NC Courage's Sam Mewis signs with Manchester City
Posted August 10, 2020 7:58 a.m. EDT
Cary, N.C. — After spending five years in the National Women’s Soccer League, Sam Mewis of the North Carolina Courage and U.S. Women's National Team will ply her footballing trade in England next season.
Mewis has signed with Manchester City of the FA Women's Super League. An official announcement will be made Monday, and Mewis is expected to participate in a media conference with Manchester City on Tuesday. The Athletic first published reports of this impending move last month.
“It’s like your family member leaving the house,” says Courage General Manager Curt Johnson to WRALSportsFan. “We understand it’s a moment in time for Sam to get games and meaningful competition, and to experience European soccer. At the same time, we look forward to her coming back home.”
Mewis mostly recently played with the Courage in the NWSL Challenge Cup. The 2020-21 FA WSL season is scheduled to kick off on September 6, 2020. The FA WSL season typically runs into mid-May, although the 2019-20 campaign was suspended in March and ultimately cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the NWSL’s plans for when to return to the field following the Challenge Cup, which concluded two weeks ago, remain undetermined.
The Western New York Flash drafted Mewis with the fourth overall pick in the 2015 NWSL College Draft after Mewis won a NCAA Championship with UCLA. After serving as an alternate player for the USWNT at the 2016 Olympics, Mewis returned to Western New York and helped lead the Flash to a shock win in the 2016 NWSL Championship.
Mewis came to the Triangle after North Carolina FC owner Steve Malik purchased the Flash in 2017, moved the team to Cary, NC, and rebranded them as the NC Courage. Since then Mewis and the Courage have won two more NWSL Championships and three consecutive NWSL Shields. Mewis and the USWNT also won the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
With the Tokyo Summer Olympics now rescheduled for late July 2021 and the NWSL’s future scheduling in flux, the need for Mewis and the rest of her USWNT teammates to find competitive opportunities over the coming months becomes paramount.
Courage manager Paul Riley says Mewis’s departure boils down to one simple factor: her need to play competitive matches in preparation for the hopeful restart of the international schedule and the Olympics.
“Sam and I have talked a lot about it, and I really feel like it’s a great opportunity for her to play games, because I don’t know how many games she’s going to play here,” Riley tells WRALSportsFan.
“I think the progress of a player can never be stopped, especially one like Sam. It’s an opportunity to play in the European Champions League and knockout games and the first division in England. The experience is going to be different training-wise, coaching-wise, and club-wise.
“If we announced last Friday that [the NWSL] had a 16-game season [this year], then Sam wouldn’t be going,” Riley declares. “But we didn’t, so I think Sam needs to go and play these games. Once we get some clarity on what we’re doing, then it’ll be different. But Sam had to make a decision, and I think it’s the right decision to go. I’m excited for her. But she loves [the Courage], obviously she wants to come back, and I think you’ll see her in a Courage uniform not too far in the distant future.”
Beyond the need for competition outlets, Riley says she and Mewis have discussed other aspects and benefits of playing in Europe.
“Obviously there are financial dividends of playing in Europe, although the tax structure in England and Europe in general is a lot higher than it is here,” Riley explains. “She has to be careful what you’re signing for—players can sign for X amount and later discover it’s really Y amount. My interest is for Sam to be the best player Sam can be. I’ve been part of the last five years of Sam’s development.
“The culture change will do her good, too,” Riley continues. “Getting uncomfortable will do her good. These are all parts of a player’s improvement, and we talk about it a lot inside our group. Going to a foreign country, she’ll be uncomfortable and not the big shot. It’s her job now to let them know who she is and what she’s capable of doing.”
Riley says he is not intimate with the specific terms of Mewis’s contract with Manchester City. However, he says that she retains the ability to return to the Courage following City’s upcoming season. “If she decides come April or May that she wants to come back [to the Courage], then Sam will come back before the season finishes.”
To Courage fans, Riley asks to keep an eye on our zeitgeist, the big picture, and how the future of the team might unfold.
“She didn’t want to leave,” Riley says. “She wanted my blessing to go, and I gave her my blessing because I think it’s important for her. The fans might be disappointed because she could miss a couple of months of the [NWSL] season, but if you get a better player out of it, then it’s worth what she’s doing.
“We’ll survive, we’ll continue to grow the club, and wait for a better Sam to come back. I would almost make one guarantee: that she has not played her last game for North Carolina.”
