{"id":339388,"date":"2026-05-30T19:24:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/339388\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T19:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T19:24:19","slug":"zoe-thompson-could-someday-be-best-soccer-player-in-her-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/339388\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoe Thompson could someday be best soccer player in her family"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Few players are driven to club soccer practice by a national team player. But then few players have two sisters who play for the U.S. women\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

Also Zoe Thompson is just 14, so you can\u2019t expect her to drive herself.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing that truly sets Zoe Thompson apart. Although eldest sister Alyssa, 21, has already played in a World Cup and middle sister Gisele made 38 NWSL appearances and played four times for the national team before her 20th birthday, Zoe may actually be the best of the three.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s better technically,\u201d said her father Mario Thompson, who coached all three.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think she\u2019s the combination between Alyssa and Gisele,\u201d said Carlos Marroquin, owner of the pre-professional women\u2019s team that gave Alyssa and Gisele their start. <\/p>\n

So maybe there should be a line of coaches, teammates and family members waiting to drive her to practice or to her debut with Marroquin\u2019s team, the Santa Clarita Blue Heat, on Saturday evening at The Master\u2019s University.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Santa Clarita Blue Heat coach Leonardo Neveleff, center, talks to his team before a practice at Valencia High. Zoe Thompson makes her debut with the team Saturday.<\/p>\n

The team, which competes in USL W league, has long been a summer proving ground for elite college players and aspiring pros with alumni that includes Venezuela\u2019s Deyna Castellanos, once a finalist for FIFA\u2019s world player of the year award; World Cup veterans Savannah DeMelo and Ashley Sanchez; former Chelsea and Atl\u00e9tico Madrid star Ana Borges of Portugal; and Natalia Kuikka, a five-time Finnish player of the year.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s roster includes more than two dozen Division I college players, meaning Zoe Thompson will be playing with and against women much older than her.<\/p>\n

Did we mention she\u2019s still in middle school?<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s always having to get out of her comfort zone, no matter what,\u201d said Mario Thompson, whose job as Zoe\u2019s father is to both nurture and protect his daughter\u2019s talent.<\/p>\n

Zoe has followed a different path than her sisters. Alyssa and Gisele were born less than 13 months apart and grew up playing together, practicing together and pushing each other. Zoe, born seven years later, grew up watching them, imitating them and wanting to be them.<\/p>\n

But she had to do the work alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a unique dynamic where Alyssa and Gisele had each other,\u201d their father said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just Alyssa by herself. She always had a partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zoe, however, observed a lot by watching.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like their mistakes helped me,\u201d she said. \u201cBut at the same time, there are some mistakes that I\u2019ve made that they haven\u2019t. I\u2019m learning differently, but I\u2019m more learning from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Zoe <\/p>\n

Zoe Thompson hugs her father Mario Thompson after practice at Valencia High.<\/p>\n

Still, this is uncharted territory. No family has ever had a trio of siblings play for the women\u2019s national team, and the pressure of having to match the success her sisters have had will be inescapable, if unfair, for Zoe.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a level of pressure that has the potential to be crushing.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe kind of has this expectation that\u2019s put upon her already that \u2018oh, she\u2019s going to be like her sister,\u2019\u201d Gisele said. \u201cBut it\u2019s her own life.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Mario Thompson, an elementary school principal who has been intimately involved in all his daughters\u2019 careers, is having to negotiate all this on the fly.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone sees the glam and the glitz of Alyssa and Giselle, but people don\u2019t really understand it\u2019s a lot of pressure,\u201d he said of the sisters, who will both be heading to Brazil with the national team next week. \u201cThey see all the great stuff, but it\u2019s also their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mario Thompson faced some of the same issues with Alyssa, the second-youngest U.S. woman to play in a World Cup, so he limited her media interviews and tried to let her be a teenager \u2014 albeit it an exceptionally talented one. Zoe faces the additional burden of having do all that while following in her sisters\u2019 footsteps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very mindful and aware of that,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s already in the spotlight without having to be in the spotlight. It\u2019s that pressure. I want her to love the sport, love this journey. That\u2019s kind of how I raised all three of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Zoe <\/p>\n

Zoe Thompson during a practice session in preparation for her debut with the Santa Clarita Blue Heat soccer team.<\/p>\n

For her part Zoe, mature well beyond her tender age, dismisses the hype with a shrug.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are going to be comparisons,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we\u2019re such different people that I think it\u2019s unfair. At the same time, they can have those comparisons, they can have those opinions, but I\u2019m not them. So it\u2019s not going to be any different, how I play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plus, having two accomplished sisters has its advantages. In the spring Zoe trained with the youth teams at Chelsea, where Alyssa now plays, and this summer she says she\u2019ll train with Angel City, Gisele\u2019s team. But the drawback of being a (much) younger sister is Alyssa and Gisele had each other to lean on growing up. Zoe has had to go it alone and that, she said, has made her stronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cMentally, it is harder. But seeing my sisters and where they are, it\u2019s kind of a motivation for me,\u201d said Zoe, who has already been called in three times by the U-14 national team. \u201cThey were kind of at the same place I am. And it\u2019s just very motivating to see them where they are. That\u2019s just kind of where I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s been one constant in the girls\u2019 soccer careers it\u2019s been their dad, who has been intimately involved in with all three, drilling them in the backyard of their Studio City home or walking them down the street to a park, where they shared the lumpy grass with softball players and unleashed dogs.<\/p>\n

