The last time Sydney Leroux scored a goal that looked like this, 20,000 Canadian fans were booing her.

Leroux runs at the net to force the goalkeeper off her line. One-on-one, she takes a touch around the goalkeeper and slots the ball in from a wide angle. She makes the goalkeeper look foolish and the shot look easy, but it’s the kind of goal that requires unflinching audacity.

The crowd is friendlier on this May evening outside of Los Angeles, where Canadian-born Leroux led the US women’s national team to a 5-1 romp past Mexico. There are no Canadian fans here – it’s a supportive sellout crowd for one of the US team’s last tune-up matches before the Women’s World Cup begins on June 6.

The World Cup is in Canada, which means going home for Leroux, whose mother is Canadian and whose estranged father is American. But it’s complicated.

“When I put on the American jersey, I’m nothing but American,” Leroux says. “Obviously, my journey was a little different, but I’m very much American. I also have to be honest: I’m from Canada. I was born there, my family is from there, my friends are from there. So when I’m in Vancouver, I will say that I am home.”

Home, at least on the soccer pitch, has not been very welcoming to her.

The last couple of times Leroux played in Canada, the stadiums flooded with boos every time she touched the ball. The Canadian fans directed chants of “Judas” and “traitor” her way. And when she rounded the goalkeeper and scored, just like she recently did in California, fans booed and flipped up their middle fingers.

“It’s one of her strongest assets: the stronger the wind against her, the more Syd rises,” said US national team coach Jill Ellis. “She’s very strong and she knows what she signed up for when she left the Canadians.

“She’ll have 50,000 people booing her maybe, but I think that just helps Syd get her edge even more.”



When asked what kind of reaction she expects from the fans in Canada, Leroux shrugs and hints she hasn’t given it much thought. She doesn’t know – it could be good or bad. But when told about Ellis’ assessment of the way Leroux responds to booing, she smiles.

“Oh, yeah,” she says, nodding her head. “The worst thing you can probably do is boo me and try to make me feel bad because that just makes me hungrier.”

It’s easy to see why some Canadian fans resent Leroux’s decision to play for the Americans. If she had joined the Canadian team, she would be battling legend Christine Sinclair to be the best player in the country. Leroux, 25, has scored 35 goals in 70 games for the US, while Canadians can only wonder what might’ve been.

Leroux played for Canada’s youth national teams and was the youngest player to participate in the Under-19 Women’s World Cup in 2004. Soon after, she had the audacity to leave the only home she had ever known in Vancouver at age 14 and chase her dream to play on the best soccer team in the world.

Hearing that she’d have a better chance of being spotted by US national team scouts in the south, she didn’t flinch. She moved to Arizona and bounced around teammates’ homes while her mom, Sandi, stayed behind in Vancouver.

“I remember packing my bags up so many times because I just wanted to come home,” Leroux says. “My mom would feel for me, but she was like, ‘I was promise it will be worth it.’ I didn’t really believe her, but she was right. Mom is always right.”

American scouts took notice, but Leroux had to wait until 2008 for approval to make a one-time switch from the Canadian national team to the American one. She was immediately added to the US U-20 World Cup team and they went on to win it all. Leroux was named the tournament’s best player and top scorer, winning the Golden Ball and the Golden Shoe.

“When you make that decision so young, it’s definitely a gamble,” Leroux said of her push to join the US team. “For my mom to send me off to chase this dream, it was a gamble, but she believed in me. I believed in myself, I knew what I wanted to do and I did it.”

Leroux in 2014. Photograph: Lance King/Getty Images

Leroux had been waiting for this goal for a long time. Under the lights of the StubHub Center here in California on a cool May evening against Mexico, she celebrated by throwing her arms up toward the sky like she had summoned something from above. After a seven-month scoring drought, Leroux was back in form.

She scored a second time in this game, recording her first brace since November 2013. The timing could not be better. Just a couple weeks from what will be her first World Cup, Leroux looked every bit like the player that defenders around the world had come to fear.

“Coming out and scoring those goals, it made me miss scoring a lot,” Leroux said afterward, unable to contain her smile. “You don’t realize it until it happens again.”

The motto of the US women’s national team is to peak at the right time, and it seems Leroux is doing just that.

Her national team scoring drought and struggles in club play went hand-in-hand. She scored just five goals in 51 shots in the National Women’s Soccer League last year. An injury in January put her pursuit of goals on a more definite pause.

The day before Leroux’s resurgence and brace against Mexico on May 17, Ellis sensed that Leroux was on the verge of her comeback. Ellis, who also coached Leroux in college at UCLA, said Leroux was in the best form Ellis had ever seen of her.

“There’s a calmness about her,” Ellis said. “Syd is a very emotional, intense player, but she has a kind of calmness in what she’s doing. There’s a very good focus and we’re certainly going to need her in Canada.”

It’s not clear how Ellis will use her in the World Cup, Leroux said. She burst onto the international radar as a “super sub” in the 2012 Olympics under then-coach Pia Sundhage when the Americans won gold. A starting spot during this World Cup could be on the table.

Leroux is one of five forwards for the Americans in a squad filled with goal-scoring prowess. Abby Wambach holds the world record for most international goals scored, man or woman. A healthy Alex Morgan scores at a rate of about a goal per every game and a half.

But Leroux stands out. She is aggressive and physical, fast and fearless. She seems to move faster with the ball at her feet and she tackles more like a defender than a forward.

“I think I bring that hard tackling, quickness, and I’m probably going hit someone,” Leroux said with a laugh when asked what separates her from her peers. “Some of the girls on the team would agree – we definitely keep it a little less physical in practice, but against other opponents? Yeah, I go in pretty hard.”

For someone who dropped everything at 14 and went all-in on trying to break through the most competitive women’s soccer team in the world, it seems fitting that she plays the game the same way she approached her career off the field: She goes in hard and she’s audacious, unflinchingly determined to come out on top.

It’s been a long road from her beginnings in Vancouver to the US women’s national team and back to top form without time to spare, but Leroux’s first World Cup is about to begin.

“I’m ready,” she says.