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Colorado native Ally Watt on being Denver Summit’s first signing: ‘I’m coming home’

Ally Watt was standing in line for Chinese food at an airport in Chicago when her agent texted her to chat. She was between connecting flights on her way to Arizona with her fiancé.

At first, the Orlando Pride forward was unsettled. She had been on the receiving end of a message like this one before.

“As a person who’s been traded twice with no consent,” the 28-year-old told The Athletic, “I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s happening?’”

The fear quickly subsided when Watt realized Denver Summit FC, one of two expansion teams debuting in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) next season, was interested in signing her.

It was an unexpected proposal that meant — for the first time since leaving Colorado a decade ago to pursue her dream of becoming a professional soccer player — she could come home.

“Nothing could describe it. I’m so excited,” Watt said. “I love Orlando. I love my team, and this would be the only reason why I would leave.”

Watt, a five-year veteran of the NWSL, will always be Denver Summit’s first signing.

Summit general manager Curt Johnson said the forward “represents exactly the type of player we want to build our club around, dynamic, experienced, and driven.”

The forward remains on loan with Orlando for the remainder of the season before joining Denver in 2026.

Born and raised in Colorado Springs, a roughly one-hour drive from Denver, she is a dynamic forward known for her speed down the flank. Watt is technically gifted, with versatility as both a goal-scoring threat and playmaker.

During Orlando’s successful campaign for the NWSL crown last year, she led the league with three assists in the postseason, tying for second-most assists in league playoff history. She was a vital part of the club’s path to winning the Shield, serving as a regular in head coach Seb Hines’ rotation. In three seasons, Watt scored six goals across 68 appearances.

Watt grew up playing for Pride Soccer Club in Carson, where she was mostly coached by Sian Hudson, now head coach of the LSU Tigers. When you ask Watt about her athletic upbringing, she can still run down the names of the coaches who shaped her.

Gifted in both soccer and track, she won several state titles as a sprinter, a skill set still evident on the pitch. But Watt’s heart was set on soccer, a sport she was drawn to after watching her older brother play it.

“Soccer’s been my first love,” Watt said. “I simply cannot remember a moment in my life where I didn’t have soccer.

“That was always the dream from the beginning. I don’t know how that got engrained in me. I don’t know what pushed me towards that, but I was so dedicated to soccer at such a young age. I was like, ‘This is what I’m going to do when I grow up.’”

Watt left her hometown at 18 to chase this dream at Texas A&M University. Donning the No. 1 jersey, she finished her Aggies career with 90 caps and 79 starts, recording 49 goals and 12 assists. She also played in 14 matches for the U.S. U-20 women’s national team, scoring seven goals and featuring five times during the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2016.

By 2020, Watt reached her goal. She was selected sixth overall by the North Carolina Courage in that year’s NWSL Draft. She later signed with Melbourne City in Australia’s then-W-League, where she made her professional debut. Watt returned to the Courage that June, but her season was cut short by a season-ending ACL injury.

Her rookie season in the league concluded with a cross-country trade to the then-OL Reign in Seattle. After two years there, Watt was once again traded back to the East Coast, where she’d join Orlando in 2022. They finished 10th out of 12 NWSL teams that year.

But last year, the club enjoyed a historic season, thanks to a combination of Hines’ guidance, performances from stars Marta and new signee Barbra Banda, and the team’s overall tenacity and depth. Now, Watt aims to wrap her tenure in Orlando by leaving everything on the pitch and pushing for a back-to-back championship.

“This team has done so much for me,” she said. “They have helped me grow so much, and we’ve done so much together. I’m gonna leave everything I can to this team. Before I leave, I’m gonna try to leave whatever legacy I can with this team.”

The past few weeks have been a rollercoaster for the Pride. The club currently sits fifth in the league standings at an 8-4-7 (W-D-L) record. They are winless in the last seven league matches, but recently added record-transfer signing Lizbeth Ovalle to their attacking roster.

