From sprints with Rapinoe to play Champions League: Ayers road from NWSL to Sweden “dream”
It was early 2015 and Jessica Ayers, a graduate of Colorado College, had just answered the phone to Vlatko Andonovski, the now head coach of the American women’s national team.
At the time, Andonovski was in charge of FC Kansas City, the reigning NWSL champions, and sat in Philadelphia navigating this year’s edition of College Draft.
“Hey, is this Jessica?” he asked. “Yes, it’s me,” replied a rather surprised Ayers. “Listen to this,” he said, holding up the phone.
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“And with the 26th choice, FC Kansas City chooses Jessica Ayers.”
The words echoed around the room and back down the phone to an unfaithful 21-year-old, who jumped off the couch in elation.
“It was the coolest experience of my life,” she says GOAL.
For some college players, that’s their way. They are drafted, sign contracts and work hard to establish themselves in the highest league in the United States from there.
For Ayers, that could have been the case.
She remembers going into training on her first day in Kansas, surrounded by champions and stars, and it felt “some petrifying and some electrifying.”
“Sydney Leroux was on the team at the time and she is just the most charismatic person, such a big and warm personality and, my God, such a ballerina,” the midfielder enthuses.
“I just remember thinking, ‘How can you both be?’
In that environment, Ayers improved and impressed so much that one day she was called into the office to sign a contract.
“This is like a dream come true for me and then the club manager sits down at the computer and he says, ‘Wait, wait a minute’ and he opens this email,” she explains.
“He’s like, ‘Oh, wait. I’m not sure we can do this. I thought, ‘What do you mean? Why?’
“And he says, ‘Yes, it looks like another club has taken your rights.
“It turned out that Western New York Flash had taken my rights one day before Kansas City tried to sign me.”
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Things did not work out in New York and Ayers was to be sent nearly 3,000 miles west to join the club now known as the Olympic Reign in Seattle.
“They only had one killer team. Hope Solo was on the team. Megan Rapinoe was on the team. Jess Fishlock. Just great players.
“I remember, [me and Rapinoe] ran sprint together after training once, and she just blew me away! But when she runs past me, she turns around and encourages me “, laughs Ayers and looks back.
“You go home at the end of the day and you think, ‘Oh my God, Megan Rapinoe encouraged me today,’ or even just gave me a high five after scoring a goal or something. That probably means more than what those players even vet.
“To get that kind of feedback and encouragement from that caliber of players, it just lifts you up. There are not many other places where you can experience that.”
She felt that Reigns’ stacked team “was not the right place” for her career to begin: “I would not even fit for that team. I was not a mature enough, good enough player yet.”
So she looked abroad instead and had a really nice experience in Finland, but the football level was not high enough for her to think she could move on from there.
“I thought, ‘Okay, this is the end of the road for football for me.’ I see no way forward from here “, she remembers.
Ayers returned home and stopped playing. She went back to graduate school and got a full-time job in Los Angeles. She was out of the game for two years.
It was the Women’s World Cup 2019 that brought her back to the field.
“I could not see it, because it was too upsetting for me, I guess, because I missed playing football so much,” she admits.
“At that point, I had to sit down with myself and my family and think, ‘What am I doing with my life right now?’
“The people around me were really encouraging and said, ‘Maybe you should go back and try again.’
Ayers then did what she describes as “the craziest” thing she’s ever done in her life. She quit her job, called her old team in Finland and moved back to Europe.
“It’s also one of the best things I’ve ever done,” she adds.
From there, she got the opportunity to play for Gintra Universitetas, the 20-time Lithuanian champions who compete in the Women’s Champions League.
Ayers says she “will forever be grateful” to the club for giving her a chance after not playing at the top level for several years. She has won titles and she has played European football.
It has given her an incredible personal experience as well.
“I’m Jewish, and my great-grandfather and great-grandfather actually lived in Lithuania,” Ayers explains.
“I have been able to dig into that family history and have since visited the city where my great-grandfather was born and raised.
“It has been a really cool connection to this place that I have been able to create that I did not even know when I signed up to play with Gintra.
“It has also been a great thing for my family to get in touch, to dig up these stories from my grandmother’s cousins and people we would not necessarily talk to otherwise.”
This year, her football history enters a new chapter.
Ayers has signed a contract with IFK Kalmar who will compete in the Damallsvenskan next season. The highest league in Sweden, which has been home to players like Christen Press and Marta, has long been her “dream” to play in.
Her path to this point may not have been as easy as it should have been when she was called into the office that day in Kansas.
This is certainly not where she would have imagined she would be when she hung up her boots five years ago.
But with Champions League football under his belt and an experience in one of Europe’s top leagues next in line, it’s likely that there will be a few more chapters in this remarkable story.