The She Kicks Locker Room: Game Ready With Michelle Cooper

Taken at number two in January’s NWSL Draft by Kansas City Current after forgoing two years of college eligibility, Michelle Cooper had days earlier won the MAC Hermann Trophy, college soccer’s biggest individual prize. The Duke forward talks through how she gets ready. There is no strict food ritual beyond a strawberry smoothie from a Durham restaurant her team kept returning to, and a pre-game meal about four hours out. She calls her family through the day so she does not sit with her nerves, then puts headphones on and visualises the game. Nerves, she says, mean she cares. Afterwards she lies down for an hour whatever the time, rolls out, ice baths, and rewatches clips of what she did well and what she did not.