops to try and bolster the right side, and then in the second half she just became a wingback/outside back. okay, sure. and here's the thing: i can see it. coop is incredibly smart on the ball, she sees the field, she's aware of her physicality, and as we saw last camp she's incredibly adaptable to a variety of game states and is unafraid of some scrapping (if anything she invites it) and can pick up a new position in a pinch apparently. in general, coop reminds me of kelley. so why not add this?
one major part of kelley's switch was about where she'd get more playing time. that's true for coop too. on the plane to 2027 you've got trin, soph, mal, alyssa, and then after that it's honestly open imo. in the vague "forward or people who can play up there" pool you've also got emma, alyssa, coop herself, cat, ally, jaedyn, and they'll throw moultrie up there. not to mention yaz, reilyn, jameese, and some others hanging around the edges. the ob pool, specifically on the right? foxy, gisele, avery has established herself as front runner for the left starting spot but her as a backup. but it's foxy really and then behind her a big old ???????. if coop wants on that plane, the best way to get there is to set herself apart and make herself as valuable as possible. formidable forward who can play on the backline? that'll do it.
and with that, let's see some very rudimentary numbers and see what worlds i can create out of them.
because of the lack of minutes, i can't see her 2026 data yet, so i ran 2023/2024/2025. it's limited data generally, because she's never played as a defender for club, so we're expounding here.
here's her position map, showing yes that she's never played on the backline except for times considered statistically insignificant, meaning for the whole season she played in that position for less than 97 minutes total. i would like to know about when in 2023 they needed her as the cb for long enough it registered but still less than a full game. as you can see she's also a good midfield option if needed as an outside midfielder, making her essentially a 3 line threat.
this is her radar. you can compare it to a variety of player types, so for her that would normally be winger, but for this i looked at her in the fb category. this was the first thing i looked at and it's when i texted @trustherkindheart and said there actually may be some truth to my rambling. these numbers are much better than i thought. given that she's 5'3 i didn't expect her aerial numbers to be as high as they were. obviously xA will be astronomically high for a fb, as will prog carries, dribbling g+. turnover stat is solid, she can keep the ball. her defensive action numbers p96 look small because again this is not her position but it's actually a positive number. it's above a lot of wingers, and slightly below ob's like jenna nighswonger (10.23, 2023) or lilly reale (9.95, 2025), but not low enough that it's impossible to see room for improvement.
now we can see her def actions. 2023, rookie season, she was more a jack of all trades player (see above) and you can see her more officially solidifying on the right. obviously, again, it's not a high number because she's become a very reliable and renowned part of kcc's frontline during her breakout 2025 season, and a solid end to 2024.
THIS is where it gets the most interesting. her defensive statistical contributions are incredibly good for someone who is not a defender! her 2025 def actions won contribution is about the same as kayla sharples in 2025, as is the recovery stat. some of these numbers are close to where tara or sonnett have been for their most notable seasons. that's wild!
so like the tldr, will this happen? idk. who knows! there were a couple OB's on the bench that emma passed over in favor of putting michelle back there. but this was fun to think about. and now if it does happen you can all say "hey mel told us that would be a good idea!"
SONIA FUCKIN CITRON TURNAROUND FADE BUCKET AND GAME WINNER!!!!!! HOLY SHIT!!!!!! WHAT WAS I JUST TELLIN YALL THE OTHER DAY?! THIS MY FAVE MOVE IM OD GEEKED FOR SONIIIIIIIIIIIIII
y'all please watch on telemundo (peacock) they're refusing to air ads during the "hydration" breaks (for an indoor game rn btw) AND you don't have to listen to alexi lalas or carli lloyd. it's so much better.
âWhy donât you use aiâ idk man beyond the obvious environmental and âthis machine causes psychosis and encourages people to kill themselvesâ thing I think asking the equivalent of a solid D student who is also a pathological liar if they can answer my question/do the work for me seems pretty fucking stupid
Brazil fans are all up in Sonnettâs most recent posts too. Some have been blaming Sonnett for Dudinhaâs injury and wishing Sonnett harm which is just sad :/
Theyâre in everyoneâs posts who was a focal point. Coop is getting the worst of it for the reasons you can expect (her most recent post now is up to 7,000+ comments), and her 6 most recent are also flooded. Trinity is also getting racial abuse/targeted things about her family life. Lindseyâs wedding post looks like the Brazilian flag threw up in the comments. Obviously the content of it isnât good, but Sonnettâs not got as many comments as Iâd have thought. Sophâs really been left out of it but sheâs the peopleâs princess so thatâs to be expected.
If Cat were there I canât imagine what her comments would look like. Kinda happy she missed this one.
*again, I donât care if theyâre commenting the flag 8 million times or just saying Brazil is better. I think thatâs good, actually. The issue comes when the line is crossed.
Obviously I donât think Brazilian fans commenting en masse* on USWNT players posts is like a great thing for them to do BUT I do think Coopâs method of dealing with it is hilarious
*and by this I mean abusive things. If youâre just commenting the flag or like go Brazil or whatever go for it. If youâre being racist, homophobic, sexist, fatphobic, or anything else please grow tf up.
Tbf sheâs only the highest paid womenâs player in the world partly because of her name. Her play alone doesnât make her a 2 million dollar player. Her name is why sheâs a 2 million dollar player and someone like Wilson is not despite Wilson being better.
sorry i disagree washington spirt doesnât pay her that money bc of her name but everything she brings to the clubâŠ
