It was a familiar sight: Ashley Sanchez running at the left post, controlling a lofted cross, deftly finding a window between defenders and taking a quick shot to the inside of the far post beyond the reach of the goalkeeper. It's how the North Carolina Courage winger has scored so many of her 19 goals this year. This would be her 20th, tying Temwa Chawinga's 2024 record for most goals scored in an NWSL season.
But on Saturday against Gotham, it wasn't meant to be. As Sanchez celebrated with her teammates and fans in the WakeMed Soccer Park stands updated their handmade "Sanchez Goal-O-Meter", the center referee was summoned to the VAR monitor, and the goal was called off; Sanchez's teammate Gianna Paul was a touch offside when the play began. No tied game, and no tied record.
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"I was just happy to tie [the game] up," Sanchez told the Guardian of the moment the ball went in the net. "I honestly wasn't really thinking about what that would mean until after, and I was like, 'Oh, dang, I could have done it.' It was a good goal. I was really upset that we didn't tie the game up right then and there."
If that 20th goal comes, it'll have been worth the wait. The same could be said of Sanchez's season, the seventh of her professional career. She was on the US women's national team's 2023 World Cup roster, but didn't see any playing time in Australia and New Zealand. Five months after that, after a dynamite four years with the Washington Spirit, she was traded to North Carolina without warning.
Now, in the best form of her life, Sanchez, 27, doesn't think about that turbulent year much. "I feel like I'm past that point. But when I look back at this season I'm like, 'I guess I had to go through some tough times to get here.' I always felt like there was a reason that I had to go through them – maybe that was character-building, or not taking things for granted," she said. "When I look back now, I'm really happy those things happened because I have perspective now. But definitely at the time, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.'"
"I've always kind of felt like there was something bigger that was going to happen. I just felt like I needed to stay patient and have trust that whatever God was doing in my life was for a reason," she said. "I tried to lean on to that because you can get really caught up in, 'Oh my gosh, these things keep happening to me, and it's really hard.' And it was really hard. But I was very patient and I controlled what I could, and that was my effort."
The effort has paid off. Sanchez has already broken at least two records: the most NWSL goals scored in one season by an American, and most goals by a Courage player in one season.
For Sanchez, her goal tally has come as a welcome surprise. But someone in Cary, North Carolina, saw it coming. Mak Lind, the Courage's first-year head coach, told Sanchez during preseason that she'd have a 20-goal season. "I was laughing," Sanchez recalled of the moment. "He was like, 'I don't know why you're laughing. I'm being serious.'"
At the time, she thought about the players with NWSL goalscoring records and thought Lind's statement was "insane". Entering this year, Crystal Dunn and Alex Morgan held the American single-season record, with 15 goals in 2015 and 2022, respectively; Chawinga and Sam Kerr were the only players to score 17. Sanchez had never scored more than five in one season.
"There's a reason that there are these records that nobody's touched," she said. "It was my first time professionally playing on the wing. So I was like, 'Hopefully I'll score a lot of goals, but I don't know if I'm going to hit 20.'"
As it turns out, playing on the left wing is what unlocked the former attacking midfielder as a scoring virtuoso. "My coaches have helped me with a lot of little things that really helped me improve: my timing, what to look for, making runs in behind defenders, and different things like that," she said. "But ultimately I do feel like this position really suits me and the skillsets that I have, and a lot of it does feel like second nature to me."
Sanchez's natural instincts are a joy to watch. When she's making a run, she considers if the defender is coming toward her, creating room for her to run in behind them once the ball arrives. "As soon as I'm dribbling, it's just pretty natural for me. I don't really know what I'm thinking in the moment, but as soon as I see them bite is when I'm like, 'Now I can go,'" she said. "I basically just wait for them to make a move, and then I decide which way I'm going to go, whether that's to the left or the right. Sometimes they give me the right [side] unexpectedly: 'Guess I'm gonna take a shot now.'"
After enough of those shots went in, about halfway through the season, Lind reminded Sanchez of his prediction. "I still didn't think I was going to be able to double what I had already done," she said.
But soon enough, she couldn't deny that her goalscoring pace was on its way to breaking records. "Sometimes some of these records seem untouchable, and then you just start picking away at it, and you're like, 'I guess I'm a little bit closer than I thought,'" she said.
Lind is the seventh head coach Sanchez has played under in her seven seasons in the NWSL. That managerial revolving door can make for difficult conditions to improve as a player, and Sanchez said it's especially tough when coaches change midseason. It hasn't been that way with Lind. The Lebanese-Swedish manager, in his first year in the NWSL, has offered stability to a team that had an abrupt head coaching change in the middle of 2025.
"He's just a really good person," Sanchez said. "And I think when we all talk about it – he's just so nice – we're just like, 'We need to protect him.'"
The team's respect for Lind as a person translates to respecting him as a coach, and it motivates the team on the pitch. "It's the first time that I've been like, 'Wow, I do want to win for him.' … He puts a lot of trust and confidence in me and I want to reward how he treats his players," Sanchez said. "He's definitely the kindest coach I've ever had in my life."
Sanchez is happy to keep scoring if it means helping the seventh-place Courage reach the playoffs, but racking up goals and records isn't her focus. "I think that the season I've had is already so great. And I just try to tell myself if it ended right now, I would still be happy," she said. "And all the other stuff is kind of just extra at this point."
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There's also the question that has swirled around American women's soccer conversation for months now: will Emma Hayes call up Sanchez for the USWNT's friendlies against Spain next month? Hayes has been clear that she has shifted from widening the national team pool to narrowing in on her roster for next year's World Cup, and Sanchez's last international appearance was in October 2024. But her club performance begs for attention.
On Tuesday afternoon, Sanchez said she hadn't yet heard from Hayes. While she's thought about getting the call-up, she's not dwelling on it. "The only thing I can do is just make it as hard as I possibly can for [Hayes] to make her decisions, and put myself in the best position to get called in or play in these games," Sanchez said. "But ultimately it's up to her and I have to be comfortable with it maybe not being good enough."
"For me to be able to get called back in – I think a lot of people, and maybe even myself, kind of counted me out. I think it would just be a testament to going through a little bit of a tough time and still being able to find your way back," she added. "But I also think this season has been so incredible that even if I didn't, I would still be so proud of what I've been able to do. It would feel like a little bit of an extra cherry on top. Obviously I would like to, but we'll see."
