Alyssa Naeher caps her USWNT career with U.S. Soccer’s 2024 female player of the year award

The Penn State product won 13 of her 18 games and had 11 shutouts in her final year playing for the national team, including the run to the Olympic gold medal.

This big save by Alyssa Naeher helped seal the U.S. women's soccer team Olympic gold medal game win over Brazil.Read moreVadim Ghirda / AP

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published Jan. 18, 2025, 11:00 a.m. ET

Longtime star goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher has earned one more honor to finish her outstanding U.S. women’s national team career.

The Penn State product was announced Saturday as U.S. Soccer’s Female Player of the Year for 2024, the final prize for a mantle that includes a 2019 World Cup title and last year’s Olympic gold medal. Naeher also was a backup on the 2015 World Cup-winning squad.

“This is an incredible honor to cap off what has been a very special year with this team,” she said in a statement. “This team is made up of a special group of players, coaches, and staff, and all year you could feel that energy and that we had the opportunity to achieve something great. I was inspired all year long by my incredible teammates; the work we put in, the commitment to the team and our goals, and all of their love and support.”

In 2024, Naeher had a 13-1-3 record with 1,170 minutes played and 11 goals conceded. She started the year by backstopping the Americans’ title run at the Concacaf women’s Gold Cup, then delivered some spectacular saves in the semifinal win over Germany and the final triumph over Brazil at the Olympics.

Along the way, she added two new chapters to a remarkable story of penalty shootout prowess. In the Gold Cup semifinal win over Canada in March, Naeher made three saves and converted from the spot. A month later, in a SheBelieves Cup friendly win over Canada, she again made three saves and converted.

Naeher’s nine shutouts included the Olympic gold-medal game, which made her the first goalkeeper to post clean sheets (as soccer likes to call them) in a World Cup and Olympics final.

U.S. Soccer’s award is voted on by various national team coaches, players who played for the senior team in the year, the governing body’s board members and Athletes’ Council, NWSL managers, media members, administrators, and fans (who get 15% of the total).

Naeher won 40.8% of the weighted vote. Centerback Naomi Girma was second at 32.2%. U.S. Soccer didn’t release the rest of the results, but the other finalists were forwards Trinity Rodman, Sophia Smith, and Mallory Swanson.

The public might have favored Rodman, since she excelled not just for the U.S. but for the NWSL title game runner-up Washington Spirit. (She got this reporter’s vote, for the record.) But national team performances always get extra weight in this award, and on those grounds, it’s hard to argue against Naeher’s year.

Girma surprised Naeher with the news in a video chat where Naeher thought she was giving the award to Girma.

“For me and the whole team, you’ve been our rock - every game running to you after the final whistle,” Girma said. “Literally, having you behind us has been the best thing ever, and I know it’s not just coming from me. From the whole team, from the whole country, you deserve this.”

Naeher is rarely caught off guard, but she was this time.

“You could feel a different energy, you could feel that we were capable of achieving something really special as a group,” she said. “To be able to contribute, and to help put this team on to a podium at the end of my career -- and in my last year -- is something that I will hold on to and remember. ... I probably couldn’t have written a better script for a last year, so I’m very, very grateful for that.”

Notably, Naeher is just the second goalkeeper to win the award in its 40-year history. Hope Solo was the first winner in 2009. It’s been hard for a defensive player to get it, since attackers so often take the spotlight: the only times a non-attacker has won were Solo, Julie Ertz in 2017 and ’19, and Girma last year.

Naeher also won FIFA’s Best Women’s Goalkeeper of the Year award for 2024, and was picked for the global governing body’s women’s team of the year.

The 36-year-old played 115 total games for the U.S. over 11 years. Her final appearances were a scoreless tie at England in late November and a 2-1 win at the Netherlands in early December. She announced her retirement from the national team just before the trip to Europe started.

Naeher will play this year for the NWSL’s Chicago Stars (formerly the Red Stars), then hang up her cleats. The National Soccer Hall of Fame surely will await, with her first year of eligibility in 2029.