Sophia Wilson loves Portland. The Oregon city has been the 25-year-old forward’s home since she entered the National Women’s Soccer League six years ago as the No. 1 draft pick. And it will continue to be her home in 2026, now that Wilson has chosen to exercise the player option on her previous contract extension signed with the Portland Thorns in 2024. “It’s comfortable for me,” Wilson told The Athletic last week in an exclusive interview. “I know a lot of times it’s good to be uncomfortable, b
“It’s comfortable for me,” Wilson told The Athletic last week in an exclusive interview. “I know a lot of times it’s good to be uncomfortable, but I feel like I’m at a point in my life and career where that’s what I need, coming back from having a baby.”
For all the changes of the past year, Portland isn’t one of them — even as the version of the Thorns she left in 2024 ahead of the birth of her first child, Gianna, is not the one she will return to in 2026.
“In order for me to get back to being the best version of myself, on and off the field, being in a place that I know and that I’m familiar with is what I need right now,” Wilson said. “I miss my teammates. I miss playing in Providence Park in front of the Riveters. When I really think about making this type of decision, it’s hard to accept not playing in that stadium. That’s a hard, hard thing to think about.”
That best version of herself — “THAT girl” as Alex Morgan once deemed her — is maybe best summed up by a single image of Wilson celebrating with a shrug after scoring in the 2022 NWSL championship. That year, she was named both the NWSL regular season and championship MVP, and went on to win the U.S. Soccer female player of the year award (the first time a woman of color won since the award began in 1985).
Wilson is excited to return to play for both club and country. Still, just like the last time she spoke about staying in Portland, she was ready to head off commentary and doubts about her decision. Everyone, as she said, will have their opinions about what she does with the prime years of her career.
“At the end of the day, I know myself best. I know the type of environments I operate the best in. I know what it is that I need in this exact stage of my life. There’s not a single other person that can tell me what is better than myself,” Wilson said.
There might be one exception to that rule. She joked that her husband, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Michael Wilson, knew she’d be heading back to Portland before she had made the final call.
“I feel like it will be even more special and full circle going back to Portland with my daughter,” Wilson said, “because I’ve grown so much in that city and with the people there. To come back as a whole new — I mean, I’m still Soph — but as a new person with a daughter, I’m excited to come back to the place that I grew up in.”
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Wilson was last in a Thorns kit in November 2024 when Portland bowed out of the quarterfinals in a loss at Gotham FC. In March, just ahead of the start of the 2025 NWSL season, Wilson and her husband announced they were expecting their first child. This season was the first time Wilson has had a break since — well, even she can’t remember, but she thinks at least since she was eight years old.
“I haven’t had a legitimate break from soccer since probably before I even started playing soccer,” she said.
Her first season in NWSL was 2020, during the strangeness of that first year through the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, seasons stretch longer and longer with the league expanding to 16 teams in 2026; add in USWNT duties and January camps and say goodbye to any extended mental and physical break.
Wilson thought she was always pretty good at leaving the game at her front door when she got home, but the year off unlocked a new level of reset — completely different from being injured.
“I was out, knowing the best thing in my life was about to happen to me, and also knowing that I was going to be able to come back and do what I love — and do it with the best thing that’s happened to me,” she said. It was fun. She found herself watching games like a fan, rather than a player, raring to get back to it.
“There was no stress or pressure, or any of that that came with watching,” she said. “I really just enjoyed watching, and that will help me in my return because it gave me a different perspective on the game. I learned a lot about how I could fit into different parts of each game, what qualities I could bring and what things I could work on — but not in a pressure-filled way, just in a, ‘Wow, I’m excited to get back and add those things to my game or contribute in this way.’”
There will be other ways for Wilson to contribute in her 2026 return, as well.
Her last Thorns appearance was also the final match for a trio of club legends: Christine Sinclair, Becky Sauerbrunn and Meghan Klingenberg. After Bella Bixby, Wilson is next in line when it comes to seniority alongside fellow draft pick Morgan Weaver (who also missed the 2025 season due to a lingering knee injury).
The mission is to find the balance between the fresh energy of her return and tapping the well of her experience being in the NWSL, specifically in Portland.
