Tierna Davidson

What resonated in Monique's story was that tension between embracing who you are as a player and deliberately expanding your game.

At the elite level, you're surrounded by exceptional talent, but there's a pull to match everyone in every facet.

But eventually you recognize that the player who dominates in one area is usually making trade-offs somewhere else.

The real question then becomes,

How do you lean into what makes you special while adding enough to complement it?

With a lot of the elite athletes that I come across, there is this insatiable desire to be excellent.

For example, my U.S.

and Gotham teammate Emily Sonnet and I always talk about how, as defenders, we are so passionate about passing the ball to attackers.

And that is truly my passion.

I love feeding the ball to the machines.

Let me give the ball to Megan Rapinoe.

Let me give the ball to Rose Lavelle.

Let me give the ball to Sophia Smith.

I desperately want them with the ball at their feet because I know something great will come of it.

Developing that part of my game took years.

Growing up, I played slightly further up the field as a defensive midfielder or a six in soccer terms.

My club coach was Spanish and he ran real film sessions with us.

We had a dad on our team who would tape our games on a camcorder and we'd sit down, watch, and do homework on ourselves.

Our coach showed us a lot of Barcelona, so we were growing up studying the likes of Sergio Busquets, Andres Iniesta, Carlos Pio.

You start to internalize things.