'It's Always a Battle': MA Vignola's Winding Road to the NWSL

When M.A. Vignola stepped onto the field two weeks ago against Washington Spirit, she’d been given one of the toughest marking assignments in the league, Trinity Rodman. In that moment, she had one thing on her mind: “She’s not going to beat me one-on-one.”

Early in the season, Vignola says she had a conversation with assistant coach Becki Tweed where Tweed told her, “When I’m going up against players like Trinity Rodman or Ashley Hatch or Alex Morgan, am I better than them? Probably not. But that day I will be better than them. Like, you will not beat me.”

True to her word, Vignola kept Rodman quiet that night. She passed the eye test, beating the former rookie of the year in multiple duels, and the numbers tell a similar story: she led her team in tackles and duels won, and limited Rodman to just two shots, neither on target—the only time this season she’s been limited to zero shots on goal.

The confidence Vignola shows against players like Rodman didn’t come easily. Growing up in Cincinnati, she wasn’t the type of player who knew from a young age that she’d one day go pro. As a kid, she was just playing for fun. “The thing that my dad always told me to do,” she says, “is have fun, play hard, and listen to your coach. Those were the three rules that I had to apply to the game.”

Vignola’s understanding and belief in how far she could go grew in fits and starts with each step forward in soccer, first as she made an ECNL team, Ohio Elite, then as she got called up to her first youth national team camp at 14, then when she was recruited to play at Tennessee.

Even then, she says, she didn’t quite understand the import of what was happening. “Everyone said, ‘Oh my God, this is huge. No one does this around here,’” she remembers. “And I'm thinking, ‘Does what? I'm just going to play soccer!’”

Then she actually got there. “I got to Tennessee and was like, ‘Oh—so this is what it is. This is an atmosphere. This is like, life. This is it.’”

With that realization came a new feeling of pressure. It wasn’t just about having fun anymore. She was playing with and against the best players in the country, and as she started to compare herself to them, doubt crept in. She worried her relaxed attitude had put her behind her peers.

“I think the comparisons really started to come out when I stopped getting invited to the national team [my junior year of college],” she says. “These players are thriving and still going to camps and going to World Cups, and I'm not.”

When a teammate, Erin Gilroy, made the US squad for the U-20 World Cup in 2018, Vignola remembers being happy for her—“but there was a side of me that was pissed,” she says. “that's when my mindset really flipped and I thought, ‘I want to do this.’ Knowing I want to feature in the national team and I'm not there right now, and they are, and they got there because of the work they did. So now it's my turn.”

Tennessee made a playoff run that year to the playoff quarterfinals, where they were eliminated by Stanford. That game shifted something for Vignola. Although the Vols lost 2–0, Stanford was the top-ranked team in the country, boasting multiple players who would go on to be some of the best in the world, including Sophia Smith, Catarina Macario, and Naomi Girma. Vignola went up against the best of the best and held her own.

But building her confidence, just like improving on the field, didn’t happen overnight. After college, she says, “confidence-wise and mentally-wise, I didn't think I was ready for the NWSL.” She skipped the draft and connected with an agent who thought he could find a spot for her abroad. The offer he returned with was in a country she had no conception of: Iceland.

“I was like, ‘Iceland? What’s in Iceland?’” she remembers. “But I got there and it was beautiful. I fell in love with the culture, I fell in love with the people, I fell in love with how they accepted foreigners onto the field. It was just a welcoming community, and they love soccer—and people showed up to games.”

Her first year in Iceland, she was one of two Americans playing for Thróttur Reykjavik, a mid-table team where she scored six goals in 12 appearances. The following year, 2021, “the next step was to go back to Iceland, but to a better team,” she says. “At that team, [Valur], I was playing with Iceland national team players, and that was great, because they have that experience, and knowing I can play against them built my confidence.”

Her second year in Iceland, she won the league with Valur, but that success came at a price: in her first game, she tore her hip labrum. Not wanting to stop playing, she gritted her teeth and kept going. “I was in horrible pain the entire season,” she says, “I could get through, like, 25 minutes okay, and then I’d take a step a little bit wrong and I’d be in pain.”

When Angel City called, she jumped at the opportunity, but her nagging injury also made her nervous. She worried that taking time off to rehab it might jeopardize her career. She tried playing in preseason, but the pain was too much.

Fortunately, her fears were unfounded. “They were so gracious,” she says. “They said, ‘we just want to help. We don't want you in pain.’ So knowing it wasn't going to hurt my career, and that they wanted to help me, that pushed me.”

She credits Angel City’s medical staff, including then-physical therapists Joscelyn Bourne and Symiah Campbell (Bourne is now the club’s director of rehabilitation), with keeping her going during the months she spent away from the game in 2022.

“Joscelyn just knowing me and who I am, she was able to make me see there was a bright side every day,” says Vignola. “Maybe I’m on crutches and I’m not walking, but today I get to take a few steps, or I get to open up my hip. That may be small, but it’s progress.”

Vignola finally got her first minutes in September, subbing in for Madison Hammond in the final 10 minutes of the 2022 Copa Angelina, a moment she says didn’t feel fully real. Her teammates had been supportive throughout the season, but sitting on the sidelines had still made her feel a disconnect. “I didn’t feel in it with everybody,” she explains.

Vignola got her first start for Angel City against Louisville in April. Less than two minutes into the game, she tracked midfielder Savannah DeMelo as she dribbled across Angel City’s 18—and fouled DeMelo for a penalty kick.

It was yet another test: could she put the mistake behind her and keep competing, or would it derail her game? “I think in that moment, I was like, 'damn, MA!' Like, really?” she remembers. “You've been waiting for this moment, and you did that.”

But almost immediately, she took control of the narrative. “Then it was, ‘okay, I need to get out my head, because if I don't, it's going to be 2–0, 3–0.’”

That switch wouldn’t have come so naturally in Vignola’s younger days. “I think the biggest game changer for me has been being able to just flip my mind off. We all make mistakes. You just keep going. And in that stadium with 20,000 people cheering for me, it was easy to turn it off.”

Since then, she’s been on an upward trajectory, an important piece for a defense that’s looked increasingly organized and composed over the last month. She leads the team in tackles and interceptions per 90 (and is in sixth place in that stat league-wide) as well as defensive regains per 90, which measures how often a player’s pressure forces a turnover, whether they or a teammate end up with the ball at the end of the play.

And unsurprisingly for a converted forward—Vignola didn’t move to the back line until college—she packs an offensive punch, too; against Washington, in addition to her defensive numbers, she also led the team in shots and shots on target, and tied with Claire Emslie and Alyssa Thompson for most touches in the opposition box.

Looking back on all the setbacks of the last few years, Vignola says she’s proud of not giving up on herself, and she reflects on one of the big lessons she’s learned playing at the elite level: “It's always a battle,” she says. “It's always a battle with yourself and your mentality, and if you're willing to keep going.”