Latest news with #LeicySantos
Washington Post
14-03-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Leicy Santos, Spirit's 5-foot-1 catalyst, shoulders the playmaking burden
Leicy Santos has spent her first eight months in the Washington Spirit midfield letting her play do the talking. Crafty touches and slick evasions, clutch strikes and silky through balls — the Colombian playmaker hasn't needed to speak English to make noise with her game-breaking influence. Still, Santos wants to learn all the same. On the field, the 28-year-old's vocabulary of soccer terms is reasonably robust. Off it, players say she's constantly asking her teammates to teach her new words. Although Santos conducted most of a recent interview at the Spirit's Leesburg facility through an interpreter, a question about her NWSL ambitions led her to break out four words she made sure to learn in English. 'I want to win.' And win Santos has. Last week, the Spirit claimed its first trophy since 2021 when her free kick goal powered Washington to a victory at Orlando in the Challenge Cup. Now that the curtain-raiser has kicked off the NWSL campaign, the Spirit will launch the regular season with a trip to Houston to face the Dash on Friday night. Expectations are high for Washington, which went 18-6-2 last season to finish second in the NWSL standings, then won two dramatic playoff contests before falling to Orlando in the title game. After Santos arrived last summer in a move from Spanish side Atlético Madrid, a productive preseason under Coach Jonatan Giráldez has her poised to spearhead Washington's shorthanded attack to start 2025. 'When you arrive midseason, you have to adapt,' Santos said in Spanish. 'There are a lot of doubts, a lot of things up in the air, and that doesn't give you that tranquility and confidence for you to actually play the way you have to play. Starting the preseason with Jona, it's been really good. It's easier now to understand what he wants and how my teammates are on the field.' If Santos didn't feel settled last season, you wouldn't know it. Fresh off representing Colombia at the Paris Olympics, Santos notched a goal and an assist when she made her Spirit debut in a 4-1 win over Kansas City in August. Two weeks later, she nodded home the stoppage-time winner in an electrifying 2-1 victory against Portland. After a thigh injury limited Santos down the stretch, she returned to appear in all three playoff contests while offering her usual blend of clever touches, scrappy intensity and defense-splitting distribution. 'She's the type of player who can get out of sticky situations or create an opportunity out of nothing,' forward Ashley Hatch said. 'So it's always good to have players like her in games where we're having a hard time finding momentum or having a hard time finding the attack because she can help us switch that tone really quickly.' It's exactly what the Spirit expected when it signed Santos to a three-year contract. After she starred for Iowa Central Community College during its run to the 2015 national title, then kick-started her professional career in Colombia, Santos racked up 17 goals and 16 assists while logging more than 100 matches for Atlético from 2019 to 2024. She also has notched 16 goals for the Colombian national team, including a highlight-reel tally in a loss to England in the 2023 World Cup quarterfinals. When it came time for Santos to choose her career's next step, she had options aplenty. But the opportunity to play for Giráldez — the Spanish coach she saw oversee FC Barcelona's dominance first hand — guided her to Washington. 'I love his style of play, his mentality, his work ethic,' Santos said. 'So that was a determining thing to come here.' Although Santos began her Spirit career centering a playmaking trio featuring NWSL midfielder of the year Croix Bethune to her left and MVP finalist Trinity Rodman to her right, those players haven't shared the field since that August win over Kansas City. Days later, Bethune suffered a torn meniscus in her knee. Rodman, meanwhile, was limited by a back injury last fall. While Bethune and Rodman are nearing returns to the lineup, both sat out the Challenge Cup win. 'Those definitely are two players that are missed,' Santos said. 'They make a difference every game, and at every moment they can change the game. So not having them has been rough. But I'm always trying to work hard and do what is best for the team.' In their absences, even more of the attacking onus has fallen on Santos. When the Spirit fell behind against Orlando last week, it was Santos who stood over a 72nd-minute free kick, curled a shot around the Pride wall and beat goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse to the near post — a strike teammates said was remarkably similar to one she had recently netted in a scrimmage. 'It's cool to have someone that can really just hit a banger,' midfielder Hal Hershfelt said. 'That's always great to have in our back pocket.' As the Spirit played Orlando to a 1-1 draw, then triumphed in penalty kicks, Santos also earned praise from Giráldez for tracking back and helping hamper the Pride's attack. 'She had a good performance scoring a goal,' he said, 'but defending also at a high level.' While Santos has cultivated a happy-go-lucky reputation in the locker room, Hatch emphasized that she's a 'fierce competitor' on the pitch. Standing all of 5-foot-1, Santos doesn't hesitate to body an opponent or lunge into a tackle. 'She's a 10, and I feel like 10s normally don't want to defend,' said Hershfelt, a stalwart in defensive midfield. 'That's okay because then there's people like me that do love to defend. But I feel like Leicy just does it all, and that's really cool. She'll scrap for a ball — she does not give a s---.' When Bethune, Rodman and striker Ouleymata Sarr (back) do return, Santos will have more playmakers to combine with and more weapons to pick out. In the meantime, she's not hedging on her aspirations. Having already led the Spirit to one piece of silverware this season, she has her sights set on more. 'It's very high expectations,' Santos said. 'We want to win playing well. That's our main goal. With the quality of players we have, with the quality of staff around the players as well, we are very excited — and we're hoping to win it all.'
