‘I know why I’m here’: What role Idaho’s Sofia Huerta will play for U.S. at World Cup

The U.S. women’s soccer team heads to Australia and New Zealand this month looking for its third straight World Cup title. And “a girl from Boise” may hold the key to that historic championship.

Sofia Huerta made the World Cup roster for the first time last month, adding a Hollywood-worthy ending to a career that saw her first star for Mexico and then risk it all to play for her home country. But after a lifetime of dreaming of playing for the U.S., the 30-year-old heads to the Women’s World Cup as more than a feel-good story. She’ll play a key role for the U.S.

The United States’ defensive group heads into the World Cup as anything but settled. U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski debuted a new back four Sunday in a final tuneup against Wales, starting a group that had never played together before.

Huerta did not start the match. But with the U.S. struggling to break through the Welsh defense, Andonovski turned to her in the 64th minute looking for a spark, potentially unveiling the Idaho native’s role on the team.

The U.S. will need someone capable of unlocking dug-in opponents. And the Centennial High graduate brings a renowned right foot and a long highlight reel of world-class crosses, the kind needed to penetrate a packed-in defense.

“I know why I’m here,” Huerta told Just Women’s Sports. “So if (Andonovski) does give me the opportunity to play, obviously I bring that to the table.”

Huerta figures to get several opportunities. The two-time defending champs have searched for a new back four combination for years. But a series of injuries threw the group into flux leading up to the World Cup, and the U.S. must manage minutes during three group-stage games in 12 days.

Huerta once spent three and a half years without making an appearance for the national team. But since working her way back into camp, she became indispensable as Andonovski searched for the next generation of American talent.

Huerta has started 14 times and made 21 appearances in the past 26 games. That run included three starts and appearances in all five games last summer during the Concacaf W Championship, a tournament the U.S. won to clinch a World Cup berth and a spot in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Despite all those regular appearances and meaningful minutes, Huerta spent much of the year considered a bubble player to make the World Cup roster. Pundits pointed to her age, lack of major tournament experience and her roots as an offensive player as knocks against her.

But Andonovski said those skills honed at multiple positions are exactly what make her so dangerous.

“She’s one of those modern fullbacks that has to change her position three times within 20 seconds,” Andonovski said at a press conference last month. “Having her on the World Cup roster, we believe that there is going to be a time or a situation or an opponent that her abilities are going to fit well for us.”

That fit will almost assuredly come as opponents employ a low block against all the U.S. firepower. International opponents have long used a conservative defensive shape, packing the box for fear of giving space to the decorated attackers the U.S. fields up and down the lineup. Wales employed that strategy Sunday, using it to frustrate the Americans and keep them off the scoreboard for more than 75 minutes.

But the strategy creates space for an outside back like Huerta to press up the field and deliver that one magical cross that unlocks an impenetrable defense through the air. It’s a skill Huerta’s college coach, Santa Clara’s Jerry Smith, identified as a game changer 10 years ago when she was lighting it up as a forward.

“Her ability to deliver a crossing ball with her right foot to the right spot is special,” Smith told Santa Clara magazine in 2013. “It’s world class, if you will.”

It took years for national team coaches to catch on, though. Huerta was invited to only one national youth team camp, and the U.S. left her off the roster for the U-20 World Cup in 2012. So she tried out and made the Mexican U-20 team, proving herself as an international-level talent by scoring three of the team’s seven goals in the tournament — all while playing with a broken elbow.

That turned into a budding role with the Mexican senior team. Her father, Mauricio, was born in Puebla, providing her eligibility. But Huerta always dreamed of playing for the U.S. So she walked away from the Mexican team with no assurances the U.S. even wanted her.

She first worked her way into a U.S. training camp in 2017 before receiving FIFA approval to make the one-time switch to a new national team. The only problem? Former U.S. coach Jill Ellis wanted her as a right back, a position she’d never played before.

Huerta tried to learn on the fly against international players. But she knew she’d need regular minutes at the new position — minutes her club coaches in Chicago and Houston refused to give her. So she spent three offseasons playing in Australia’s W-League, receiving a crash course in what it takes to prevent instead of create goals.

That education came back home when Huerta signed with Seattle’s OL Reign ahead of the 2020 season. For the first time in her NWSL career, a club invested in her development as a defender. Three years later, it paid off with her first trip to a major international tournament.

“A lot of people like to talk about how, defensively, I lack a lot of quality,” Huerta told Just Women’s Sports. “But for me, I just think it was going to take time because I had never played outside back. They intended to play me there back in 2017, and I never really got to play there.

“So I was never put in those situations where I was failing, and then learning from that. So over the last two years, where I’m finally getting consistent minutes, yeah, I have failed a few times. But I’ve learned from all of them.”

Those lessons paid off as she tore up the NWSL with her new skill set, climbing the career leaderboards as a creative force instead of a finishing one. Her next assist with OL Reign will be her 35th, making her the league’s all-time leader in the category.

But that record can wait. First, she’ll look to spring that one game-changing pass for her country, the one that finally penetrates a packed-in opponent, provides the game-changing moment and adds to an already storybook career.

“I don’t think anyone thought a girl from Boise, Idaho, was going to accomplish what I’ve accomplished,” Huerta told Just Women’s Sports.

U.S. WORLD CUP OPENER

• Who: U.S. vs. Vietnam

• When: 7 p.m., July 21

• TV: FOX

• Watch party: At JUMP in Downtown Boise, starting at 6 p.m. Beer and wine are available for purchase, and outside food is welcome. Centennial High, Huerta’s alma mater, will host a youth mini World Cup before the game and at halftime. It will also be selling snacks, drinks and T-shirts.