It had been too long for the most successful women’s national soccer team. Not since 2012 in London had the United States captured a gold medal in women’s soccer at the Olympics.
The drought ended in triumphant fashion on Saturday against Brazil in the final of the Paris Games, thanks to the heroics of Mallory Swanson in the 57th minute.
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Swanson found a seam, received the pass from Korbin Albert and buried her breakaway goal in the back of the net to bust open what was a tense gold-medal match. Brazil never found an equalizer and, when the final whistle sounded, the Americans erupted in a celebration that had been building for 12 long years.
TEAM USA STRIKES FIRST—AND IT'S MALLORY SWANSON AGAIN!
1-0 IN THE GOLD MEDAL MATCH.#ParisOlympics | 📺 NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/rCEQNIbR68
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 10, 2024
TRIUMPH FOR THE USWNT IN PARIS. 🇺🇸🙌#ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/RlbMvQgFID
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 10, 2024
The 26-year-old Swanson, who on Saturday made her 100th international appearance with the U.S., was one of the most important pieces to the USWNT’s run through the Olympic bracket. She scored a team-leading four times and assisted twice in six matches in Paris to lead the American charge.
“We’ve been playing with joy, and you can just see it on the field,” Swanson told NBC’s Mike Tirico after the match. “… I’m super thankful that I was able to play with this group.”
She continued later: “I obviously was very blessed to play with so many great players, and with a bunch of new teammates and everything coming in, I think it’s just been super fun.”
Meanwhile back in the United States, Swanson’s husband, Dansby Swanson of the Chicago Cubs, made history of his own on Saturday as he recorded his 1,000th career hit in the Cubs’ 3-1 victory against their crosstown rivals, the Chicago White Sox.
“In God’s beauty and brilliance, He can take something that’s so devastating and create something even more amazing than one could ever imagine,” Dansby said later that day, according to MLB.com. “It’s just a testament to [Mallory] and her gratitude, her joy, her love, grace — any positive attribute you can come up with — just how she’s handled every bit of this is amazing.”
Dansby was referring to his wife’s major setback, on April 8, 2023, in a USWNT match against Ireland, when she tore her left patella tendon. She faced an almost year-long recovery process, and a knee infection only complicated and lengthened it. As a result of her injury, she was forced to watch from home as the national team struggled to its worst-ever finish in the Women’s World Cup, when the Americans were bounced in the round of 16 by Sweden. Mallory also sat out of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 due to inconsistent play and an injury that January.
Now that she’s back on the world stage and scoring goals in gold-medal matches, Dansby couldn’t be prouder, and he let social media know about it with a post on Instagram.
“God is so good. Always and forever,” Dansby captioned his post in part. “You are such an inspiration to so many, but more to me than anyone can ever fathom. Your faith in God’s plan, gratitude in life, the grace and joy in which you live and play, the perseverance to fight through whatever obstacles thrown your way. You are truly a gift from above, and you shine with that every day.”
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Mallory, who has also been known to post about her faith on social media, expressed hope in God in the days following her injury in 2023.
“The beauty out of all of this, is that God is always good,” she wrote in part. “He’s got me and always has.”
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In 2016, Mallory made her USWNT debut at just 17 years old, and later that summer after turning 18, she was the youngest player on the USWNT Olympic roster and became the youngest American to ever play and score in the Olympics. But she battled injuries and inconsistent play following the 2019 World Cup, and got to a point where she thought she might not ever play soccer again. She seriously considered retiring at 23.
“I just remember asking God, like, ‘Why is this happening?'” Mallory said in an interview for the Summer 2022 edition of Sports Spectrum Magazine. “I feel like you always ask ‘why.’ I look back at it now and I know exactly why it happened — because my faith in Him has grown immensely. Me getting injured and me missing the Olympics and me kind of finding myself on the field again, it really started because I found myself in Christ even more.”
In May 2022 when Mallory spoke to Sports Spectrum, she reflected on what she saw God doing during a turbulent time in her life.
“I feel like my identity was so wrapped up in soccer, and then when the game is kind of taken away from you, you start questioning,” she said. “Am I actually supposed to be doing this? And I feel like God, He took that away from me so I could go find Him and that I could have a deeper relationship with Him.”
Now playing out of a place of freedom in Christ, Mallory is back to her goal-scoring ways on one of soccer’s biggest stages. It’s been a long time coming for her, and a long time coming for the USWNT. She knows when she looks down on the long flight back from Paris, the gold medal hanging from her neck is a gift from her gracious Heavenly Father.
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