CARSON, Calif. — When the director of an all-boys Los Angeles soccer academy agreed to give a 14-year-old girl a tryout, he assumed he knew how it would unfold. Mario Gonzalez was certain she would struggle to keep pace with bigger, stronger high school boys.
Alyssa Thompson had piled up goals and accolades playing club soccer against girls up to five years older than her, but training alongside some of Southern California’s top boys prospects was a different level of hard. Total Futbol Academy competes in MLS Next, the feeder system into Major League Soccer.
What happened next was Gonzalez’s first hint that Alyssa was destined to one day emerge as one of women’s soccer’s brightest stars.