With women’s soccer having been around for decades, picking the top US women’s soccer players in the world is a daunting task
Many countries formed female teams after the Second World War, but in the USA, it became popular in the 1990s via collegiate soccer, and the first women’s league was created in 1995. Women’s soccer is still developing in the US though, and new teams continue to land, emulating the expansion of Major League Soccer.
In this article, we list our top US women’s soccer players and tell you a bit more about them and their accomplishments.
Abby Wambach is the first name on our list.
The top US women’s soccer players: Our picks
Abby Wambach
Among her honors are two Olympic gold medals, FIFA Women’s World Cup Champion’s medal, and membership of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Wambach won the U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award six times and was the first soccer player (from both men and women) to be named the Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press.
Wambach played for the Florida Gators in her college days and when she started her senior career in 2002, she played in Washington Freedom. After that, she spent time in various other clubs, like Ajax America Women, Western New York Flash, and magicJack. In her career, she appeared in 19 matches and scored 75 goals.
Abby played for the US national soccer team from 2001 to 2015 and appeared in 255 matches. She scored 184 international goals during that time.
Kristine Lilly
Kristine Lilly is another retired soccer player, who scored 130 goals for the US national team and is only behind Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach, who we talked about already. She played for the North Carolina Tar Heels during her college days and transitioned into Tyresö FF in 1994 to start her senior career. After that, she spent time in multiple clubs, like Washington Warthogs, Delaware Genies, KIF Örebro DFF, and the Boston Breakers where she spent the longest time.
She holds the record for most international caps earned by both men and women – 354 caps. Lilly was inducted into the US Soccer Hall of Fame in 2015 and receive multiple awards for her college and senior careers. She won the Olympic gold medal two times and a silver medal once, and also the FIFA World Cup Bronze Ball three times.
Michelle Akers
Michelle Akers is a former soccer player who spent almost all of her senior career playing for Tyresö FF. She also starred in the US national team and scored a total of 105 goals for them from 1985 to 2000.
We decided she deserved to be on the top US women’s soccer players list because she is not only a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame since 2004, but she also starred and helped to win the three gold medals in the 1991, 1996, and 1999 Olympics. She has won a Golden Shoe for top scorer at the 1991 Olympic Games.
Besides her Olympic history, she was named as one of the only two women in the FIFA 100 list created by Pele himself alongside Mia Hamm. She also won the FIFA Female Player of the Century award in 2002.
Alex Morgan
There aren’t many USWNT players who can claim to be a prominent character in a game’s story mode. In fact, Morgan might be just about the only one, as her appearance in FIFA 19’s story mode (‘The Journey’, which completes a trilogy started two years earlier) helps guide one of the three heroes through a fledgling career in America. Her values on and off the pitch are deeply rooted in academia, having played for the California Golden Bears at Berkeley, before becoming the number one pick at the 2011 WPS Draft.
She was drafted by Western New York Flash, who went on to win the league championship. That led to Morgan becoming the national side’s youngest player at the 2011 Women’s World Cup, playing her part in the Americans’ run to the final. The following year, she scored an extra-time winner against Canada at the London 2012 Olympics, contributing to a year that saw her net 28 times and get a further 21 assists. In turn, Morgan became only the second American woman (after Mia Hamm) to break the 20-goal/assist watershed for both metrics in a calendar year.
In 2013, the National Women’s Soccer League launched, and Morgan was part of a Portland Thorns team that became the very first club to lift the new trophy. There have been personal honours aplenty for Morgan since then, but what she really needed to join the very greatest was a major European honour. In 2017, she joined Lyon and went on to win a glorious treble, including the UEFA Women’s Champions League.
Mia Hamm
Hamm was a forward for the US women’s national soccer team from 1987 to 2004. She went to four FIFA Women’s World Cup tournaments and won two titles, and is also a two-time gold Olympic medalist, leading the team to three Olympic Games.
Mia Hamm played as a forward for Notre Dame Knights and Lake Braddock Bruins in her youth career. When she moved on to college sports, she played for North Carolina Tar Heels and won them four consecutive Division 1 titles. Her senior career was spent playing for Washington Freedom where she made almost fifty appearances and scored 25 goals.
Among her honors is FIFA World Player of the Year for two consecutive years, U.S. Soccer Female Athlete of the Year for five consecutive years, and the first woman to be inducted in the World Football Hall of Fame. She is also inducted in multiple other Halls of Fame and made the FIFA 100 list (list of the 125 greatest living soccer players), which was selected by Pele himself.
Right now, she is a co-owner of Los Angeles FC, on the board of directors of A.S. Roma, and a global ambassador for FC Barcelona.
Carli Lloyd
Lloyd played for the women’s national team at senior level between 2005 and 2021. She was something of a nomad, playing for 11 different club sides, including Chicago Red Stars, Atlanta Beat, Western New York Flash, Houston Dash. She was also briefly loaned to Manchester City.
The peak of her pro years was 2015, when she won multiple awards while at Houston Dash. Amongst them was the FIFA Women’s World Cup Golden Ball and the Silver Boot, resulting in an appearance with the All-Star and Dream Teams that year. Lloyd also won the Goal of the Tournament that year. She was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2017, and was named the best women’s player of the decade (2011-2020).
As if that wasn’t enough, Lloyd was part of the teams that won the gold medal at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and named FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015 and 2019. She was also once the highest-paid women’s soccer player in the world.
