Arms stretched out wide, Jaedyn Shaw beamed as she danced to the edge of the pitch, leaping into the arms of her teammates on the U.S. women’s national team. A familiar San Diego crowd boomed as the teenager basked in the glory of her first USWNT goal, which came just three days after her debut with the team in October 2023. It was a storybook start to the San Diego Wave star’s international career, but it also marked a watershed moment in Shaw’s meteoric rise.
Less than a year after her inaugural USWNT cap and goal, Shaw is heading to her first Olympic Games at just 19 years old. She’s long dreamed of representing Team USA on the world stage—and Shaw enters Paris not merely as a member of new coach Emma Hayes’s roster, but as the team’s 2024 leading goalscorer.
“It’s going to be so cool to compete for a gold medal … it doesn't even feel real to even say that out loud. It means so much to me, so much to my family, being a multicultural and biracial family,” says Shaw, who is the first Vietnamese-American to represent the USWNT.
Following a successful youth career, Shaw’s rapid rise isn’t exactly surprising, but ascending at such a velocity could be dizzying for even the most composed of players. That’s why many around her act as a gravitational force, encouraging her to slow down and take in the moment. Longtime USWNT star and San Diego Wave captain Alex Morgan has been one of those guiding voices, helping Shaw zone in and maintain focus. (Morgan will not be with the USWNT in Paris, failing to make the Olympic roster for the first time since 2008.)
“Alex has told me a couple times to enjoy the moment and take it in. And also just work as hard as you can,” says Shaw.
Shaw took Morgan’s advice, making the most of those early national team call-ups to become the first USWNT player to score five goals in her first five starts. On a team that’s notoriously difficult to break into, the historic stretch helped establish her as a near lock for the Olympics—in a deep attacking pool no less. Talk to those around Shaw, though, and they say there is still more to come, having yet to hit her seemingly sky-high ceiling.
“She’s open to challenges, she’s very humble, she’s hardworking, she wants to be better,” then-interim USWNT head coach Twila Kilgore said following April’s SheBelieves Cup semifinal. “And while the world is saying, ‘Yeah, she’s here and she’s arrived,’ and I agree she’s doing a great job, be patient because there’s more.”
Shaw remembers talking with Kilgore a couple of days later about her remarks. “It was just basically saying we’re not jumping into anything and this isn’t something that’s being forced on me and this isn’t a pressure thing, this is more just relax and enjoy the moment because there is more to come. This is, just like she said, scratching the surface … There is a new chapter after this.”
Back in this current chapter, Shaw finds herself under the stewardship of Hayes, who is eager to turn a new leaf as she ushers in the team’s next generation. The 19-year-old is part of a young core—including 24-year-old Naomi Girma, 23-year-old Sophia Smith and 22-year-old Trinity Rodman—that will be responsible for curating a new identity and charting a path forward for the U.S. following a disappointing Tokyo Olympics and 2023 World Cup. Only eight players remain from the 2020 Summer Games, with nine first-time Olympians heading to Paris.
Tactically, Shaw fits Hayes’s system well, a flexible player able to command multiple positions as a forward and attacking midfielder. “I like all of the positions, as long as I am high up the field, close to the goal. I have never complained about my position,” says Shaw.
It’s clear, however, that her most effective and preferred spot on the pitch is the No. 10, with Shaw able to drop into the midfield and add dynamism to the U.S.’s attack. She says she likes to drift centrally too, explaining matter-of-factly that it’s simply because “the goal is in the middle.” Shaw’s magnetic pull toward the back of the net is welcome, especially considering the USWNT’s recent scoring woes.
“Looking in the last 10, 11 months, you look at Jaedyn’s goal contributions, her goal involvements for the national team and it’s been significant,” said Hayes after announcing the U.S. Olympic roster in June. “She is a player that can play across the front line, extremely creative. Hold-up play is exceptional, no matter who she goes against, she’s so strong to keep players off of her and her ability to make a final pass or be deadly in the final third is something that’s really impressed me.”
To Hayes’s point, Shaw isn’t just a goalscorer, her field vision has been praised by many, including former Wave coach Casey Stoney, who called her through ball one of the sport’s best. It’s a skill Shaw says she actually honed growing up playing futsal (a five-a-side game similar to soccer that’s played indoors, typically on a hardcourt).
“My futsal team played a little bit of a different formation than the traditional diamond that you would normally play in futsal,” says Shaw. “We played a 2–2, so it was like a box and I played in the back so I always had to find that open pass or the through pass, but it’s super tight. I built that vision there because it’s a lot tighter and you have to see it right on and play it right away.”
Other parts of Shaw’s game have taken time and exposure to professional environments to develop. After two years in the NWSL and 14 appearances with the USWNT, Shaw has started to invite more responsibility with her growing confidence empowering her “to rely on myself and just jump into more of a leadership role.”
In recounting her journey to soccer stardom, Shaw is quick to credit her family, sprinkling in charming anecdotes about their abiding support. “My mom is so excited, she is speaking in French already,” Shaw says lovingly, adding that her accent will need polishing ahead of the Summer Games. She also boasts about her 11-year-old brother’s first home run and describes the batting cage her mom built for him in the backyard.
Shaw’s entire family moved from Dallas to San Diego after she went pro, joining the NWSL’s Wave in 2022 as a 17-year-old. She lives under the same roof as her mom, dad and younger brother, while her older sister lives in downtown San Diego, only a 25-minute drive away. “They don’t see me as ‘the soccer player’ … they see me as me, Jaedyn Shaw,” she says. “Coming home to that helps keep me grounded and in the moment. They're so proud so it just helps me kind of enjoy those little moments and want to do more.”
While she admits that there are some natural growing pains living with her family as she hurdles toward 20, Shaw is ultimately grateful to be able to share the beginning of her professional journey with them, especially her brother. “He sees women’s sports as like this is it, this is the top level. He plays baseball, and he only watches MLB and the NWSL. He plays FIFA with the girls,” says Shaw. “That’s what I want for the community and I want to be able to give people that experience.”
Soon Shaw will play on the biggest stage of her young career, and she’ll need to call on these formative experiences under the brightest of lights. But like a rocketship shooting into the stratosphere, Shaw and those closest to her are sure to be cautious of burnout. It’s telling that at her young age, and amid a successful career to this point, Shaw knows the highest of highs can’t be maintained. Inevitably lows will come. That’s why she embraces the calls to submit to the moment, with the future idling in her peripheral vision. Lucky for Shaw, the present moment is a pretty thrilling one. The world will soon get a look at the next era of the USWNT, featuring Shaw as a lethal x-factor. And should all go according to plan, the 2024 Olympics will be the first of many major tournaments for the 19-year-old, as she and her teammates make this iteration of the USWNT their own.
As Shaw says, “This is just the beginning.”
This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Olympics Are Just the Beginning for Young USWNT Star Jaedyn Shaw.
