Croix Bethune created NWSL history. Now she is ready for the Olympics

The US women’s soccer team face the familiar pressure of trying to bring home gold at the Olympics. But for new manager Emma Hayes and a younger generation of talent, this tournament is as much about redefining their story and building toward the future as winning the title.

The 18-player roster has an average age of 26.8, which is the fourth-youngest roster the US have ever sent to the Olympics and the youngest since 2008. And few players embody the turn-the-page nature of the squad better than Washington Spirit midfielder Croix Bethune.

At 23 years old, Bethune is already running the show in the NWSL. Her skill on the ball is remarkable, matched only by her intelligence. And although her introduction to the senior national team is recent – her senior debut came in July – Bethune is gliding into the ranks of the four-time gold medalists with the same composure she displays in the final third of the pitch.

“I just say it’s natural. It’s just me,” Bethune says. “But also just keeping my head down and working. I don’t necessarily go looking for things. They come to me and when they come to me, I just feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. So just continue on.”

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Bethune attended her first training camp in June. Notably, Bethune’s first session with the senior team was Hayes’s first camp in charge. “[It was] a lot of positive energy but also a lot of learning,” Bethune says of the camp.

She liked the new boss immediately. “She [Hayes] has a lot of knowledge, and she’s very smart. I’d say she’s straightforward and just has an amazing personality.”

Those early training periods combined with her record-breaking form in NWSL earned Bethune a reserve spot on the Olympic roster. She has now been bumped up to the main squad as a replacement for Jaedyn Shaw. Changes to the tournament’s roster rules mean that an alternate can slide into the place of an injured player before heading back to reserves once the player returns. With Shaw struggling with a leg injury, Hayes has chosen Bethune to take the forward’s spot.

But Bethune’s inclusion as an alternate was in and of itself a signal that Hayes had an eye on the future this summer.

Like her coach , Bethune’s story reaches across both sides of the Atlantic. She started playing soccer when she was just three years old in Atlanta. But two years later, her family moved to England, where Bethune grew into the technical midfielder we see today.

“Starting in England was really the moment that I realized soccer is my thing,” Bethune says.

The spark started when Bethune, who says she was about five at the time, was watching her brother practice. Even though he is four years older and was playing with the boys’ team, Bethune jumped in when her brother’s team needed someone to make up the numbers.

“I was at the practice and they needed an extra player, and little Croix was just standing there,” Bethune says. “They asked if I could play. So I hopped into practice and was playing with boys that are about four years older than me. And it really just took off from there. I was just training with them until the girls’ team came out in England.”

Over a few years playing with her brother’s team, Bethune says she gained experience but also realized how good she was. Despite the age gap between her and the older boys, she had no problem keeping up. Bethune says her parents tell her stories about how “shocked” everyone was. She didn’t just fit in; she stood out.

The style she developed there still has her standing out today. Working in tight spaces, ball at her feet, Bethune is a calm creative conductor in midfield. She traces that back to those days in England, training with the boy’s team in London in an indoor facility where she would practice bouncing the ball off a wall.

“You have the wall barrier, where you can play off the wall,” Bethune says. “I feel like it helped me realize that I have support, and then you could do a little wall pass to yourself, or a wall pass to someone else, just realizing where spaces are.”

The work paid off. With a refined passing vision and deft touch in the final third, Bethune has become one of the game’s most innovative and effective creators. She leads the NWSL in assists as a rookie, breaking records as the fastest player in league history to hit eight assists, doing so in just 11 games. With half the league season to go, Bethune’s next assist will tie Tobin Heath’s record for the most in a regular season.

But for as much as she dazzled as a facilitator, Bethune’s game is still evolving. She has started to add goals to her games, scoring five this season for the third-ranked Spirit. Only Sophia Smith, Temwa Chawinga, and Barbra Banda have notched moremore combined goals and assists in the NWSL this season. Bethune’s early production has seen her scoop up the rookie of the month accolade for three straight months, yet another record she has ticked off early in her professional career.

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As Bethune takes a minute to think about her game, it’s clear her time living in England doesn’t simply show up in her style of play. It also infuses the way she details it. Describing her deft maneuvers on the ball as “cheeky”, Bethune says she’s developed a “high soccer IQ”, adding: “I’m also cheeky. I love flair.”

But there are American inflections, too. Listening to her talk about how she views the field, it’s hard not to think about how a WNBA star maps out the floor, drawing a double-team so they can dish an open bucket to a teammate. “Getting my teammates involved is key,” Bethune says. “Just understanding where spaces are, and if there’s two people drawn towards me, then obviously there’s someone else open.”

For any attacking player, breaking into the US starting XI is difficult. But whereas Mallory Swanson, Lindsey Horan and Sophia Smith are natural finishers, Bethune is the kind who can knit an attack together. Fans clamored for her inclusion in Hayes’s Olympic plans. But understandably, with the main roster limited to 18 players and Bethune’s lack of experience, she was initially held back.

Shaw’s lingering injury has now provided an opportunity for Bethune to see some minutes. Hayes made five substitutions in the team’s comfortable 3-0 win over Zambia in their opening game, but Bethune was kept waiting on the bench. If Shaw continues to miss time, though, Bethune is likely to get the nod as the coach continues to juggle a slim squad. Should that happen, we can expect her to do so with the same flair and fun that’s catapulted the Spirit midfielder to this lofty level.