Tactics Talk with Abby Dahlkemper

The USA international and 2019 World Cup winner is the latest to sit down and talk all things about her career in football so far, from her toughest opponents, to the evolution of her centre-back role

May 30, 2025

∙ Paid

Abby Dahlkemper has enjoyed plenty of success at both domestic and international level

Abby Dahlkemper has won a World Cup and three NWSL Championships, all of which came in a four-year spell between 2016 and 2019.

Since then, the 32-year-old defender has long surpassed 100 NWSL appearances and earned over 80 caps for the USA national team, either side of a brief move to Europe where she represented Manchester City while the COVID-19 pandemic put a pause to the US domestic game.

She has been one of the top defenders of the modern era of the women’s game, still going strong for one of the NWSL’s newer franchises in the form of Bay FC.

Just over a decade after her professional career began after a three-year stay at one of the nation’s top colleges, UCLA, Dahlkemper is the latest to sit down for a Tactics Talk to discuss the evolution of the centre-back role, NWSL vs WSL, the key to defensive partnerships, her toughest opponents and two of her biggest finals…

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As just alluded to, Dahlkemper’s position over the years has been at the heart of the defence, one of the most successful centre-backs of her generation, and certainly so in the USA.

During a three-year run between 2017 and 2019 which saw the North Carolina Courage win a hat-trick of NWSL Shields and two NWSL Championships, Dahlkemper was named in the NWSL’s Team of the Year at the end of all three seasons, plus winning the NWSL Defender of the Year award in 2017.

That all built to 2019 which saw her as a regular starter for the USA team which won a second successive World Cup, but in time and beyond, Dahlkemper’s role on the pitch has been one which has witnessed more evolution than most, with playing out from the back becoming an ever increasingly more common trait of the modern game.

“In the past, centre-backs would be kind of known for their physicality and defensive presence,” says Dahlkemper. “I think it’s evolved into being the playmakers. You set the tempo, you dictate the attacks more, it’s just progressed so much. You have to be so much more comfortable with the ball, have more understanding of how the other team is playing, the spaces to attack, recognise where the overloads are.

“There are definitely different layers added to the centre-back role in terms of playing out and being part of the attack and not just the defence. You’re still in charge of defending well, leading the back line, seeing everything. The organisational part is still huge to make your life easier as a centre-back.”

Dahlkemper has also witnessed plenty of change within the NWSL itself, whether that be an increase in the amount of players due to new franchises and expansion, the emergence of exciting new US talent with different attributes to those who have gone before, or more prominently a rising emergence of foreign players in recent seasons.

Particularly in the front lines, teams have recruited the likes of star players such as Barbra Banda and Temwa Chawinga, both regularly fixed to the top end of the scoring charts, or the likes of Spain’s more technical forward Esther Gonzalez, while Dahlkemper has both Asisat Oshoala and Rachael Kundananji to contend with in training on a daily basis.

For a defender, it means the challenge year on year is getting no easier.

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