United States’ Rose Lavelle, top, celebrates with Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe, right, after scoring her side’s second goal during the Women’s World Cup final soccer match between US and The Netherlands at the Stade de Lyon in Decines, outside Lyon, France, Sunday, July 7, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

If you watched the Women’s World Cup final on Sunday, you probably remember the scorching-hot goal that secured a 2-0 lead for the U.S. in the game’s 69th minute.

In fact, Rose Lavelle’s left-footed strike, which sealed America’s World Cup victory and earned her a Bronze Ball, is surely burned into your memory.


But new fans might not have realized that when she’s not scoring goals abroad, 24-year-old Lavelle plays as a midfielder for the District’s own Washington Spirit.

Lavelle—now the second youngest American to score in a World Cup final—has made 11 appearances for the Spirit since she joined the team in 2018. And she’s not the only player on the U.S. Women’s National Team who plays for the District during the regular season.

There’s also Mallory Pugh, the youngest player to debut for the USWNT in the last 11 years. Pugh, a Colorado-native, has been a forward for the Spirit since 2017.

If you’re itching to see them play in person, you can catch the Spirit when the team takes on the Houston Dash on Sunday, July 20 at the Maryland SoccerPlex. The stadium sits right off of I-270 in Germantown, Maryland, and while it’s a bit of a trek—about 50 minutes from downtown—it may be worth it to support your new favorite soccer heroes.

If you don’t want to drive all the way to Germantown, the team is also scheduled to play on August 24 and September 14 at Audi Field in Southwest. The new D.C. United stadium is much bigger—20,000 seats to the SoccerPlex’s 4,000. (The first time the team appeared at Audi Field, last year, they drew a crowd of 7,976.)

The Washington Spirit are currently ranked fourth in the National Women’s Soccer League, right behind the Portland Thorns with 18 points and a 5-3-3 record.

The Spirit, which debuted in 2013, has had mixed success in the last few years. The team had its most successful season in 2016, ending in second place after a devastating overtime loss to Western New York Flash. But it hasn’t been able to keep up the momentum; the Spirit finished second to last in the league last season.

You may also be able to catch the entire Women’s National Team if they visit D.C. on invitations from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Immediately after their World Cup win, Pelosi tweeted an invitation to the players to join her either individually or as a team at the Capitol. And on Monday, Schumer extended a similar offer to the newly crowned champions, which he said had already been accepted by co-captain Megan Rapinoe.

“What they have accomplished on and off the pitch is a credit to our nation. Millions of young girls and young boys look up to these players. Millions of women, sports fans or not, admire the light they’ve shone on the disparities between the men’s and women’s game—part of the fight for equal treatment and fair pay in the workplace for all women,” Schumer said in a statement on Tuesday. He added that he hopes to use the occasion of their visit to push Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring a vote on equal pay legislation.

President Barack Obama (who evidently owns a custom Women’s National Soccer Team jersey) hosted the team at the White House in 2015. But whether President Donald Trump would extend the invite, and whether the team would accept it, was a constant storyline over the course of the tournament.

Throughout the World Cup, Rapinoe repeatedly said that she and her teammates would not go to the White House if they won the championship. The comments sparked a feud between her and Trump, who at one point did say on Twitter that he planned to invite the players “win or lose.” But on Sunday, the president equivocated when asked if he would invite the team to the White House, telling reporters that “we haven’t really thought about it. We’ll look at that, certainly.”

“I don’t think anyone on the team has any interest in lending the platform that we’ve worked so hard to build and the things that we fight for and the way that we live our life. I don’t think that we want that to be co-opted or corrupted by this administration,” Rapinoe told Anderson Cooper on Tuesday. “There’s so many other people that I would rather talk to, and have meaningful conversations that could really affect change in Washington, than going to the White House.”

This story has been updated with the total number of people who attended the Spirit’s first game at Audi Field.

Filed Under: Maryland SoccerPlex, megan rapinoe, Senator Chuck Schumer, soccer, US Women's National Soccer Team, washington spirit, women's world cup,