Becky Sauerbrunn, the decorated former USWNT captain and two-time World Cup champion, has swapped the intensity of professional soccer for the unpredictability of motherhood. Since retiring in 2024, the veteran center back has welcomed her son, Ronan, and discovered that parenting demands a different kind of resilience than leading America's most successful women's national team.
When asked to compare the pressure of motherhood against her years captaining the USWNT, Sauerbrunn was candid: captaining the national team proved more stressful. "I think it would be easy to say becoming a new mom, but honestly, I think captaining the national team was probably more difficult," she told Soccer Girl. "It gave me probably more stress, more wrinkles than I currently have right now." That perspective reflects the weight she carried both on and off the pitch—not just as a steadying defensive presence, but as a vocal advocate for her teammates during their landmark equal pay battle.
Pressure On and Off the Field
Sauerbrunn's leadership extended far beyond her positioning at center back. She was among the players who filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2016, helping catalyze negotiations that culminated in the historic equal pay agreement of 2022. On the field, her dependability was unmatched: she played every minute of the USWNT's 2015 World Cup-winning campaign, anchoring a backline with the tactical discipline that defined her 16-year professional career across the NWSL.
Now in her post-playing career, Sauerbrunn has embraced a fundamentally different approach. She describes motherhood as requiring surrender rather than control. "You really just have to surrender to it, because there is no schedule," she explained. "You just have to kind of go with it." This philosophy stands in stark contrast to the precision and structure demanded of elite defenders, yet she has found the shift refreshing—even watching her son fixate on a rattle for extended periods has taught her to slow down and appreciate unscheduled moments.
New Chapter in Broadcasting
Retirement has not meant stepping away from soccer entirely. Sauerbrunn now covers the USWNT for TNT, providing in-game and postgame analysis, while hosting two podcasts that keep her embedded in the sport's ecosystem. Her transition mirrors a broader trend within women's soccer: an expanding roster of mothers at both the NWSL and international level, from Sophia Wilson and Mallory Swanson to Ashley Hatch and Lynn Biyendolo, many of whom continue playing professionally.
Sauerbrunn views this generation's ability to balance motherhood with soccer careers as a victory earned through collective advocacy. The protections now embedded in the players' collective bargaining agreement—guaranteeing job security and health benefits for returning mothers—represent hard-won gains from fighters like Sauerbrunn herself. As more young players choose to start families while maintaining their careers, they build upon the foundation laid by earlier pioneers. Whether they follow the path of Crystal Dunn and Alex Morgan, who played while parenting, or Sauerbrunn's route into motherhood after retirement, each choice reflects the expanding possibilities her generation fought to create within American women's soccer.