They were often, but not always, willing participants since the family didn\u2019t have a TV when the girls were growing up.<\/p>\n

\"Zoe <\/p>\n

Zoe Thompson controls the ball during a training session in preparation for her debut with the Santa Clarita Blue Heat soccer team.<\/p>\n

And while the hours and hours of practice certainly honed the sisters\u2019 skills, their parents can\u2019t explain where the girls got their immense physical gifts. Mario played football and basketball and ran track at Occidental College with modest success while his wife, Karen, an occupational therapist, played basketball and ran cross-country in high school, hardly the pedigree that could be expected to produce three world-class soccer players.<\/p>\n

Perhaps part of the answer lies in their unique DNA, a mix of Mario\u2019s Black and Filipino background and Karen\u2019s Italian and Peruvian roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was never the plan, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s have some soccer players\u2019,\u201d Mario said.<\/p>\n

But once the sisters decided that was their plan, the parents had to adjust. The girls had rare talent, Mario Thompson quickly realized, and it had to be developed. So Alyssa and Gisele began playing with an elite boys\u2019 team while they were still in high school and passed up scholarships to Stanford to sign lucrative contracts with Angel City while their were teenagers.<\/p>\n

Zoe has chosen another way, playing with Tudela FC, an all-girls team that practices near her home, and with the Blue Heat, where she\u2019ll be facing stronger, more mature players for the first time. Mario Thompson hopes those aren\u2019t the only differences, although he said the road his youngest daughter takes will ultimately be up to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope is she goes through college and just goes a different pathway, different journey,\u201d Mario Thompson said. \u201cIt\u2019s a roller-coaster ride and so for [Zoe], I think she sees that roller-coaster ride and I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a rush to let me get to that. She wants to eventually be a pro, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s \u2018I need to get there as soon as possible.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Zoe, what do you want?\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s not like you have to be here, you have to do this. It\u2019s none of that. It\u2019s about, \u2018Hey, Zoe, this is your journey.\u2019 We want you to enjoy it, have fun with it, be happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She appears to be accomplishing all three of those goals. She\u2019s also both confident and comfortable in her abilities and believes she\u2019s already ahead of both her sisters despite the weight of expectation.<\/p>\n

\"Zoe <\/p>\n

Zoe Thompson with head coach Leonardo Neveleff at the conclusion of a training session in preparation for her debut with the Santa Clarita Blue Heat soccer team. Thompson, 14, is the younger sister of U.S. women\u2019s soccer players Gisele and Alyssa Thompson.<\/p>\n

But she\u2019s also well aware of the pitfalls ahead, having seen Alyssa and Gisele occasionally stumble into them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it is a lot of pressure but I feel like we just had different paths,\u201d she said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t really know they were going to do soccer. They didn\u2019t know that was their sport. But I feel like that path was set for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just like I grew faster. I kind of took the understanding of what they were doing, and then I did it a little faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are other differences as well. Gisele is a defender and Alyssa a forward, but Zoe plays in the midfield. And while it was sometimes difficult to get anything more than a giggle from Alyssa in an interview even after she turned pro, Zoe already gives complete, thoughtful answers to most questions.<\/p>\n

Zoe\u2019s game is also different; while Alyssa and Gisele are both exceptionally fast, Zoe relies more on her skill.<\/p>\n

\u201cZoe\u2019s more technical than her sisters at this stage,\u201d her father said. \u201cShe\u2019s better on the ball, she has a better understanding of the game. A lot of their game was because of speed. Hers is more thinking, hers is more of the ball on her feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnically, she\u2019s better and understands the game at this age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gisele, the sister who chauffeurs Zoe to practice in Santa Clarita, agrees. But, she adds, Zoe\u2019s greatest strength may actually be her desire.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just has so many great qualities that me and Alyssa don\u2019t have,\u201d she said. \u201cAt her age, she wants it way more than we did. She loves soccer with a passion. Me and Alyssa didn\u2019t love it as much as she does.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if that passion translates to performance, Zoe will someday join her sisters on the national team. By then she may even be in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

\"Team <\/p>\n

Santa Clarita Blue Heat team owner Carlos Marroquin talks to Zoe Thompson after a training session at Valencia High.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few players are driven to club soccer practice by a national team player. But then few players have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[139873,9342,1431,139874,423,9514,73845,951,48,52,51,47,50,49,1741,139875,10500,15158,427,139876,139872],"class_list":["post-339388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alyssa","tag-daughter","tag-family","tag-father-mario-thompson","tag-game","tag-girl","tag-gisele","tag-high-school","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-lot","tag-national-team-player","tag-pressure","tag-sister","tag-team","tag-year-award","tag-zoe-thompson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}