“Over the last few years, we’ve lost a lot of the Portland icons, the veterans,” she said. “I think the team is still in its process of refining that identity. There’s a balance of knowing what it means to be a Thorn, but also creating a new way of being a Thorn with a new team and a new energy.”
She understands it’s a young team that she’s been away from for a year. (She made some visits back to Providence Park, but was not in the locker room every day.) For all the comfort Portland brings her, there has also been change, including the search for yet another head coach after the club parted ways with Rob Gale in November. The change is also somewhat of a consistency. The next permanent head coach will be Wilson’s fifth in six years.
“That’s helped me learn how to navigate the process of getting a new coach and adjusting to a new coach, figuring that out with your teammates. It’s a hard thing, but it’s a bonding moment as well. You learn to stick together,” she said.
Wilson is ready to contribute however she needs to. Mostly, she’s ready to get back to playing, in a stadium that she knows and loves. And she’s ready for more, too. Since she re-signed with the Thorns in 2024, the goal has always been to lift more trophies.
“I don’t play not to win,” she said. Her tone was light, but still bore traces of that signature competitiveness.
The love is mutual for Portland.
“I would say of the almost 365 days since I’ve been here, 364 of them were praying that Sophia would be coming back,” joked Thorns president of soccer operations and general manager Jeff Agoos last week.
“Having Sophia back is significant on several levels. From a roster perspective, she immediately strengthens our attack and makes us incredibly dangerous,” Agoos said.
The data from the first half of the season indicated the Thorns were amongst the best teams in the league for chance creation, according to Agoos, but those chances weren’t being converted. Wilson’s clinical finishing ability will be a welcome return. Since 2022, she’s always provided double-digit goal scoring for the Thorns, even managing to win the 2023 Golden Boot while missing a significant portion of the season due to injury. In 2024, she scored 12 times.
“I think for the league as a whole, it’s a positive when a talented player like Sophia chooses to come back to the league,” he added. “It speaks to the competitiveness of the league and the environment that we’re trying to build here in the NWSL.”
Recently, that competitiveness has come into question with increased interest in NWSL players from European teams, especially in U.S. players. Wilson’s national team teammates Naomi Girma and Alyssa Thompson both left the league for Chelsea this year, and free agent Trinity Rodman has offers to do the same.
Wilson did have a choice in front of her. For her year off, she wasn’t just watching the games, but watching everything unfold across the league from player movement to expansion to increased investment. As she said the last time when she re-signed with the Thorns, she works to evaluate everything before her, especially now, taking the field in her prime years ahead of the 2027 World Cup. In 2024, she was a key member of the U.S. women’s national team’s front three, alongside Rodman and Mallory Swanson. The attacking group helped the team win Olympic gold against Brazil.
“As a player, you’re always thinking about what the best option is for you. All different aspects: what’s the best team environment? Where’s the best coaching staff? Where’s the best place to play? Where am I going to grow and develop?” she said.
She never stopped thinking about these bigger questions, even as the league changed too over the past year. There will be bigger questions for her at the end of the 2026 season, as her option year comes to a close and she’s able to test the market as a free agent, questions that will be answered (in part, at least) by the resolution her fellow “Triple Espresso” member Rodman is able to find this winter with her ongoing negotiations with NWSL to stay with the Washington Spirit.
But right now, Wilson is still a Thorn, both at heart and on paper. However, 2026 won’t just look different for the team, but for her as a new mom. Gigi has been with her for a few recent appearances at matches, from the NWSL Championship in San Jose to the USWNT’s final game of the year in Florida. Wilson recently posted a video on Instagram of his wife swinging Gigi’s dangling feet through a soccer ball while training.
“I genuinely didn’t realize how much I could love another being,” she said about her daughter, before laughing a little as she clarified that obviously she loves her family and her husband. “The love that I have for her, I can’t even put it into words. All I care about is that she’s happy and taken care of.”
Even as Wilson was talking through her return to soccer, she admitted she was simply staring at her daughter as she spoke. Wilson is admittedly obsessed.
For a player who seemed to run on joy already, who is known for both her ruthlessness and her smile, her parting thought holds a promise for her return in 2026. Ask anyone who knows her, she said, and they’d all say the same thing.
“I’m a happier person.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
US Women's national team, Portland Thorns, NWSL, Women's Soccer
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