Sophia Olivia Smith (born August 10, 2000) is an American

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player who plays for

Portland Thorns FC The Portland Thorns FC is an American professional women's soccer team based in Portland, Oregon. Established in 2012, the team began play in 2013 in the then-eight-team National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), which receives support from the Uni ...

in the

National Women's Soccer League The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federati ...

and the United States national team. In March 2017, she was called up to the senior national team for two international friendlies against

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. She played in college for

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

, helping her team win the national title in 2019. On January 16, 2020, she was selected by the Thorns as the top overall pick in the 2020 NWSL College Draft.

Early life

Smith attended Fossil Ridge High School in

Fort Collins, Colorado Fort Collins is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 169,810 at the 2020 census, an increase of 17.94% since 2010. Fort Collin ...

. She was named First-Team All-Conference her freshman year. Smith also played for the varsity basketball team. Smith began playing college soccer at

starting in 2018, scoring 7 goals that season and 17 the following season. In the 2019 College Cup, she scored a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three w ...

to help Stanford defeat

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

in the semifinal; Stanford went on to win the national title via a

penalty shootout The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

in the final.

Club career

Smith took part in the

NWSL The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...

draft on January 16, 2020. She was drafted with the #1 pick by the

. In 2022, Smith was recognized as the league MVP. The Thorns would go onto win the

NWSL Championship The National Women's Soccer League Playoffs (or NWSL Playoffs) are a single elimination tournament among six teams in the National Women's Soccer League of the United States, deciding the winner of the NWSL Championship. Since playoff games can ...

with Smith scoring the first goal and being named Championship MVP.

International career

Smith was part of the U-17 team at the 2016 FIFA U-17 World Cup. In early 2017, she scored nine goals in six games, which is believed to be a U.S. Youth Women's National Team record for goals in six consecutive games. On March 31, 2017, Smith was called up for the first time to the senior U.S. national team. After being a part of the USA U-20 squad that finished runner-up at the 2018 CONCACAF U-20 Championship, Smith was named to the USA U-20 roster for the 2018 FIFA U-20 World Cup. Smith was called up to the senior national team for the first training camp of 2020 from January 5 to 15 after having been called into a talent identification camp in December 2019. On November 27, 2020, she earned her first cap in a game against the

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, becoming the first player born in the 2000s to appear for the senior national team.

Career statistics

2022 NWSL Championship 57 - Sophia Smith (cropped)

Club

International

International goals

Honors and awards

Stanford Cardinal *

NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Championship The NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Championship, sometimes known as the Women's College Cup, is an American college soccer tournament conducted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and determines the Division I women's national ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

Portland Thorns FC *

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeypo ...

NWSL Challenge Cup The NWSL Challenge Cup, currently known as the UKG NWSL Challenge Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual tournament organized by the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the top-tier women's league in the United States soccer league system. Th ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

* NWSL Community Shield: 2020 * Women's International Champions Cup:

United States U20 * CONCACAF Women's U-20 Championship:

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...

* Sud Ladies Cup:

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

United States * SheBelieves Cup:

;

* CONCACAF Women's Championship:

Individual * NWSL Most Valuable Player:

* NWSL Championship Game MVP: 2022 * NWSL Best XI:

NWSL Player of the Month The National Women's Soccer League Player of the Month is a monthly soccer award given to individual players in the National Women's Soccer League. The honor is awarded to the player deemed to have put in the best performances over the past month b ...

: June 2022 * US Soccer Female Player of the Year: 2022 * Sud Ladies Cup Best Player:

* Sud Ladies Cup Top Scorer:

References

;Match reports

External links

*
U.S. Soccer player profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Sophia 2000 births Living people American women's soccer players Soccer players from Colorado People from Windsor, Colorado United States women's under-20 international soccer players United States women's international soccer players Women's association football forwards Stanford Cardinal women's soccer players Portland Thorns FC players Portland Thorns FC draft picks African-American women's soccer players African-American soccer players 21st-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American women 20th-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American women National Women's Soccer League players American soccer players Association football forwards