There are perhaps two things you need to know about U.S. women’s national team defender Tierna Davidson up front: first, she is punctual. Our meeting was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. and she walked up at precisely 10:28. Second, she likes to be right.
Or, as she phrased it: “I definitely don’t like to be wrong.”
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It’s important to Davidson to be right not just out of personal impetus, but because she’s now the type of leader whom her teammates are asking for help. And if someone is asking her for help, she wants to provide it the right way. Whether it’s what to do on the field, how to act in the locker room, or even giving tax advice, she is going to do her best to tell you what you need to know or go look up the right place to find answers.
That’s not always been the case for Davidson, 25, who got her first cap with the U.S. women’s national team at age 19 and was the youngest player on the 2019 World Cup squad. But now she is in a position of leadership, both for her country and at her club, Gotham FC. Previous to that, she grew into the role over her five seasons with the Chicago Red Stars, years that included the 2021 resignation of former head coach Rory Dames amidst allegations of abusive behavior and a drawn-out ownership change that culminated in Laura Ricketts’ 2023 purchase of the team. Amidst these pressure-cooker scenarios, Davidson went from a rookie who just needed to focus on playing well to someone who helps keep the locker room functioning and healthy.
“Transitioning to a leadership role in Chicago, you realize how much extra that those players have been taking on off the field,” she said. “Addressing all these sorts of issues that you’ve never even realized were issues until you became part of that group and then you’re like, ‘Oh my God, being a leader is not that fun sometimes.’ I think we all kind of recognize that there are moments where you’re just like, ‘Oh my gosh, I would be so much better off if I did not know this information.’ But somebody has to take care of it. Somebody needs to want it to be in the room to address it. It’s important to have the input from players. And I feel very privileged to have had that role in Chicago.”
She’s continued the role at Gotham, where the players voted to make her part of the team’s overall leadership group, an honor that came as a surprise to her but which she nevertheless has embraced.
“I take the role very seriously,” she said.
Davidson’s leadership style is quiet, methodical and patient. It was something new USWNT head coach Emma Hayes clocked immediately.
“Tierna is a really reflective character: thoughtful, intelligent — got good game intelligence, but really thoughtful. … She waits until she comments on anything in the environment and she listened all week.”
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Davidson scored two goals in Hayes’ debut, a 4-0 friendly win against South Korea. Both goals were from headers off of corner kicks. The team had been practicing set-piece plays as part of their first camp with Hayes, but that was just a drop in the bucket of the overall deluge of information washing over the players as the team adjusts to a new coaching staff less than two months before the Olympics.
“Everybody’s very aware that there is a time crunch and we don’t have a lot of time to get the things that we want to get right,” Davidson said. “I think that for the coaching staff to recognize that, it is a little bit of synergy. We give a little bit, they give a little bit, and we have to work with that, because there are some people on this team that have more international tournament experience than the whole coaching staff combined. And then there are obviously coaches that have been in the game longer than some of us who’ve been playing.”
Hayes called Davidson and center back partner Naomi Girma “two exceptionally gifted football minds.” As with any center back pairing, they’ll be crucial in the Olympics, particularly with limited roster rotation in effect. That makes it even more important that the team has a feeling of cohesion, not just tactically, but mentally and emotionally. Davidson’s way of going about that is introspective versus outgoing, solidly present in the background.
“I wouldn’t say I’m super approachable in some ways,” she admitted. She can be frank if asked for her opinion. She also values loyalty and reciprocity, and once asked for help, will run down as much information as possible to give you what you need. She wants her teammates to feel that she genuinely cares about them and wants them to succeed, both as players and as people.
“I think something that is so important to recognize is the amount of time that we spend with each other,” she said. “We eat meals together, even sleep in the same room together, sometimes at club, and so you have to know and appreciate the whole person when it comes to your teammates. I do think it is quite important that we do celebrate each other and that we do understand each other’s unique differences and unique struggles to better be able to relate to each other and bond because that ultimately translates to chemistry on the field. Having that feeling of someone having your back, I think, is so important in soccer, especially when the game is getting tight. You turn to each other, you don’t turn to anybody else.”
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The USWNT has plenty of vocal leaders; Davidson credited Crystal Dunn as one of the players who will think out loud and question information as they receive it to facilitate discussion. Davidson likes to digest. Just talking off the cuff before she’s processed makes her nervous. The team, she said, needs the full spectrum between her introversion and Dunn’s extroversion in order to be successful, especially at this juncture with new staff and a lot of younger players cementing their roles in the lineup.
“Reflecting back on when I was a younger player, playing with a lot of veterans, you do connect with the leader that has a similar personality to you,” she said.
Another aspect of Davidson’s presence in the locker room is that she is publicly queer. She posts sporadically on Instagram about her partner, Alison Jahansouz, to whom she proposed in Chicago last March. And after her brace against South Korea, a gleeful Davidson told U.S. Soccer’s cameras, “Oh, it’s Pride Month, so now the gays get to score.”
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To be out and vocal and a leader on this national team is to inevitably invoke comparisons to Megan Rapinoe, who was often the face of the WNT’s activism, particularly around LGBTQ+ issues. But Rapinoe’s mantle is not one Davidson is interested in inheriting, if only because it’s impossible to inherit. Rapinoe, she said, was “one of one.”
“When it comes to leadership, when it comes to Pride and queer allyship and boosting that community and being so outspoken, sometimes I’m just in awe of how she’s able to carry herself despite all of the obstacles that are put in front of her, despite, quite frankly, people wanting to tear her down,” Davidson said.
“I obviously am not that same personality,” she continued. “And I don’t think that I could ever get to that level of — I don’t know how else to put it — but just like, not giving a f—.”
But she is interested in being a visible queer player, and in talking about queerness in sports, and in feeling seen and heard for who she is by her teammates. She also wants reciprocity with her teammates in knowing all the fullness and richness of their lives and feeling the same in return. Something as simple as asking how her move to New Jersey is going, or remembering a detail someone mentioned to her last practice.
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“I think that there’s no illusion that the ratio of queerness on the team has decreased a little bit, at least with players that are out,” she said. “And so I think it’s important to recognize that I am part of that ratio, and that it is important to bring issues to the table that are important to me and to my community, and be able to be that representative for people that look up to queer athletes and see themselves in me on the field. I think that’s so important to continue to be that positive role model for my community. And so I’ll continue to do that. And I’ll continue to be proud of myself and my family and my partner, and I won’t shy away from that at any time.”
There is some tension between trying to be an out and proud role model and Davidson’s natural introversion. She knows how validating it is for fans to see people like themselves on the team, and at the same time would be happy never being noticed by fans as long as she had value to her teammates.
“Even my girlfriend, she’s like, you should post more on Instagram,” Davidson said. “Or like, ‘You should be more outgoing about this or that.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, that’s just not my personality.’”
For now, Davidson is enjoying Pride month and hopes that her fans enjoy it too.
“Quite frankly, a lot of women’s soccer is basically built by queer individuals,” she said. “And so I feel like it’s always been a very welcoming community and I think that’s why I felt so comfortable from day one in it. I think that especially during Pride month, something that is so important to me is just experiencing the joy. I think something that the queer community has always done a fantastic job of is projecting joy and bringing others in to experience the joy regardless of any situation. And regardless of any — I just think of everybody that in my life that like, we just would give a bird to somebody that’s trying to tear them down.
“Hopefully, most months of the year people get to feel that, but I think this month especially, you just get to feel that joy, and it’s so exciting. It’s supposed to be so fun. I think that’s really what I want to project for this year.”
(Top photo: Brad Smith/Getty Images)
