“I always had the dream of being a professional soccer player, but I was a very shy and insecure little girl, so it seemed dumb to say it aloud,” Lindsey Horan—now the captain of the U.S. women’s national soccer team—tells me with a sheepish laugh.
At 30, the seasoned midfielder is on her way to her third Olympics—and she’s in it to win. “I’m just one of those competitors that hates losing so, so, so much,” she admits. “Winning means so much to me.”
Horan made history as a teen when she became the first female American player to sign a professional contract straight out of high school. Rather than go to college, she opted to travel to Europe with the famed club Paris Saint-Germain, which would become her team for the next four years.
“I went overseas at a young age, and I was playing with some of the coolest individuals from different countries, and I learned so much. Obviously, not going to college was a big risk, but I like to think it helped change the landscape in the U.S.,” Horan says. “I’m not saying that’s the way to go, but it’s a pathway that was always there for the men, and now young female athletes can look at that and know it’s possible.”
In 2016, Horan returned to the United States to join Oregon’s Portland Thorns, and led that squad to victory for six years before making her European comeback in 2022. Now happier than ever in her second year at France’s Olympique Lyonnais, the star has her eyes set on the Paris Games, which begin this month.
“My first Olympics, in Rio [in 2016], just did not go our way, and in the few months leading up to it, I lost my starting spot,” Horan recalls. “At the time, I couldn’t really understand why, but I do now. And I think that shows the growth that I’ve had in my career, like I can look back at that 10 years later and be like, ‘I wouldn’t have started me either!’ ”
She adds that the [2020] Tokyo Games “just didn’t feel like an Olympics, because we didn’t have the fan base; it was so unfortunate.” Going into these Games, she says, “It’s so exciting, because it feels more real. I’m so pumped for our team because we’re in a good place—new coach [Emma Hayes], new style, just a very confident group.”
This time around, the team is welcoming several fresh young faces, including Washington Spirit forward Trinity Rodman, 22, who says playing with longtime idol Horan has been “surreal.”
“It’s one of my favorite things, seeing new blood come in,” Horan says. “The way I view myself as a leader has changed a lot over the past few years, but right now, I just want to help make that next player as great as she can be, and I think I’m really good at finding out what brings out the best in them.”
As a leader now for Lyon as well, Horan says it’s impossible not to feel the pressure of staying on top—“and whoever says it’s easy is lying.” The soccer pro notes that for about a decade now, she has been working with a sports psychiatrist—whom, she says with a laugh, she’ll “probably be with until the end of my career, and even after—yeah, I’ll probably need him more after.”
But for now, Horan remains at the very top of her game, and when asked to pinpoint how exactly she got here, she says it’s because she’s worked harder than anyone.
“When I look back at my youth days, I wasn’t more talented, or faster, or stronger than everyone. I just wanted to outwork everyone,” Horan says. “I remember my coach told me: ‘If you train as hard as possible, if you go play with the boys, you go play with the older girls, if you do individual training, you will get better.’ So I worked hard, and probably overworked at times, but you can’t take that discipline and consistency and sacrifice away from me. And I think that’s what makes the great players great.”
Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper’s Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets.