Jessica McDonald – The hair and the headband

U.S. Women’s National Team forward and a leading force at North Carolina Courage

Jessica McDonald has been in the professional game for many years and has become an important player for both her club and national team, even winning the World Cup in 2019, but what is most noticeable about her is the fact that she never leaves her headband behind for every game.

Her background story always involved soccer. She was a part of the soccer team at Phoenix College during her freshman and sophomore years and was eventually named National Junior College Player of the Year. Sports has always seemed to be her skill as she was also named Top 30 in basketball scoring during her time at college.

The 32-Year-Old from Phoenix, Arizona has become a proven force and one of her best achievements to date was her record of being the highest American goal scorer in NWSL history. One could say her headband has become her trademark in the world of football and even become her motivation to strive higher.

She earned her first cap in November 2016 and scored her first goal 2 years later in November 2018.

Since 2010, which is when her senior career began, she has managed to play for 7 different teams but this just proved her dedication towards playing soccer and rightly so earned her a call to play for the national team.

McDonald had a long wait time until she received a call from Jill Ellis telling her she would be going to the World Cup with the U.S. National Team. At 31 years of age she was able to accomplish her dream and in her first World Cup she successfully managed to take the trophy back home to America with the rest of her teammates.

Although we all know sports around the globe has come to a standstill due to coronavirus, she still managed to get more caps at the beginning of the year for the Olympic qualifiers and scored twice. Once against Panama, and her second against Costa Rica. The U.S. Women's National Team are more than on their way to qualify for the, now moved, Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Most recently, she participated in the SheBelieves Cup in March 2020 with the national team and won.

The Olympics in 2021 may well be the last time we see Jessica McDonald as a soccer player since she will be 33 years old by then and that is the age we see the most retirements when it comes to sports. However, this does not mean her performance is getting worse,

in fact, I think she has more world class performances to come for both her national team and club team.

Once the sporting world starts to ease back into normality, we will surely be noticing McDonald’s name much more and Tokyo will be the perfect opportunity for her to achieve this. We all look forward to seeing her signature headband make more appearances in competitions.