It’s a complicated feeling for Watt, playing for the Pride, knowing her time is running out. The team had a recent open training for season ticket holders, where fans told her how much they’ll miss her. “But I’m still here,” she remembers telling them.

“I don’t want to say goodbye yet. It’s not time yet,” Watt said. “We still have so much season, and even with the trade, with me being on loan here, it doesn’t shift my focus and my dedication to this team in any form, and I made that very clear to Coach Seb.

“If anything, it makes me want to play harder.”

Coming home was the option Watt never saw coming.

She admits her “ears perked up” when Denver was awarded the league’s expansion bid in January, but she didn’t know she was on the club’s radar until summer. Watt received that airport text from her agent during the second half of the NWSL’s midseason break in late June. That snowballed into an offer, which was announced in August.

She remembers the moment she FaceTimed her mother to share the news.

Watt called to ask if she and her fiancé, Donavan Brazier, a professional mid-distance runner, could forward their wedding registry gifts to her home in Colorado. It was an unusual ask, given the couple lived in Florida. That’s when Watt told her mother, “I’m coming home.”

For Watt, there’s comfort in knowing the decision to transfer to Denver was entirely her own. Clubs in the past could trade a player without their consent, but league rules have changed. For this trade, Watt received multiple emails from both the league and the players’ union to confirm her decision. In past years, that airport phone call would have been her first and final notice before having to pick up her life and move across the United States.

“It was very empowering, and I think it speaks volumes to our PA and just how much work they put into taking care of the players, and just really making sure that we have a voice in what happens to us,” Watt said. “We’re also humans and people have to make life decisions and family life decisions based off these moves.”

Since winning the bid for the NWSL’s 16th franchise, Denver has been building from scratch. The club has announced plans for its own stadium in downtown Denver and a practice facility, unveiled its name and brand identity and is continuing to shape its front office. The club rounded out its inaugural group of investors, which includes notable Coloradan Mikaela Shiffrin and former Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning.

Watt is one of three players on Denver’s roster. The club recently acquired 24-year-old Lourdes Bosch from Melbourne City FC in Australia’s A-League, with the attacking midfielder immediately going on loan to Mexican club C.F. Monterrey until next year. The Las Vegas native has also featured for the Mexican women’s national team and debuted professionally with Melbourne this year. Last week, the team also signed Spanish international Nahikari García, the club’s first international acquisition. The 28-year-old, who was acquired from Liga F’s Athletic Club Femenino, will be on loan with Nottingham Forest Women FC until 2026.

Roster announcements are likely to ramp up as NWSL trade windows close. The secondary transfer window for international signings closed on Aug. 25. The intra-league window remains open until Oct. 9, when rosters freeze.

“Denver is going to do a good job recruiting the right players that could help build up this expansion team and just really build up this organization,” Watt said. “Obviously, I think a big focus is (on) homegrown talent … when you look at the list of people, we have a lot of people from Colorado in this league … and they’re class players too.”

These players include USWNT standouts Sophia Wilson (Portland Thorns), Mallory Swanson (Chicago Stars), and other NWSL stars like Tess Boade (Bay FC), Cori Dyke (Orlando Pride) and Ally Schlegel (Stars). There are also players outside of the U.S. who fit that bill, like Lyon’s Lindsey Heaps, who grew up in Golden, near Denver — a dream signing for any NWSL club.

In Colorado, the visibility for women’s professional soccer has long been limited to when the U.S. played there. Watt remembers being at the sold-out Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City for Pia Sundhage’s final game as U.S. head coach in 2012. But, beyond these highlights, if Watt wanted to watch professional soccer at home, her only options were United Soccer League’s Colorado Springs Switchbacks or Major League Soccer’s Colorado Rapids.

“We always had to watch men’s soccer if we wanted to watch any type of soccer,” Watt said. “Now that we have access for girls to see women’s professional soccer … to be a part of that, because that was so absent when I was growing up, is actually more fulfilling to what my career is, and just knowing there’s so much more to my career than just the soccer portion of it.”

(Top photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck /. Imagn Images)

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

Orlando Pride, NWSL

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