Alana Simone Cook (born April 11, 1997) is an American professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

player who plays as a

center back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for the

Kansas City Current The Kansas City Current are an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Kansas City, Missouri, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). It was founded as an NWSL expansion, expansion team in 2021 NWSL ...

of the

National Women's Soccer League The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a women's professional Association football, soccer league and the highest level of the United States soccer league system#Women's leagues, United States soccer league system (alongside the USL Supe ...

and the United States national team. After playing collegiately for the

Stanford Cardinal The Stanford Cardinal are the college athletics in the United States, athletic teams that represent Stanford University. Stanford's program has won 138 National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA team championships, the List of NCAA schools ...

, Cook signed with French club

Paris Saint-Germain Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain () or simply PSG, is a French professional Association football, football club based in Paris. They compete in Ligue 1, the French football league system, top d ...

. She signed with

Seattle Reign FC Seattle Reign FC is an American professional soccer team based in Seattle, Washington, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Founded in 2012, it is one of eight inaugural members of the NWSL. Since June 2024, the Reign ar ...

in 2021. Cook debuted for the United States national team in 2019. She was selected in the squad for the

2023 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup was the ninth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international women's association football, football championship contested by List of women's national association football teams, women's nat ...

Early life

Cook was born in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the list of United States cities by population, 113th most populous city in the United States. Named after Worcester ...

to parents Florence and Bryan Cook and raised with sister Brianna in Worcester and Far Hills, New Jersey. She attended

The Pennington School The Pennington School is an independent, coeducational college preparatory school for day and boarding students located in Pennington, Mercer County, New Jersey. The school operates for students in sixth through twelfth grades. The Head of S ...

, a boarding school in Pennington, New Jersey, and helped guide the varsity soccer team to regional and state titles. Cook was named 2013 New Jersey Prep Player of the Year and 2015 NSCAA High School Scholar Player of the Year. Twice named NSCAA Youth All-American, Cook played in the NSCAA High School All-America Game and earned Best XI honors. She played club soccer for Match Fit Academy Colchesters and won the 2013 U.S. Youth Soccer National League title with the team. Cook began representing the United States on its youth national teams as a teenager.

Stanford Cardinal

Cook attended the

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

from 2015 to 2018 where she earned a degree in symbolic systems and was a four-year starter for the Stanford Cardinal women's soccer team. She captained the team in her final two seasons. She was named

Pac-12 Conference The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I level for all sports, and its Co ...

Defender of the Year and a MAC Hermann Trophy semifinalist in 2018.

Club career

Paris Saint-Germain, 2019–21

In January 2019, Cook elected to forgo the 2019 NWSL College Draft despite her first round draft grade and instead chose to pursue opportunities in Europe, signing a three-year deal with French

Division 1 Féminine Division may refer to: Mathematics *Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication *Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division Military *Division (military), a formation typically consisting of 10,000 to ...

team

OL Reign (loan), 2020

On June 16, 2020, Cook joined

OL Reign Seattle Reign FC is an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Seattle, Washington, that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Founded in 2012, it is one of eight inaugural members of the NWSL. Since J ...

on a short-term loan for the

2020 NWSL Challenge Cup The 2020 NWSL Challenge Cup was a tournament during the 2020 National Women's Soccer League season to mark the league's return to action from the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first professional team sports event to return to play in United States ...

OL / Seattle Reign, 2021–2024

On June 7, 2021, OL Reign signed Cook to a three-year contract with an option for an extra year on a permanent transfer from PSG. During the

2021 season 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

, Cook was a starting defender in all 20 matches of the regular season. The Reign finished in second place during the regular season with a record. After advancing to the

NWSL Playoffs The National Women's Soccer League playoffs (or NWSL playoffs) are a single-elimination tournament among eight teams in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) of the United States. The final round of the playoffs is the NWSL Championship. Si ...

, they were eliminated by eventual champions

Washington Spirit The Washington Spirit are an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Washington, D.C. that competes in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). It is a continuation of the D.C. United Women of the USL W-League (1995� ...

. Cook was named to the league's Best XI. In 2022, Cook helped OL Reign finish in first place during the regular season winning the

NWSL Shield The NWSL Shield is an annual award given to the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) team with the best regular season record as determined by the NWSL points system. The NWSL Shield has been awarded annually since 2013 and is recognized as a ...

. She was nominated for NWSL Defender of the Year for the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

Kansas City Current, 2024–

On July 22, 2024, Seattle Reign announced that they had traded Cook to

for

allocation money In Major League Soccer (MLS) and the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), two of the top-tier professional soccer leagues in the United States, allocation money represents an amount of money that teams can use to sign players or allocate to thei ...

and intra-league transfer funds.

International career

Cook has competed for the United States under-17, under-20, under-23, and

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

national teams. She captained the under-17 team and made the jump to the under-20 team in 2014 followed by the under-23 team in 2017. She captained the under-23 squad in 2019. She is eligible to represent

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

because of her British father and earned her first senior international call-up in September 2019 as a training player for England's friendlies against Portugal and Brazil. Cook received her first call-up to the United States national team on October 31, 2019. In June 2023, she was named to the U.S. squad for the

in Australia and New Zealand.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list United States's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Cook goal.''

Honors

;Stanford Cardinal * NCAA Women's College Cup:

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

;Paris Saint-Germain *

: 2020–21 ; OL Reign *

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

* The Women's Cup:

Kansas City Current * NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup:

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

;United States U23 * Nordic Tournament: 2019 ;United States *

CONCACAF Women's Championship The CONCACAF W Championship is a women's association football competition for national teams organized by the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) that often serves as the qualifying competition ...

SheBelieves Cup The SheBelieves Cup is an invitational women's association football, women's soccer tournament held in different cities in the United States in late February or early March. In its first three years (2016, 2017, and 2018), it was contested by t ...

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

Individual *

Defender of the Year: 2018 * MAC Hermann Trophy Semifinalist: 2018 * NWSL Best XI: 2021,

References

External links

* *
Alana Cook
at

Alana Cook
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cook, Alana 1997 births Living people Paris Saint-Germain FC (women) players Expatriate women's footballers in France Sportspeople from Worcester, Massachusetts American expatriate women's soccer players Stanford Cardinal women's soccer players United States women's under-20 international soccer players United States women's international soccer players Women's association football defenders American women's soccer players Première Ligue players Seattle Reign FC players National Women's Soccer League players African-American soccer players 21st-century American sportswomen 21st-century African-American sportswomen 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup players Soccer players from Massachusetts American people of English descent United States women's youth international soccer players Kansas City Current players