Alyssa Thompson interview: Adapting to life in London, tumult at Chelsea and the League Cup final
· Yahoo Sports
Before the ball was hitting the back of the net in south-west London, tires were hitting the curb.
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While the familiar dimensions of a soccer pitch helped to make Alyssa Thompson’s transfer from Los Angeles-based NWSL side Angel City FC to Chelsea relatively seamless, London’s narrow streets and driving on what is the ‘wrong’ side of the road for an American in England for the first time caused some teething problems for the now 21-year-old.
“I was hitting the curbs on the left side, because I couldn’t really tell how far it was,” Thompson tells The Athletic in an exclusive interview near Chelsea’s training ground. “I felt like I didn’t want to hit the cars because I was so close. But now I just look at the line and make sure I’m close, and now I don’t hit any more curbs.”
Having grown up in California, Thompson is a self-proclaimed lover of cars. She beams as she talks about picking out a Volvo XC40, the same model she drove back home in LA, after signing with Chelsea.
“I love love driving. Like, as soon as I got here, I was like, ‘I need a car, because I want to drive’.”
When Thompson is not gazing out at the River Thames from her apartment, she is bopping around town in her car. One of her favorite routines is to pop to the affluent Notting Hill district after training and get sushi.
On the pitch, there have been no scratches or dents since her transfer last September. For the speedy U.S. women’s national team winger, it has been all vroom.
There’s an argument to be made that Thompson is Chelsea’s standout player in what has been a tumultuous 2025-26 season for the Women’s Super League champions.
Thompson is currently Chelsea’s top scorer with eight in all competitions, six in the Women’s Super League, and one each in the Women’s FA Cup and UEFA Women’s Champions League. She has missed just two matches in those competitions since signing for a reported transfer fee of up to $1.45million (£1.09m at the current rate).
After results stuttered around the winter break, Chelsea fell out of the title race in early February after losing consecutive league matches for the first time in 11 years. Head of women’s football Paul Green then suddenly departed amid the slump. Green had a hand in winning 19 major trophies across 13 years with the club, helping to build their women’s programme from the ground up alongside manager Emma Hayes, who left after the 2023-24 season to be USWNT head coach.
“I know that I can bring a lot of energy and good vibes to the team, and I feel like we’ve come together a lot as a team,” Thompson says about her role at Chelsea during that slump in February. “Everyone kind of looked within ourselves to be like, ‘What can I do as a person to help this culture, help the team, help the staff?’ We have so many amazing players. And two defeats is crazy for Chelsea, but it’s not crazy for most people. I feel optimistic about us and about what we’re doing, and I know that our team is so good, so we can bounce back from anything.”
Thompson also felt that being a newer arrival to Chelsea meant she was able to provide a different outlook compared to the players who had been at the club during the majority of the Hayes/Green years.
“This is a club that is used to winning, is used to having trophies, winning the league. And I feel like I have a different perspective because I’m coming in new,” she says. “It’s easy to be positive in a place where you don’t really know everything. I feel like I do try to bring good energy to the team and uplift everyone.”
Thompson offering encouragement to her Chelsea teammates comes after a major change in her own support system. At Angel City, she played her home matches a few miles from where she went to high school and where her parents lived. Her sister, and fellow USWNT player, Gisele, followed in her footsteps to also turn professional with Angel City at 18 years old in 2024.
“I miss the weather in LA and just having banter with Gisele and laughing, and just going to training every day and being together,” Thompson says as London slowly emerges from the winter months into spring.
But that departure to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Thompson believes, has taught her independence and forced her to embrace adulthood in a foreign country.
“(I am) understanding myself more and knowing that I can be independent. Before, I felt like I needed my sister for a lot of things, or my family, and now I have to do a lot of things by myself, which is hard because I feel like my family has done everything for me. If I need something, I have to figure it out myself. Like, I set up the wi-fi (in her apartment) by myself — actually quite hard. And I learned how to fill up the air in my tires by myself. Stuff like that, that I didn’t have to do when I was home.”
Similarly, new surroundings and challenges have helped to evolve Thompson’s game on the pitch.
“When I’m uncomfortable, I know that I’m growing, that I’m learning things about myself, about who I am as a player, and a person. I had felt that at Angel City, before I made the move. I felt super-comfortable there. So now, coming here, I know that it’s an uncomfortable situation to be in, but I know I’m going to be so much better after and whether it’s good or bad, I’m going to learn stuff from it. I feel like I’ll be able to come home, but I don’t know if I’d ever like to get another opportunity to come to Chelsea.”
With leaders Manchester City nine points ahead of Chelsea with six league games left, their six-year streak of winning the WSL title looks to be coming to an end. But there are still three trophies up for grabs this season: the League Cup, FA Cup and Champions League.
Chelsea are the holders of the first two (more on the League Cup later), while the latter is the only major title that has evaded the club. They face a two-leg quarterfinal against local rivals, fellow WSL side and reigning European champions Arsenal later this month.
Now in her fourth year as a professional, Thompson is yet to win a club trophy. Angel City never finished higher than sixth in the NWSL during her two-and-a-half seasons there, and made the play-offs just once, losing in the first round. Another part of moving to Chelsea was the goal of lifting silverware. That pressure to win, and keep winning, is something that drives her.
“At Chelsea, they’re expected to win trophies. So I’m really excited to be a part of this culture and be here and be in finals,” Thompson says. “I haven’t won a lot of trophies and stuff, so that’s definitely something that I want to do and continue doing.”
Perhaps it is her experience with the USWNT, now led by former Chelsea boss Hayes, that has helped Thompson acclimatize to the pressure of winning trophies. The care-free Californian is consistently unfazed by the scrutiny that now comes with defeat for either club or country and instead looks forward to the next opportunity.
“I have been in an environment like this before, though, where the U.S. is expected to win everything, and we have for many years. So I feel like it’s very similar. And I feel like that has also prepared me for this.”
Thompson was in the U.S. team which lost the 2025 SheBelieves Cup to Japan on home turf in the final round-robin game last February. In that defeat, she couldn’t find a way to make an impact on the scoreboard after coming off the bench just before the 60-minute mark with the Americans 2-1 down.
One year on, though, Thompson was voted MVP at the 2026 SheBelieves Cup last weekend, this time starting the final match and scoring its only goal to defeat Colombia and regain the cup for her country.
Winning is a habit. Although the match with Colombia was technically a friendly international, that SheBelieves Cup winners’ medal was the first of Thompson’s senior career.
A week later, back in the UK, Thompson will get her first opportunity to win a major trophy with Chelsea on Sunday, when they take on Manchester United, who are one place and one point ahead of them in second spot in the WSL table, in the League Cup final.
While this trophy may not be one of the most coveted in the English game — so much so that the WSL will remove the top three finishers in the league from the competition, starting next year — Thompson is zeroed-in on making it her first piece of club silverware.
“(Winning the League Cup), it would mean a lot to me. I want to win trophies, and being able to do this with this team at this level is super-exciting. I feel like it will bring the team together, knowing that we have a lot of fight left in us and can still win others as well.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
US Women's national team, Chelsea, Women's Soccer
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