Sofia Huerta’s big gamble, trading Mexico for USWNT, finally pays off

Few players have taken the path Sofia Huerta did to make a World Cup team. After spending years in the Mexican national program, she opted to go for it with the U.S., a decision head coach Vlatko Andonovski called brave.

Huerta, a Santa Clara alum who grew up in Boise, knew her move carried significant risk. She made up her mind at age 19, despite not receiving any communication from the American program, she said.

Over a decade later, the 30-year-old defender stands on the cusp of the sport’s pinnacle, having earned one of the 23 spots with the U.S. women’s national team and a chance to play in her first World Cup. The USWNT opens Friday against Vietnam in New Zealand.

“I really had no idea that I was ever going to be someone that they were interested in, or that I was ever going to get called into a camp, because I was never with the youth teams,” Huerta said. “I got called to, like, one youth team, basically my whole youth. So I just had no idea if I was ever going to be in the conversation with the national team, let alone in the conversation for the World Cup or an Olympic roster.”

 Huerta knew she had what it took, even if seemingly no one else around her did. 

Her father, Mauricio, is from Mexico, which qualified Huerta to play for the Mexican national team. She made her international debut with its 2012 U-20 World Cup roster after she failed to make the U.S. squad. She played in five caps for Mexico’s senior national team, including a 2013 friendly against the U.S. She switched her affiliation to the U.S. in 2017 and would become the first woman to ever play for and against the U.S.

“Being told no has helped me just find my confidence from within,” she said. “Because I think as athletes, we’re always being told by coaches, teammates that we’re really, really good or we didn’t have a good game or whatever. So we’re like looking at external factors to tell us how we performed or how we should feel about ourselves, because obviously, the athletes do kind of tie their worth sometimes to how they perform.”

As a kid in Boise, Huerta played four sports, and she said she felt like that left her behind in soccer while other elite players were training more often. In 2016, she moved to Australia to play professionally and beef up her technical skill. For three seasons, she had “basically one month off a year.”

Her first cap with the U.S. came in 2018 when she assisted an Alex Morgan goal in her debut, but she wouldn’t stick. Huerta wanted to play outside back for the USWNT, but was forced into an attacking role with Chicago in the NWSL. She asked for a trade for an opportunity to go back to the outside, but ended up frustrated as an attacker in Houston as well. Still, she did everything she could to adjust. 

At her low point in 2018, she received an email from then-USWNT coach Jill Ellis that she wasn’t going to be considered, and then she didn’t get a call from the program for three years. The 2019 World Cup and 2021 Olympics passed and Huerta was not in the running, playing out of position for her club team, and having given up her chance to play for Mexico.

“I had made this decision to play for the U.S., then I finally got that opportunity, then the opportunity didn’t pan out the way that I wanted it to, or what I hoped it to be, and so there was a lot of self-doubt,” she said. “A lot of, I wouldn’t say regret, but almost like talking to myself and whether I made the right decision. And I just didn’t know if I was ever gonna get the opportunity again to play for the U.S.”

Three seasons in Australia at outside back and then a chance with OL Reign in Seattle changed things. Around then, the USWNT hit a rough patch after the Tokyo Olympics, and Andonovski wanted to shake things up.

“To work so hard for so long, and to be driven and committed and dedicated to achieve that (dream), it just speaks to her character,” he said. “It is certainly a character we welcome on this team.”

Even knowing she likely had done enough to make the World Cup squad, Huerta said she and her family lost “nights of sleep” leading to the announcement. When she got the call, she FaceTimed her family and they sobbed together.

“Specifically, my dad has just really seen me on this journey and knows how much I’ve struggled and because of his life and how much he sacrificed, I think this meant so much to him,” she said. “Because he decided to move his family from Mexico to the United States so we could have more opportunities and I think this just made him feel like it was also worth it.”

Huerta’s college coach, Jerry Smith, remembered how she arrived at Santa Clara positionless, but full of potential. At first, she played at forward, then moved to defense and thrived.

When Mexico offered her a spot, Smith, who is also Mexican American, asked her if that was what she wanted.

“She and I talked and she talked to her inner circle of people, and she decided that she would appeal to FIFA for the one time exception (to transfer affiliation) and it was granted,” he said. “Throughout that process, (she) still had no real looks by the U.S. team. There was no indication she would get that look.

“So really, it was a huge risk.”

Now that she has achieved her goal, it has been replaced by a new one: to win a title with the USWNT crest on her jersey.

Huerta hasn’t wavered in her bet on herself.

“I’ve been in the (NWSL) for over five years, and I was really good so, you know, I am very successful,” she said. “I have a really good life. So I needed to look at what I did have versus what I didn’t, because I was putting way too much pressure on myself to perform every time I stepped on the field. Fast forward a few years, I’m in a completely different spot.

“And now I’ve been selected for the ’23 World Cup roster.”

Julie Ertz, Huerta’s Santa Clara and USWNT teammate, has been far from surprised by her rise.

“I’m absolutely ecstatic for her,” she said. “She’s constantly played well in that fight of trying to make a roster continuously. There’s a lot that goes in, just the mental side of being in camps, and so I think it’s just a testament to her and her willingness that she trusted herself and her skill level and to continue to get better each year, which she has. 

“Her time is now.”

Reach Marisa Ingemi: marisa.ingemi@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @marisa_ingemi