With 104 caps and counting for the USWNT, Alyssa Naeher is now a certified USWNT legend. A recent thigh injury saw the 36-year-old sidelined for some matches, leaving fans concerned ahead of the Paris Olympics. Fortunately, to Emma Hayes’s relief, the calm, collected, and cool Naeher is back on the pitch and is expected to be the #1 at the Olympics.

Yet, the qualities that made her a mainstay in the national team were used against her once. She was told that her lack of communication skills meant she could never be a starting goalkeeper. Let’s explore how the veteran star reveals how she learned to ‘project her voice‘ and prove everyone wrong.

In the Women’s Game podcast, Alyssa Naeher opened up on the honest feedback from the coach in her younger days. She said, “It was like you’ll be a great number two. You’ll be like a good training partner, you’ll be a great teammate, you’ll be a great for the team.” Yet there were doubts about her ability to handle pressure, considering her lack of communication skills. Per the coach, this kept her back from being the #1 goalkeeper.

Luckily for Alyssa Naeher, she had the mindset to accept her flaws. She agreed she was quiet, not talkative, and didn’t communicate well. She admitted, “I didn’t make a conscious effort to learn like the art of communication and to basically like project my voice.” Despite her attempts to improve in this regard, Neaher struggled, and it was after a meeting with Ali Krieger that things clicked for her.

Alyssa Naeher reflects on her ‘giving of permission’ moment with Ali Krieger

During freshman year in college, Alyssa Naeher played with Ali Krieger, at that time, the center-back. Naeher was 18 years old, while Krieger was already a USWNT mainstay. As such, the duo conversed on a plane in the season’s early stages. Krieger wanted her goalkeeper to open her mouth and said, “You can see more than what I can see. Like, I need you to use your voice to help me do my job better.”

For Alyssa Neaher, this was the moment she had been searching for. She revealed, “It was almost like that giving of permission in a way. I looked at the communication side of it differently than I had before.”

Soon after, Naeher started her senior team career with SoccerPlus Connecticut and made her USWNT debut in 2014. With Naeher expected to be the #1 for Emma Hayes in the future, she has proved her coach wrong.