About 10 days ago I was sitting in a room with Brandi Chastain, Briana Scurry, Michelle Akers, Kristine Lilly, Kate Markgraf and Shannon MacMillan, listening to them tell the story of how they won the World Cup. Their 1999 U.S. women’s national team stormed onto the national stage thanks to the win, kick-starting the conversation about women’s soccer in the U.S. and influencing an entire generation of players, some of whom now play for the USWNT.

But they didn’t just inspire future players. Soon after that win at the Rose Bowl, as a new league tried to capitalize on the success of the game, I was a 16-year-old ready to do whatever I could to work in women’s soccer. I landed an internship with the Boston Breakers, was handed two polo shirts (men’s large) and put to work in the press box. I wrote game updates in HTML and posted them every five minutes to the team’s website.

I was absolutely hooked.

Now, 20 years after those six players hoisted the trophy along with the rest of their teammates, the USWNT are aiming to add a fourth star above their crest at this summer’s tournament in France. And as I sat and listened to the stories of a team I absolutely worshipped, everything came full circle for me.

There are so many stories still to be told, and in a World Cup year with all eyes on France, there’s no time to waste. Only 59 days to go until first kick in Paris.

I’ll be here full time starting today at The Athletic, writing about the U.S. women’s national team and the National Women’s Soccer League. It’s time to get to work, making sure you don’t miss the stories you need about women’s soccer.

I was too young for that Breakers internship to turn into a real job, but another World Cup pulled me back into the realm of women’s soccer. The USWNT eventually fell to Japan in the 2011 final, but I continued writing for outlets like Equalizer Soccer, Vice Sports and Unusual Efforts. Five years on, I moved to New York City for a full-time position covering women’s sports at a start-up. And for the past two years, I worked at the NWSL itself, first as a content producer, then as the league’s social media manager and finally overseeing the league’s media production.

This summer, the USWNT will once again captivate the entire country. But what will happen over one month in France is only part of the story. What interests me are the details about every player on this roster, top to bottom; it’s the tune-ups on the road to the World Cup and all the work that brought them here; it’s what happens after the final whistle on July 7th as we capitalize on all the attention; and it’s the groundbreaking moves the team is making off the field, as they face off against their own federation over equal pay.

There is no shortage of topics worth covering outside of the World Cup as well.

A sold-out crowd of 21,144 attended the 2018 NWSL Championship last fall in Portland. I was there, on the field, wishing for earplugs. The North Carolina Courage, arguably the best club team in American women’s soccer history, won 3-0 over Portland Thorns FC. They had already broken pretty much every league record on their way to winning the regular season. The tipping point is here. We’re seeing record crowds across the world for women’s club soccer, in Mexico and Spain and Italy. Some of the best players in the world—Marta, Sam Kerr, Christine Sinclair—are playing here every weekend, and not getting the coverage they deserve.

There’s going to be plenty of soccer, but I’m not going to shy away from the bigger issues this sport is facing at the moment, such as equal pay and gender equality. As long as we’re still calling women’s soccer “women’s soccer” and not just “soccer,” there’s no ignoring how the wider world interacts with the sport.

The sport doesn’t improve without better and more consistent coverage. We grow women’s soccer when we cover every aspect of it, and actually invest in an infrastructure of robust journalism around it.

We’re going to cover women’s soccer from every angle, and on the merits of the game itself: the results, the tactics, the successes on and off the field, the characters, the controversies, the challenges. In other words, we’re going to cover the USWNT and the NWSL like every other sport.

I’ve seen my share of kitchen comments on Twitter. The “no one cares about women’s (insert sport here)” replies. I’ll be thinking of them every time someone subscribes to The Athletic because we’re covering women’s soccer.

Fortunately, I don’t have to write in HTML these days. I never grew into those Breakers polos, but 20 years later, I know my way around a press box. It’s one of those full circle moments coming around again.

I’m excited to join this team and provide consistent and thoughtful coverage of women’s soccer. I want to prove what’s possible with this investment. And I hope you’ll join me here at The Athletic and make a small investment of your own. To do so, follow this link to get access to everything The Athletic has to offer for less than $3 per month for the first year—and make sure you follow NWSL and USWNT in the app.

When I’m up late on the night of July 7th (let’s hope), munching on yet another croissant as I try to hit my deadline, you’ll have my sincerest merci.

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(Photo by Andrew Bershaw/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)