Everyone in America knows who Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd are.
If you’re familiar with Mallory Pugh, then you’re probably also an expert on the United States Women’s National Team. For the real hard cores, where there is a soccer gap in knowledge and devotion, Ashley Sanchez is the name to know. Sanchez, a native of Monrovia, California, took the first major step out of obscurity and towards becoming a household name on Tuesday when she was named the U.S. Soccer Female Young Player of the Year.
This news flew under the radar due to Tobin Heath being announced as U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year at the same exact time.
Heath joins an elite list of names that includes Morgan, Lloyd, Lauren Holiday, Abby Wambach and Mia Hamm.
However, with an eye on the future, the 2019 World Cup and 2020 Summer Olympics, the Ashley Sanchez and Pugh (who we profiled here) will be two critical cornerstones of the USWNT. It’s certainly not too early to start thinking about that either, as we all want to put the Rio disaster from this summer behind us.
Sanchez captained the national team at the U-17 Women’s World Cup in Jordan, and was the youngest player at the U-20 Women’s World Cup in Papua New Guinea. She won the award this week with 47 percent (take that Mitt Romney) of the vote.
A forward/attacking mid, the 17-year-old became the first Youth USWNT member to score in both a U-17 and U-20 Women’s World Cup in the same year. Ashley Sanchez won the Golden Ball as the best player in the tournament at the 2016 CONCACAF U-17 Women’s Championship in Grenada, starting all five games while scoring a team-leading five goals as she helped the USA to the regional title and a berth at the U-17 Women’s World Cup.
She will attend UCLA in the fall, and already has some experience training with the senior national team, as she trained with the group in Orlando this past April.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.