Charlotte native earns her ‘dream’ shot at being US Women’s National Team keeper

Briana Scurry. Hope Solo. Aylssa Naeher.

Claudia Dickey?

After claiming the starting goalkeeper job for the Seattle Reign in the NWSL two years ago, Charlotte native and former UNC standout Claudia Dickey is working to convince head coach Emma Hayes that she’s next to be the best last line of defense for the U.S. Women’s National Team. With six starts since her first call-up to a January training camp, she is making her case with five shutouts. With four consecutive starts, heading into this next camp, she is the first goalkeeper since Naeher to do that.

But it will take dozens, if not a hundred games, and a World Cup trophy or two to make the list above. Solo earned 202 caps for her country, Scurry 175, Naeher 115.

Hayes included Dickey, who turned 26 in early January, on a 26-player roster for a year-opening training camp being held from January 14-21 in Carson, Calif. The camp will conclude with matches against Paraguay on Jan. 24 at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, and Jan. 27 against Chile at Harder Stadium in Santa Barbara.

Of the three goalkeepers on the roster, Dickey is the veteran with six caps. Mandy McGlynn of the Utah Royals has four, while Jordan Silkowitz from Bay FC has yet to debut for the national team.

Before the NWSL, it was Charlotte Latin and UNC

Lee Horton, the long-time Charlotte Latin soccer coach who retired in 2022 with 1,012 girls’ and boys’ team wins, remembers when he recognized Dickey’s talent.

“She was in the eighth grade, and I was watching her play both soccer and basketball, just as a coach at the school, and she was ridiculous at both. She is just gifted. God gifts some of us, and he gifted her to the brim.

“I just loved to watch the girl play basketball. In middle school, she would just get the ball and dribble through the entire team, past everybody, go down to the basket, and then stop and wait for the first girl from her team to come running in, and she would give them the ball and let them score. She loved having an assist better than scoring a basket.

“So I pulled her aside in the middle of our campus one day, and said, ‘Claudia, you are going to play either big-time soccer or big-time basketball in college without a doubt, and I don’t care which one it is, because you’re so good at both.’”

And he promised to support her in that effort.

Horton also liked to hoard goalkeepers. A former netminder at UNC himself, at one time he had three future NCAA Division I players competing for the position at Latin. Along with Dickey, there was Ruthie Jones, who went on to an All-ACC, All-American career for Duke (2019-2023), and Paige Nurkin, who became the starting keeper at Columbia University (2020-23), with a graduate season (2024) at Wake Forest.

Over her career at Latin, Dickey had a .39 goals-against average and scored 16 goals when she played in the field, including the game-winning goal in the 2017 state final against Providence Day. Equally adept as a point guard, Dickey earned NCISAA All-State honors in both soccer and basketball.

Horton was right about Dickey, but should have used a different conjunctive as Dickey played soccer and basketball for UNC her freshman year. On the pitch, she split time with former Carolina Ascent keeper Samantha Leshnak-Murphy, a senior, starting six of 16 games, earning a 6-2-1 record in goal. She also scored a penalty kick against UCLA in an NCAA quarterfinal shootout win.

In her 4,187 minutes in the Carolina goal from 2018-21, she posted a remarkable .47 goals against average and 15 complete game shutouts.

She was selected by Seattle Reign FC with the 20th pick in the 2022 NWSL Draft.

Getting her chance

Before she could get her chance with the national team, though, Dickey had to establish herself at the club level, and she was one of several talented goalkeepers at Seattle, where she did what most rookies do their first year: She sat and watched when the whistle blew as Phallon Tullis-Joyce started all 29 matches across competitions.

Her second season started the same way. After three successful outings — all clean sheet wins — in the NWSL Challenge Cup, she finally started her first regular-season match on Aug. 27, 2023. It was a 2-1 away loss to Angel City.

“I honestly didn’t play well the first two games, and we lost in my first game,” Dickey said.

“Playing goalkeeper is a confidence thing,” she added. “And when you don’t play games, I think it’s really hard to go in because you want to prove yourself, or you want to be the one who makes a difference. But I think I’ve learned over the years, it’s about being good and being steady, and not trying to go out and do the crazy things, or not trying to prove that you’re good enough to be there. I think it’s more important to be that backbone of the team, and be able to communicate with and rely on everybody in front of you, and when it gets to you, basically just doing your job.

“And I think the first game or two that I played, I was like, in a way, trying to prove myself when I didn’t need to. I came out of the box when I didn’t need to multiple times. That was hard at first. I think I struggled with that.”

