Croix Bethune was swept up in the best kind of whirlwind for the first seven months of her professional soccer career.
It began in January 2024, when the University of Georgia playmaker went third overall to the Washington Spirit in the NWSL draft. Then came the unprecedented instant impact — to the tune of five goals and nine assists in her first 14 matches. Her surge on the international stage was even more surreal: A first U.S. women’s national team call-up, a summons to the Paris Olympics and a gold medal around her neck.
Croix Bethune was swept up in the best kind of whirlwind for the first seven months of her professional soccer career.
It began in January 2024, when the University of Georgia playmaker went third overall to the Washington Spirit in the NWSL draft. Then came the unprecedented instant impact — to the tune of five goals and nine assists in her first 14 matches. Her surge on the international stage was even more surreal: A first U.S. women’s national team call-up, a summons to the Paris Olympics and a gold medal around her neck.
Notching her 10th assist in her first game back from France, Bethune tied the NWSL’s single-season record with nine games to spare. And the 4-1 dismantling of the Kansas City Current at Audi Field landed like a statement of intent from a stacked Spirit squad.
“We whooped their butt so bad,” Bethune recalled. “I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re about to win a ’ship this year.’”
Then, as whirlwinds tend do, this one veered off course.
Revisiting the events of Aug. 28, 2024, the coolly confident Bethune took a hushed tone. For a moment, freewheeling introspection gave way to succinct bullet points. “Nationals baseball game. A little pitch incident. Blew my knee.”
Bethune suffered a torn meniscus, to be specific, while delivering that fateful first pitch at Nationals Park. What went through her head next?
“That I messed up really bad,” Bethune replied. “What were you doing, Croix?”
With a toss of a ball and a tweak of a knee, Bethune’s staggering rookie season was over. She watched from the sideline as the Spirit won a pair of postseason thrillers before falling to the Orlando Pride in last fall’s NWSL final. Bethune played no part in March’s Challenge Cup triumph, either. After six months on the sideline, the 24-year-old’s return this spring was filled with stops and starts.
In recent months, however, Bethune has slipped back into string-pulling form. Her performances have increasingly been filled with flicks and tricks and defense-splitting vision. She’s also eased her way back to the stat sheet, recording two goals and two assists since returning from the NWSL’s summer break. Last weekend, she made her belated playoff debut as the Spirit topped Racing Louisville, 3-1, in a shootout following a 1-1 draw. On Saturday afternoon, she figures to again anchor second-seeded Washington’s attack when the third-seeded Portland Thorns visit a sold-out Audi Field in an NWSL semifinal.
“She brings a level of creativity and just swagger that I don’t think anyone else has,” Spirit captain Aubrey Kingsbury said. “You can tell she believes in herself, and she knows she’s got the talent and ability to really impact a game. … I have no doubt that [she] can come back from anything.”
Bethune’s competitive edge was sharpened from a young age. The daughter of two Air Force members, Bethune spent most of her youth in the Atlanta area but enjoyed several impressionable years — from about ages 4 to 7 — in England after her parents were stationed in Stratford-upon-Avon. (“I had a little accent,” she beamed.) Tagging along with her older brother, Bethune burned her youthful energy playing soccer with neighborhood boys several years her senior.
“There’s always those kids that are picking grass or doing cartwheels,” Bethune said. “I was that kid that was, like, ‘Give me the ball and I’m dribbling. I know what I’m doing.’”
Bethune’s perseverance was forged more recently, when she tore the ACL in her left knee three times in five years. The first came in 2018, during Bethune’s senior year of high school, when she went down in an Under-17 World Cup qualifying match. She was preparing for her freshman season at the University of Southern California when she repeated the injury during a preseason trip to England. Bethune suffered the third tear during her senior year at USC in 2022.
It was during that last recovery, as Bethune rehabbed both legs after a graft from her right knee was used to repair the left, that she briefly entertained doubts about her career’s longevity. But after the first injury taught Bethune to be grateful for the sport and the second built her patience and strength, the third offered the lesson that timing can be fortuitous. Rather than enter the 2023 draft, Bethune followed former USC coach Keidane McAlpine to Georgia, powered the Bulldogs to the SEC title and sent her draft stock soaring — ultimately steering her to Washington.
“My body can do really great at healing itself and bouncing back,” Bethune said. “It sucks to say that, but I’d rather know.”
Bethune had trained with the U.S. team but never stepped on the field when she awoke from a nap in June 2024 to her phone buzzing and Coach Emma Hayes’s name on the screen. The midfielder, Hayes relayed, would be traveling to the Olympics as an alternate. “That was a goal that I had written down, so maybe I manifested it,” Bethune said. “But I honestly didn’t expect to be there.”
When a quad injury sidelined Jaedyn Shaw, Bethune was activated to the active roster for three matches and logged 11 minutes in a group stage win over Australia. Although Bethune didn’t dress for the knockout round, her earlier participation ensured that she’d snag a gold medal when the Americans clinched their Olympic title.
“I think that’s my biggest flex,” Bethune said before unfurling a giddy grin.
Eighteen days later, however, Bethune’s dream year was over. As the accolades kept rolling — she won NWSL rookie and midfielder of the year honors at season’s end — the sting of sitting out the playoffs lingered. “You move past it because you can’t go back and fix it,” Bethune said. “You’ve got to live in the truth.”
As she embarked on yet another lengthy recovery, her experience battling back from that trio of torn ACLs gave her confidence. It also helped that Bethune studied health and human sciences in college, having long been interested in sports medicine after going through physical therapy to treat tendinitis as a child.
“I learned it,” Bethune said, “and I was living through it.”
After failing to land in the box score in eight appearances to start this season, Bethune found a groove in recent months. For a player of Bethune’s imitable gifts, that means silky through balls and clutch strikes. A high IQ in midfield and a sixth sense in the box. Slippery dribbling and crisp combinations.
“She brings something different to the team,” Coach Adrián González said. “She can see things that other players can’t, in terms of [the] last pass, creating chances, and she gives us a lot of quality on the ball. I think defensively she’s also doing a great job, so right now she’s very important.”
Right back Paige Metayer added: “Whenever Croix gets the ball, I’m just bombing forward because I know that her last entry pass, her through ball is just super deadly. I’ve never seen anyone play like that.”
Off the field, Bethune subscribes to a “chill gal” lifestyle filled with dog park pilgrimages (accompanied by her Terrier mix, Kush), restaurant hopping (Kyojin and Il Canale are favorites) and artistic forays (she’s an avid drawer). Yet Bethune has also had her fill of time off. Nowadays, she’s focused on finding her way to two more on-the-field destinations: The 2027 World Cup in Brazil and, more pertinently, the NWSL final Nov. 22 in San Jose.
“I’ve been waiting a whole year,” Bethune said, “and we’re finally here.”
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