Washington Post
08-03-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
In title game rematch, Spirit rallies to top Pride for Challenge Cup crown
ORLANDO — The NWSL Challenge Cup may have marked the dawn of a new campaign for the Washington Spirit, but much about the curtain-raising match felt eerily similar to how the club's 2024 season came to a close. Having faced the Orlando Pride in November's NWSL final in Kansas City, Missouri, the Spirit traveled to Inter&Co Stadium for a rematch Friday night. Washington, which was forced to navigate a slew of injuries last fall, kicked off its 2025 campaign shorthanded again. And after Orlando broke through in the 37th minute of the NWSL final, it opened the scoring in the 41st minute of the Challenge Cup. But that's where the scripts diverged. The Spirit rallied to force a shootout Friday when Leicy Santos curled in a second-half free kick. Once the match ended 1-1 after 90 minutes, Tara McKeown rifled home the decisive penalty kick, and the Spirit triumphed, 4-2, in a shootout to earn its first trophy since the 2021 NWSL championship. It was a markedly different result from last year, when the Spirit fell, 1-0, in the NWSL final. 'People externally, were like, 'Oh, this isn't a regular season game,'' Spirit midfielder Hal Hershfelt said. 'But to us, it's always been a fight because of the background and the story that we have with them.' Ashley Hatch, Rebeca Bernal and Narumi Miura also converted for Washington. After Summer Yates hooked Orlando's third shot wide, Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury stoned Ally Lemos to pave the way for McKeown's clincher. 'I haven't taken a penalty since last year when I scored in the semifinal [shootout],' McKeown said. 'So I was like, 'I probably should have been practicing a little bit, but if it comes down to it, I'm going to just try and score.' And it did, and I scored.' New silverware in hand, the Spirit will kick off its regular season next Friday at the Houston Dash. Previously staged as a pandemic bubble event, a preseason tournament and a midseason competition, the Challenge Cup has endured and evolved since its 2020 inception. Since last season, the Challenge Cup has been held as a single match that doesn't count toward the standings but does have a trophy on the line, in the fashion of England's Community Shield or the Spanish Super Cup. 'We were all really excited to start the season off this way,' McKeown said. 'People want to play for trophies all their life.' Although the contest was designed to pit the NWSL champion against the reigning regular season winner, it shifts to a title game rematch if the same team claims both crowns. Several of the Spirit's key absences from the NWSL final — midfielders Andi Sullivan (knee) and Croix Bethune (knee) and striker Ouleymata Sarr (back) — remained sidelined Friday. Joining those stalwarts on the injured list: defenders Paige Metayer (knee), Kysha Sylla (knee) and Kate Wiesner (hip); midfielders Courtney Brown (hip) and Heather Stainbrook (hip); and forward Rosemonde Kouassi (knee). The depleted squad led to a surprise start for Chloe Ricketts, a 17-year-old midfielder who made just four appearances last season. Washington dressed only seven substitutes — two shy of the limit — and three of those players were short-term injury replacements signed Wednesday. Star forward Trinity Rodman dressed for the match but never got off the bench. The NWSL MVP finalist sat out the past several U.S. national team camps and managed her workload during the preseason because of a lingering back issue. The Pride, meanwhile, deployed a largely full-strength squad spearheaded by imposing striker Barbra Banda, NWSL defender of the year Emily Sams and Marta, the 39-year-old Brazilian legend who continues to dazzle a quarter-century into her professional career. But it was Orlando winger Ally Watt who proved to be the biggest thorn in the Spirit's side. In the 14th minute, Kingsbury lunged to tip Watt's rising shot off the crossbar. Later, Watt's driven cross created a nervy moment in the goalmouth before Kingsbury pounced on the ball. Shortly before halftime, Watt's persistence got Orlando on the scoreboard. Initially, Watt appeared to earn the Pride a penalty when she took the ball off Miura and drew a foul on the Spirit newcomer. Although video review found the contact occurred outside the box, changing the penalty kick to a free kick, the reversal only delayed the inevitable. As Marta smashed the subsequent set piece into the Spirit wall, Brazilian defender Rafaelle lined up the loose ball and launched a half-volley in off the post. The Spirit's equalizer arrived in the 72nd minute. Orlando midfielder Angelina took down Miura just outside the box, and Santos struck a free kick that goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse could only parry off the bottom of the crossbar and in. Both teams flirted with a late winner. The Spirit appealed for a penalty when the ball ricocheted off the arm of Orlando forward Prisca Chilufya in the box, but referee Alex Billeter ruled the contact was incidental. And Pride defender Kylie Strom headed home an apparent 90th-minute winner that was ruled offside, setting the stage for the shootout. 'First game of the season, we're still figuring stuff out,' Hershfelt said. 'But to be able to come out still winning the cup — that was really sick. We were able to bring it all together in the end.'