But head coach Laura Harvey kept Dickey in the net to close the regular season during a playoff chase. The next two games were draws, the second a clean sheet. As she grew into the moment, Dickey kept the opposition scoreless in the last regular-season game, 3-0 against the Chicago Stars. Harvey continued to start Dickey for the playoffs — if the wheel ain’t broke, don’t fix it — and Seattle won two 1-0 games to make the NWSL Final against Gotham FC.

Dickey believes that getting the opportunity to play “was a mix of we were fighting for playoffs, and she wanted to maybe see me because I was also out of contract (after that season).”

“It wasn’t anything to do with (Tullis-Joyce), but (Seattle head coach) Laura (Harvey) started giving me — I started, the last six games of that season. Phallon was still there, and I think it was obviously like we were both probably good enough to be fighting for a spot.”

Dickey, then 23, already believed she could challenge Tullis-Joyce, then 26, for the starting spot. The NWSL, in general, and most teams around the world, give great weight to veterans, especially when it comes to goalkeepers.

Dickey doesn’t believe Tullis-Joyce left to dodge a competition for the job.

“I think when Phallon got the opportunity to go to (Manchester) United, she was, obviously, why would you not want to go play in Europe? They’re one of the best teams in the world. So I think it wasn’t necessarily because I was going to take the spot from her. She got this other opportunity, and Laura, for the rest of the year, wanted to play me.”

Repping the USA

Dickey’s competition for the starting job will reignite the respectful rivalry with Tullis-Joyce, though not this week. As this is not an international window, only NWSL players will be in this camp.

“I think Claudia is in a strong position,” said Hayes in a pre-camp press conference. “I think it’s fair to say her and Phallon have been given more of the minutes over this period of time. Phallon obviously cannot join this camp because she’s a European-based player.”

Hayes did not commit to a given starter but did say, “I feel very strongly about Claudia and Phallon at this moment in time,” adding, “There is a pool of players. They just need to keep developing a little bit more experience.”

She also noted the move of Casey Murphy, the current active cap leader among goalkeepers with 20, from North Carolina Courage to Boston, saying, “Be curious to see how that invigorates her.”

Murphy was the backup USWNT goalkeeper to Naeher at the 2023 World Cup and the 2024 Olympics. While she has 20 caps for the U.S., she has not appeared for the team since October 2024.

Currently the head coach of the Carolina Ascent, Philip Poole’s previous assignment was being the goalkeeper coach for the USWNT. As a former academy director of the Charlotte Soccer Academy, he coached all of the Latin keepers and others in the region, so he’s seen Dickey’s rise to this opportunity and knows that she responds well to a competitive challenge.

“There’s been three predominant goalkeepers in the U.S. National Team tenure. You might look at a goalkeeper being in the right place at the wrong time, right? So, Nicole Barnhart has 54 caps, but she sat behind Hope Solo for all of her career. Not to say Barney could not have played more, but again, great goalkeeper, maybe the wrong time.”

That’s not the case here. With Naeher’s retirement in 2024, Poole says, “There’s no current, clear number one. I think the days of seeing one goalkeeper forever dominant with 200 caps might be over, but there’s certainly a runway for her to become number one.”

He says her skill set, especially with the ball at her feet, may be the best of the bunch, but that her success must come between the ears.

“Can she put together the mindset, mentality, all the things that we know are in her and confident are in her. She’s got to bring them out, and she’s got to ride the highs and the lows, because Scurry, Naeher, Solo have all had highs and lows. And they set themselves apart with how they dealt with them.”

One game at a time

Scurry, Solo, Naeher, Dickey. That’s the conjecture of observers, not herself.

Now that she’s been in the net for the national team six times, Dickey hasn’t given a thought to achieving legendary status. She knows it’s far too early for that, and told the Observer that she really hadn’t taken a moment to step back and appreciate the accomplishment.

“My dream has always been to be on the national team. I’ve always wanted to do this. Not to take away from how special it is, but I think you have to believe in yourself so much that you don’t let the arena, the game, the importance of it, get to you. And treating it like a game while you’re in it, like, I don’t think I’ve stopped until probably now that I’m talking about it with you, to be like, holy… Like, how proud I am of myself for getting to this point in my career and for being able to believe that, yes, I do think if I do everything right, and I continue to improve in all these different areas that I’ve talked about with the national team coaches and all the things that I need to continue to do, that yeah, I can fight for a spot as long as I continue to believe in myself.

“For me, it’s always about pushing myself. Even when things go well, there’s always something that can be better.”