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Opinion
Ashley Sanchez has rewritten her career in a single NWSL season - but her record-tying 20th goal meant nothing as the Courage slipped to a third straight defeat. Her brilliance deserves a better stage.
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There is something almost poetic about a player doubling her entire career goal tally in a single season - and still watching her team fall apart around her.
Ashley Sanchez entered 2026 with 19 goals across five NWSL regular seasons. She now has 20 in this campaign alone, drawing level with Temwa Chawinga's single-season record. That is an absurd leap. A transformation. The kind of individual breakthrough that should be dominating every conversation about the league's best players.
Instead, it is a footnote in a third straight defeat.
Sanchez's penalty against Utah Royals on Sunday - her record-tying 20th - put the Courage level in the first half. For most clubs, that is a launchpad. For this North Carolina side, it was a brief pause before the familiar collapse resumed. The Royals hit back to win 2-1, and the Courage now sit ninth, one point adrift of the final playoff berth with four matches left.
Let that sink in. A player having a historically great season, and her team might not even make the postseason.
Football is littered with examples of individual brilliance wasted by collective mediocrity. But Sanchez's case feels particularly sharp because of the contrast. She was never this player before. Five steady-but-unspectacular seasons, then suddenly an explosion of goals - multi-goal performances scattered through the year, a complete reinvention.
The fair counterpoint is that goalscoring records don't exist in a vacuum. Perhaps Sanchez's form has come partly at the expense of the team's balance. Perhaps there are trade-offs in how the Courage have been set up around her. But I don't buy that as the primary explanation. A team leaking goals and losing three on the spin has broader problems than one forward scoring too much.
The calendar has offered the Courage one last lifeline. Friday's trip to Lumen Field in Seattle is a direct head-to-head with the Reign for that final playoff spot. Win, and the narrative flips: Sanchez's record becomes the centrepiece of a dramatic late push. Lose, and her remarkable season becomes the most bittersweet individual campaign the NWSL has seen.
Sanchez deserves better than a consolation prize. She has earned the right to play meaningful football in October. Whether her teammates can match her standard is the only question that matters now.
Twenty goals in a single season should feel like a celebration. Right now, it feels like a cry for help.
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Copyright 2026 VIASPORT
Eva Hernández, Editor-in-Chief
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