Gisele Thompson Makes it Official

Gisele Thompson is one of a kind.

Thompson, who signed with the club four days before her 18th birthday, is Angel City’s youngest-ever signing, beating out her sister Alyssa by one month and 16 days.

She’s a rarity in the American soccer landscape: an athletic, attacking-minded player who is already, at age 18, training and playing consistently as a right back. There are a lot of converted forwards in the pool of defenders—Kelley O’Hara, Sofia Huerta, and Jenna Nighswonger being prominent examples—as well as players like Crystal Dunn and Midge Purce who play outside back some of the time, or play up top for club and in the back line for country.

Thompson, on the other hand, with all her skill, speed, vision, and dynamism going forward, has been specializing as a right back for about four years. Stylistically, she fits in perfectly with a team that looks to create using overloads in wide areas—and in terms of skill level, she looks well beyond her 18 years.

“We want to have dynamic fullbacks that want to join in the attack, and I think she just adds to that,” says Head Coach Becki Tweed. She adds that although Thompson is still a young player with huge upside, “[she has] I think everything that the modern day player has. She's well rounded. She understands the game very well. She is crazily still 18 and has international experience.”

Position-wise, Thompson has experience on all three lines, something she says helped her growth as a defender.

“I think playing other positions has helped me get where I am right now,” says Thompson. “All the positions help you with different skills. Center mid is about awareness—you have to know who's coming from behind and where the next pass is. With forward, it’s getting up the field and hitting crosses or getting shots off. That all helps with being a right back.”

That on-field awareness Thompson is something Tweed also sees in her play.

“She is incredibly composed and calm,” says Tweed. “She wants the ball. She always looks to get on the ball and do things with it. And then her composure in tight spaces, her ability to break pressure on the dribble or with the pass, all those things are qualities that she really hones in on.”

Tweed knows Thompson well: the 18-year-old has been training with Angel City since her older sister, Alyssa, joined the team last season.

Jumping into that environment and training alongside World Cup champions and league veterans, some more than twice her age, was intimidating at first, but Thompson says the team made her feel welcome. “Everyone was so kind to me, like, inviting me to everything,” she says. “They treated me like family.”

On the field, her future teammates pushed her in a good way. “Everyone was pushing me to be my best,” she says. “I’ve gotten a lot more confident in myself even when I make mistakes. I kind of get in my head a lot, so [I got better at] moving on from my mistakes and learning from them.”

The Thompson sisters, just 13 months apart in age, have been playing together as long as they can remember, most recently for Total Futbol Academy, a boys’ MLS Next club. Playing with and against players who were physically bigger and faster was a challenge that forced the sisters to play and think quickly, which helped prepare them for the professional level.

TFA technical director Mario Gonzalez said in an interview with MLSSoccer.com last year that Gisele grew rapidly after joining the team. “In Gisele’s case [she’s improved] how she builds out, how she plays out of the back when she plays out of the back, functional movement, getting forward to create, overload, or create numerical situations that favor us,” he said.

As much as any of the clubs they’ve played for together, though, growing up with a sibling so close in age—who also happens to be an elite-level soccer player—has driven Thompson’s development.

“We always practice together,” she says. “She's a forward and I'm a defender, so that helps her attacking and my defending. We just push each other all the time. She's such a hardworking person, which inspires me to want to work harder.”

The two don’t, however, particularly enjoy competing one-on-one. “We’re both really competitive,” she laughs. “We get mad at each other and ourselves—it’s just a lot of emotions!”

In addition to Angel City, Tweed has also coached Thompson at the international level, with the USWNT U-20s. The team won second place in the Concacaf U-20 Women’s Championship, with Tweed acting as an assistant.

“Having that relationship with her where I've seen her uncomfortable and watched her play against international opponents, it’s been really cool to watch her growth and development,” says Tweed.

It’s a relationship Thompson values, too. “She knows me really well and she knows what I need to improve on,” she says of Tweed. “When some coaches talk to me, I just get into my head and think like, ‘oh, they think I'm bad at this.’ But when she says it, [I hear it as] advice and something that I want to work on.”

Having already trained with Angel City for almost a year, a contract feels like a natural step. “We're really excited to finally make it official,” says Tweed. “It's been a long time coming.”