The first $1m female footballer will be a defender and that feels just right
When legendary German centre-back Franz Beckenbauer died a year ago, many obituaries contained a familiar quote from an unnamed director of New York Cosmos, for whom he played towards the end of his career. “Tell the Kraut to get his ass up front,” the director supposedly told a colleague. “We don’t pay a million for a guy to hang around in defence.”
The quote has been cited over the years for two separate purposes: to allege that the American understanding of soccer was still somewhat underdeveloped at that time, but also as evidence that defenders simply don’t have the star attraction of forwards.
Well, how times have changed. This week, for the first time, a football side agreed to pay over $1million for a female player, with the express intention that she will hang around in defence. And that player is, of course, American. And no one is at all surprised that Naomi Girma, who is set to move to Chelsea from the San Diego Wave, will have the status of football’s most expensive female footballer.
The USWNT’s performance at the Women’s World Cup in 2023 was entirely underwhelming. Granted, the manner of their departure was a little unfortunate — by the narrowest of margins on a penalty shootout against a Sweden side they’d dominated for 120 minutes — but the wider picture revealed a more profound problem.
The U.S. lacked tactical sophistication. The physicality that once overpowered opponents was no longer enough. Their focus on individual brilliance came up short against more cohesive sides.
Still, they could point to the best centre-back pairing in the tournament. Like many defensive duos, they were complete opposites. Julie Ertz was an experienced central midfielder moved into the back line. Girma was a bright young talent and a proper defender. Together, they kept three clean sheets in four games. Often, that kind of defensive run is enough to take a side to an international final, but they were let down by the attackers.
Ertz has since retired from football, but Girma’s star continues to rise. Ordinarily, it takes a few games to realise the full ability of a centre-back, but something about Girma, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NWSL Draft, is different. An excellent reader of the game, good at covering space in behind and capable of battling physically without leaning on physicality, she seems the complete defender.
Perhaps the only thing she lacks is true aerial dominance. At 1.68m (5ft 6in) tall, she’s not a towering presence and she won only 51.5 per cent of her aerial battles in the NWSL last season, which isn’t a particularly reassuring figure for a centre-back. But the fact she can dominate her own penalty box despite that relative lack of aerial power almost adds to her aura.
It also says something about the development of the women’s game overall. Whereas the men’s game has steadily weaned itself off a diet of long balls and crosses, the women’s game has evolved in a different way, more based around attacking on the ground through technique or speed. There are only around 75 per cent as many aerial battles in the Women’s Super League compared to the Premier League, for example.
Considering ongoing concerns about the impact of repeatedly heading a football in the men’s game and the fact women and girls are more at risk of suffering them in sport — a 2021 study by consultant neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart, a University of Glasgow associate professor, concluded that the risk of teenage girls sustaining concussions is nearly double that of their male counterparts — it’s probably a good thing that heading is less of a feature of women’s football.
Being the most valuable footballer in the world doesn’t translate to being the outright best footballer, of course.
In the women’s game, where contracts have traditionally been three years in length at the most, a high percentage of high-profile moves are because a contract has expired rather than because a club have bought out the player’s previous deal. The two most celebrated footballers of the last half-decade, Aitana Bonmati and Alexia Putellas, haven’t moved clubs because they’re content at Barcelona.
Still, centre-backs feel unusually prominent. Even before Girma’s move, 10 of the 50 most expensive transfers in the women’s game involved defenders, compared to just six of the top 50 most expensive transfers in the men’s game. And, while not a defender per se, it’s worth noting that the most expensive intra-country transfer in the women’s game is Bayern Munich’s purchase of Wolfsburg’s Lena Oberdorf, a defensive midfielder renowned for her ferocious tackling quality rather than her ability on the ball, last year. At Euro 2022, when Germany reached the final, her pass completion rate was just 64 per cent, but it didn’t stop her from winning the young player of the tournament award.
As for defenders, and even beyond those who have moved for big fees, France’s most celebrated footballer over the past decade has been towering centre-back Wendie Renard. England right-back Lucy Bronze won the FIFA Best award in 2019 (amid discussion that she was too good to play in defence and should be moved into midfield) and her international team-mate Leah Williamson was perhaps the most prominent player in the aftermath of their Euro 2022 success.
Williamson had only been switched to the defensive role, familiar from her club career, shortly before the tournament, having expected to play as a central midfielder. And to her left, Rachel Daly played left-back despite the fact she played up front at club level and went on to win the WSL Golden Boot for Aston Villa the following season.
It feels relatively simple for more attacking players to slot into defensive roles in the women’s game, particularly at big clubs. At Chelsea, Girma could play in a defence alongside Nathalie Bjorn and Ashley Lawrence, both of whom have often been fielded higher up the pitch for Sweden and Canada respectively.
Barcelona routinely buy left-wingers and use them at left-back — see Fridolina Rolfo and Esmee Brugts — and just inside them, left-sided centre-back Mapi Leon is such a talented technician that she takes excellent corners. From Japan’s Saki Kumagai to Norway’s Ingrid Engen, to the Netherlands’ Dominique Janssen, it’s fairly common to see top-level players used almost interchangeably in defence or midfield because the difference between those roles is relatively small.
It’s no surprise that Girma, with all her ability in possession, was a midfielder until being moved into defence in her early teenage years. But since she’s been described as “the best defender I’ve ever seen” by national team coach Emma Hayes, it seems unlikely she’ll play there again.
And considering she’s coped with the pressure of that tag, the status of being the first million-dollar player shouldn’t be an issue either. For once, the next generation of footballers might just grow up wanting to play in defence.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
US Women's national team, San Diego Wave, Soccer, NWSL, Sports Business, UK Women's Football
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