Despite wanting to represent the United States since she was a kid, Sofia Huerta’s path to the national team has never followed a normal trajectory. She never starred at the youth level with the U.S. — even representing Mexico a handful of times during college — and entered the professional ranks three years ago as a relative unknown.
In her rookie campaign with the Chicago Red Stars, however, Huerta quickly started turning heads, finishing near the top of the goal-scoring charts in her first two seasons. As a result, last summer, she finally earned a much coveted call-up to the U.S. squad.
Yet, even her first call-up added a new wrinkle to her journey when head coach Jill Ellis starting training Huerta — who normally represented Chicago as a winger or forward — in the backline.
This season, that new element presented a problem. Huerta had come to the conclusion that she needed an opportunity to play outside back at the club level to have the best chance at making the final U.S. roster for next summer’s World Cup. However, Red Stars’ head coach Rory Dames resisted the change because he didn’t think such a move was best for his team.
“That was something that Rory Dames did not want to do,” Huerta told The Equalizer …
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