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It should come as no surprise to hear that Olivia Moultrie, the teenage phenom on the Portland Thorns, is competitive.
It’s clear at Providence Park, where the teenager has the ball at her feet, determined to beat her defender on the dribble and drive a shot toward goal or slip a pass through to find a teammate in a threatening position.
But it’s not all that different outside of the public eye. “When I was little, we’d go get ice cream from the store,” Moultrie says. “I’d be like, ‘I’m going to make mine last the longest so I can eat my last bites in front of you.’”
And she’d win.
That drive has taken Moultrie far: from persuading her family to adopt a dog after years of begging to being the second-longest-tenured (and second-youngest) player on the Portland Thorns at 19 years old. As one of the veterans on this year’s squad, Moultrie has bagged three goals on the season and is now one of the players who newer Thorns look to for guidance as they travel to stadiums across country or square off against the team’s Pacific Northwest rival, the Seattle Reign.
Moultrie was raised by two former college athletes, and she and her two younger sisters were taught from an early age that winning is important. Case in point: Family game nights usually end with someone storming out in a huff.
“Every single thing I’ve wanted to win at every moment,” she says. “That’s just how I’ve grown up.”
Moultrie sued the National Women’s Soccer League in 2021, at the age of 15, for her right to play in the league as a minor—a provision that already exists in Major League Soccer and professional women’s soccer in much of Europe. Following her ensuing eligibility, she signed her first professional contract with the Thorns later that year. (For those who haven’t followed Moultrie’s saga, she announced her decision to forfeit her college soccer eligibility at the age of 13, and her family moved to Wilsonville so she could train with the Thorns and play with the Thorns Academy until she could become a member of the senior team.)
“I do believe that I was ready,” Moultrie says of her battle to play at the professional level. “I feel like fighting for it was the right thing to do. That was an injustice that needed to change.”
Now, two weeks from her 20th birthday—and one of almost two dozen teens in the NWSL—Moultrie has grown into an essential player in Portland’s midfield. She’s played the third-most minutes of anyone on the Thorns this year and is tied for third on her team in goals. (She’s also tied with the North Carolina Courage’s now 20-year-old Jaedyn Shaw for most NWSL goals scored by a teenager.)
“You’ve seen her grow up and develop in front of your eyes,” Thorns head coach Rob Gale said of Moultrie, after she became the youngest player in the NWSL to hit the 5,000-minute milestone during last Friday’s game against the Utah Royals. “When she gets turned in between the line, she makes things happen. And she’s got the bravery to do it again and again and again.”
Still, Gale said, he sees Moultrie wants more. It comes across in her meticulous work off the pitch like incessantly watching film and rehabbing her body: watching film, taking care of her body, putting herself in the best positions to be better. “She is the most professional player in the squad, how she goes about her business on a weekly basis,” Gale said. “I think you’re seeing her flourish now, and there’s just going to be more and more to come. That’s the exciting part.”
Moultrie knows she can be competitive, sometimes to a fault. But her bullishness in professional sports has paid off; she’s now a star player on the Thorns, having signed a three-year extension with the team through 2026 and earning semi-regular call-ups to the U.S. women’s national team.
The Thorns have eight games left to play and sit at sixth place in the league; with the top eight teams making playoffs, the postseason is well within Portland’s grasp. They’ve shown they can compete against almost anyone at Providence Park, with Portland’s only home losses of the year coming against the first-place Kansas City Current and in a disappointing match against the Royals. That’s not bad for a team in a rebuilding year—and one without star forwards Sophia Wilson and Morgan Weaver, the defensive abilities of Marie Müller and Nicole Payne, and the impressive rookie efforts of Caiya Hanks before her ACL tear in June.
That doesn’t mean things haven’t been tough. We saw as much last weekend in Portland’s loss to Utah, which was ranked last in the NWSL going into the match. Portland got off on the front foot, but they looked jumbled after the Royals managed to put a goal past goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold in the 22nd minute. Then, toward the end of the second half, Utah scored again. Despite playing one of their worst performances of the year, the Thorns managed to get one back when winger Julie Dufour pulled out a banger in the seventh minute of stoppage time.
Postgame, co-captain Arnold attributed the effort to keep pushing for a late goal to the Thorns’ belief in one another. “I don’t think that ever wavers,” she said.
Moultrie, too, finds brightness—despite the high player turnover and injuries that have hounded the Thorns this year.
“We just continue to find a way to make it work,” she says.
And Portland’s camaraderie extends beyond the pitch, perhaps in part because many of the players are in their early to mid-20s. They like to talk about the most recent “crashout” (look it up) on Love Island, and crowd into one hotel room during away trips to watch the newest episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty.
“The team bonding, wanting to be together, wanting to do things together,” Moultrie says,“I didn’t go to college, so I didn’t ever really experience any of this.”
