McClernon recovering from loss of Challenge Cup chance
Phoebe McClernon sat alone in her hotel room, unable to quell thoughts of what could’ve been.
McClernon didn’t expect she’d be holed up in a hotel, on week one of a quarantine that would stretch to nearly three weeks into early July. Nearly 2,000 miles away in Sandy, Utah, American sports were restarting from the COVID-19 pandemic. With her Orlando Pride slated to open the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Challenge Cup, McClernon stood to make her long-awaited debut as a professional soccer player.
But a rash of positive tests earlier that week, some of which later proved false positives, forced the Pride to withdraw from the tournament. It necessitated McClernon, a 2016 Academy of Notre Dame graduate and three-time All-Delco star drafted by the Pride in January, to hunker down in a hotel in Florida, subsisting on takeout and unable to work out for weeks, even without returning a positive test.
The emotional breaking point in a hectic and confounding week came that Saturday, when the tournament got underway and exactly what McClernon was missing became manifest.
“It was devastating, to say the least,” McClernon said last week. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cry. It was not a happy, happy time for me. … Watching the first game of the NWSL Challenge Cup that was supposed to be our time slot was devastating. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
McClernon’s 2020, to put it lightly, hasn’t gone to plan. But the University of Virginia grad is hopeful that it’s back on track, thanks to a chance to play professionally in Sweden on a short-term deal.
Such was McClernon’s fervor to get on the pitch that she played her first match for Vaxjo DFF in Sweden’s top flight that she was thrown into a game barely 72 hours after landing.
“I still hadn’t gotten over my jetlag yet,” she said. “But I was definitely eager to get back out there and see what the competition would be like.”
McClernon describes 2020 as a roller coaster; even by this year’s stupefying standards, her journey is unique. McClernon wrapped up a stellar career for national powerhouse Virginia in the fall, a regular from her freshman year. She played 88 games for the Cavaliers, earning All-ACC recognition and third-team
All-American status as a junior.
The defender was drafted in the second round (No. 14 overall) by the Pride in January’s college draft, then earned a contract out of camp on a roster that includes national team icons like Ali Kreiger, Ashlyn Harris, Alex Morgan and Sydney Leroux (the latter two of whom are now back from maternity leaves).
When the league shut down in the spring as COVID-19 spiked, McClernon was subject to the same uncertainty as any other pro athlete. But having the Challenge Cup snatched away from the Pride at the last moment was particularly jarring, especially with no concrete plans for NWSL after its bubble league.
The NWSL, in its eighth season, finally devised a plan for a fall season in August, with play resuming this past weekend. But by that point, uncertainty pushed many players to find overseas accommodations, easing the league’s wage bills and offering players games. The phenomenon is less a criticism of the league’s stability as of the U.S.’s handling of the pandemic.
Players at both ends of the American spectrum have taken the chance to move to Europe. Most deals, like Sam Mewis and Rose Lavelle at Manchester City and the reported acquisitions of Christen Press and Tobin Heath by Manchester United, are short-term deals for the 2020-21 season.
Sweden is a popular destination: Rebecca Quinn (from OL Reign), Rachel Hill (from Chicago Red Stars) and UVA legend/ U.S. national teamer Emily Sonnett (from the Pride) are there on some combination of loan/short-term deals through the end of the season. McClernon’s former college teammate Makenzy Doniak is on loan from the Red Stars to a team in Denmark.
European living suits McClernon. She’s gone on day trips to cities like Malmo. (Vaxjo, in the country’s south, is about 200 miles from Stockholm). She’s hoping to travel to Denmark to see Doniak and others. It’s a far cry from being sequestered in a Florida hotel.
“The girls are super inviting and really kind, and the level is really good,” she said. “The town is adorable. I have absolutely no regrets about it.”
Her soccer horizons have broadened, too. Sweden is home of one of the world’s top national teams, fifth in the most recent FIFA world rankings. The Swedes won silver at the 2016 Olympics, were the 2003 World Cup runner-up and finished third at the 2011 and 2019 World Cups. As the women’s game evolves, nations like Sweden have tended toward a more controlled, tactical game than the wide-open, athleticism-based game of the two-time reigning World Cup champion Americans.
McClernon has been a regular for Vaxjo in four games, showing her versatility by playing at center back (in both three-back and four-back formations) and at left back.
Most of the team is fluent in English, and she takes her instruction from an American goalie, Katie Fraine, who has played in Sweden and Norway since 2012.
“It’s been really easy in the sense that I can talk to them on the field, they can talk to me on the field,” McClernon said. “It’s a lot easier to transition than I expected, and it’s one of the reasons why I wanted to come here as opposed to some of other options like France or Italy where it might not be as common to speak English because being the vocal player that I am, I knew I would lose part of my game if I was unable to communicate.”
The deal is essentially a loan, though that’s mostly a matter of semantics. The Pride retain McClernon’s domestic rights, and she prioritized a short-term arrangement to be ready next spring for what she hopes is a normal NWSL season. She remains in contact with the Pride coaching staff and calls her ability to get regular games away from Orlando a “win-win.”
In what was looking for the longest time to be a lost year in her development, McClernon is just glad to be back to playing soccer and living the life of a pro.
“There’s so many familiar faces here, so the level is good,” she said. “It’s really, really solid. I never got to play my first NWSL game so I don’t have too much to compare it to in that respect, so as far as practices go, it’s high intensity, it’s good soccer, and it’s really enjoyable.”