When the NWL Draft list dropped the first name I checked for was Croix Bethune. Thankfully she didn’t mess around, and made sure her name was on one of the first freshly released lists of registered players. Learning it’s best to get mundane paperwork out of the way instead of allowing it to snowball into a seemingly far larger task is something i’m still working on, so I must respect it.

Anyway, the primary reason Bethune’s name was the first I went searching for is because she’s high up in the quadrant of ‘got that dawg in her’ and ‘that girl nice.’ It is our most scientific and analytically advanced measurement, and Bethune is off the charts.

proof of dawg

We’ll get to the ‘nice’ bit later (don’t worry, I brought GIFs). For now let’s focus on the dawg. I could be faux clever and make this about her spending the final year of her career as a Georgia Bulldog, but that’d be basic and beneath me, and not what you came here for.

No, Croix’s dawg is beyond punnery. It is real and existed well before she swapped schools.

Remember Sophia Smith’s shrug in the 2022 NWSL Championship game? She hit it after scoring four minutes into the championship game and dedicated the shrug to anyone who thought she didn’t deserve to be MVP. it became iconic, and Smith went on to add Championship MVP on top of it.

Croix has one too. A year earlier Bethune shrugged to soak in a nine-minute hat trick she pulled off in the first round of the College Cup.

Don’t be mistaken, the dawg comes for everyone, from minnows to lions (or, trees?). It ensures she’s never intimidated and is fully prepared to rise to any occasion, even giant killing. Evidence of which can be seen in USC’s comeback win against mighty Stanford, who featured a defensive unit anchored by NWSL Defender of the Year, and current USWNT Player of the Year, Naomi Girma.

The Cardinal went up 2-0 in the first half, but the second half belonged to Croix Bethune. She delivered an assist to make it 2-1, scored the equalizer, then netted the overtime golden goal to complete the comeback and almost single handedly secure an improbable win.

After transferring to Georgia she kept that same energy by helping the school claim its first ever SEC Championship. Their championship run included more late game heroics from Bethune. In the semifinal she scored in the final minute of double overtime to advance to the title game.

Doubt a dawg at your own risk.

she nice too tho

While dawg is important, especially in the NWSL, what truly sets Bethune apart is a collection of skills and attributes that not many players possess. At USC Bethune played 48 games (42 starts) and totaled 26 goals and 23 assists. After transferring to Georgia for her final year of eligibility, she delivered four goals and five assists in 15 games (13 starts) under a new coach and with new teammates.

She racked up these numbers through an ultra-heightened, seemingly subconscious awareness of herself and others on the pitch. This sense allows her consistently solve defenses by being one or two steps ahead of her defenders. These types of players are nightmarish for defenders, because they’re frequently capable of tricking defenders into playing a part in their own demise.

Croix loves that shit. And even more cruelly, she has the comfort, audacity and physical skills that can be deployed at moment, and in any combination required to accomplish her goal. Let’s scroll through a few examples of Croix being a truly diabolical footballer.

First of all, this assist is absurd and I’m still not over it. She instinctively knows the defender has to be focused on her receiving the ball so uses the quickest and slightest touch to place the ball in stride of a teammate. It all happened too quickly for either defender to react. Also, look at the pace and bounce of the ball fed into her. Somehow she takes that marauding bowling ball of a pass and feathers it with the slightest touch. It’s almost like the ball became a different element entirely.

When she uses the same skills to create her own shot, things can get downright sinister. Her close control, quick feet, and good balance all add to the problems for defenders. Her second nature anticipation allows her to know how manipulating the ball will affect a defender.

Sometimes even two defenders.

On occasion even two defenders plus a goalkeeper if and when she feels like it.

In the example below, she uses all the skills above to beat defenders with a dribble and a pass. Notice the quick shoulder turn causes a half second of hesitation that results in her defender chasing her twenty yards down the middle of the pitch. She cuts across the original defender to guard against the recovery tackle, and continues processing the movements of everyone ahead of her.

Three defenders narrow to cut off passing lanes and Bethune beat all of them with a simple eight yard pass.

comps suck, but if you had to…

One of the best treats of American soccer is that our most technical and sauciest dribbler, with a skillset that would be right at home in Brazil or La Masia, is a slender pale kid from Cincinnati. It seems only right then that perhaps her second coming would be a slight Black woman from Atlanta.

Rose Lavelle’s creativity and dribbling help the USWNT win the 2019 World Cup. Her performance was punctuated with an all-time highlight in the World Cup Final.

The processing, the slight manipulations of the ball, her feet, and hip swivel all turned the defender completely around to create a perfect shooting opportunity. Bethune has many similar skills already, and will only continue to add to them. Even now she may already be a more creative passer.

Of course there are things to point out. The increase in speed of play in the professional game – particularly the NWSL – is massive. In college, even against the best teams, Bethune’s quick processing, decisiveness and acceleration often made it seem as if she was playing at a different speed. But there’s still likely to be an adjustment period before replicating the same sensation in the NWSL.

Also, Bethune has had a couple ACL injuries in recent years. She’s returned from each, seemingly without any impact to her shiftiness or acceleration. While her game is not based on being faster than her opponents in a straight line, acceleration is key to maximizing the moments of separation and/or hesitation she’s so good at creating.

Croix Bethune is a rare gem of a player. A supercomputer programmed to bypass backlines from the center of the pitch (you hear me NWSL clubs, she is not a winger or wide forward, she is a #10) who just so happens to possess every attribute necessary to execute almost any solution her brain calculates.