Countdown to 2024: Getting to Know Rocky Rodríguez

Angel City Head Coach Becki Tweed has a lot of good things to say about Rocky Rodríguez, but the first thing that comes up is this: “What separates her from a lot of [No. 10s] in this league,” says Tweed, “is she knows how to win.”

For the coach, there’s no replacement for the experience of having made it through the eight-month grind of an NWSL season, reached the postseason, and faced the gauntlet of one-and-done playoff games. “She brings that extra edge that we're looking for,” says Tweed. “Any time that somebody has won the NWSL, you always want to ask them a lot of questions and get all the little bits of gold dust out of them.”

From Rodríguez’s side, Angel City represents a new kind of challenge. When she arrived in Portland, where she played from 2020 through 2023, the club already had a well-established culture with a number of team veterans, had won two championships and one NWSL Shield, and had missed the playoffs only once. In her time in Portland, the club won an additional championship and Shield, plus the 2020 Fall Series and 2021 Challenge Cup.

In contrast, Angel City is entering just its third season, and while the roster boasts plenty of experience in players like Sydney Leroux, Ali Riley, and Jasmyne Spencer, to name a few, it also includes three players under age 20 and an additional five between 20 and 25. Perhaps more to the point, the team as a whole, and the group’s ambitions, are just beginning to mature.

“The team is new, and from talking to the girls and everybody, I know it's come a long way in a short period of time,” says Rodríguez. “Coming into a new job is a challenge, but it’s about how you get better from there. I'm excited and honored to come to a team where I can contribute, and it's exciting to build something and hopefully have that as a legacy.”

On the field, Rodríguez is a quintessentially NWSL-style No. 10: a skilled, ball-playing creator who can take opponents one-on-one or put a through pass on a pinhead, while also having the strength and cussedness to hold her own in the rough and tumble of an NWSL midfield.

“A lot of qualities that tens globally possess—creativity, flair, the ability to pass forwards,” Tweed explains, are also necessary for creative mids in the NWSL, but here, “you have to be able to do what I call the ugly side of the game. I think Rocky possesses that. She likes the tackle. She is physically strong. She can win balls in the air. And playing in the U.S., a program like Penn State, and then playing in the NWSL for so long, it's proven.”

That combination of technique and physicality can be seen as a natural outgrowth of Rodríguez’s youth and college careers: first from growing up in Costa Rica, when she’d play pickup from dawn to dusk, then from her college days at Penn State. She was a standout as a Nittany Lion, winning the D1 NCAA championship in 2015—she scored the game-winner in the final—as well as the MAC Hermann Trophy.

(Side note: college is also where Rodríguez picked up the name “Rocky,” an Americanized version of the Spanish “Raque”.)
On the less tangible side, Tweed praises Rodríguez’s level-headed demeanor. “She adds a lot of composure and a relaxed feel to the team,” says the manager. “She's very, very laid back and has that composure, on and off the field. Adding that to the group is just another piece of the puzzle that we're trying to put together.”

Rodríguez has a list of other accolades to her name: in 2015, she represented Costa Rica at the team’s first-ever Women’s World Cup appearance, scoring their first World Cup goal, against Spain, in the process. She was the 2016 NWSL Rookie of the Year, having been selected second overall in the NWSL Draft by then-Sky Blue FC (now NJ/NY Gotham FC).

If Angel City fans know one thing about Rodríguez, though, chances are good that it has to do with her ability to, as she humbly puts it, “once in a while get a really good shot and score or make something out of it.”

In the 2022 playoff semifinal against San Diego, with the Thorns down 0–1, she scored an eye-popping equalizer, settling a recycled corner kick service from just outside the 18 to send a curving strike inside the far post. It was a stunning example of a kind of goal the midfielder has scored a lot in her career, combining a well-timed late run with superb technical ability.

Off the field, the Costa Rican says she’s excited to be in a city with a large, vibrant Latine community. Speaking to AngelCity.com the week after arriving in LA, she also says, “I'm not a sun person, but the sun is really doing wonders to me right now!”

“It’s exciting to discover what [LA] has [that’s] for me,” she says.