However, the situation isn’t without hope. Next year, 2021, is an expansion year for the NWSL. At present at least one more team, Proof Louisville FC, has confirmed joining the league.  

All teams will lose players during the expansion draft, a draft which allows the Proof and any other new team, to select current NWSL players to build the bulk of their squad. Teams who loose players during the expansion will need to replace them.  

Picking a goalkeeper now who shows promise, can gain experience and has the potential to become a starting keeper in the near future, but would likely not be picked up during an expansion draft may be a move certain teams opt to do this year.  

Micah could be that player. Teams are also in a better position to do this in an Olympic year as the NWSL allows them to have expanded rosters for replacement players.

Our verdict

Whatever happens, it's most likely that if Micah gets picked, it may be latter on in the draft.  Only one keeper has ever been picked in the first round, the USWNT’s Adrianna Franch.  

Most keepers have been selected in the fourth round.  If Micah does not get picked she will become a free agent.  As a free agent there is another way she could end up in an NWSL team.  

Teams can sign free agents by claiming their rights through the discovery process. A few keepers have been picked up in this manner post draft by NWSL teams prior to their pre-season camps.  

Micah’s Matildas teammate Mackenzie Arnold was brought in by the Chicago Red Stars through this process last season.  Not being drafted therefore does not necessarily mean missing out.

However, even if Micah is selected during the draft or picked up in discovery, she may not be offered an NWSL contract.  

Some draft picks and discovery players are sometimes brought to pre-season camp and signed as a supplementary player or as non-roster invitees, both of whom are not part of the regular training squad.  

Players spend the year training with that NWSL team hoping for a full contract that or the following year. Other draft picks have also been released by their club during the preseason camp, prior to the beginning of the season.

Should the worst happen, and Micah’s NWSL hopes do not happen this year, all hope is not lost for playing professionally in the US.  The best move for Micah would be to play abroad and gain experience.  

The team she chooses should preferably be somewhere where she can be a starting keeper. Micah could try to come back to the US in later years, should she desire to do so.  As mentioned expansion will be happening in the near future with Proof Louisville FC.  

Other entities have expressed the desire to start an NWSL teams as well.  This will increase the NWSL demand for players.

Thus, whatever happens in the draft, and whichever decision Micah makes afterword, one thing is for sure: Micah is a professional-calibre keeper.  

She would not have been called up by the Matildas or started for a W-League team aged 18 if she did not have those qualities.  She recently signed with W-League team the Melbourne Victory for the remainder of their season.  

Wherever the young Australian decides to go after that, she does have a future in professional women’s soccer.  If that future will bring her next to America’s shores will be determined soon.

The best of luck goes to Teagan in the upcoming draft.