photo from @weareangelcity
As you may have heard, Ally Sentnor shoots from outside of the box. A lot. Most say too much. Ever since her entry into the league in 2024 it’s been the primary talking point about her game. She had some early success finding the back of the net with a couple goal of the week nominees, but has since been on a yearslong run across three different teams of shooting, and shooting, and shooting, and missing and not scoring. It’s a problem, and one that’s easy to criticize, and several have. But constantly focusing on Sentnor’s shot charts buries context for dunks.
In 2024 Ally Sentnor became the NWSL’s last #1 overall draft pick, opting to leave the University of North Carolina early to enter the now extinct (thankfully) college draft. Despite her talent and performances at UNC solidifying her as the first overall pick, at the time of her selection she was a teenager with raw talent more than she was a ready-made star.
As an expansion team that wasn’t really an expansion team (it’s a long story), Utah held the #1 pick that year and needed to make a splash as they (re)entered the league. The coach initially selected for this project was former player, and former Royal, Amy Rodriguez. Her tenure was disastrous and short-lived, with her being removed four months into the season after two wins, two draws and eleven losses. (Rodriguez also hasn’t held another head professional coaching position since.) Jimmy Coenraets, initially hired as an assistant coach, was named interim before eventually being handed the permanent job.
Coenraets had more experience that Rodriguez, but by a thimbleful. His coaching career began at OH Leuven Women when he was just 25-years-old. He held the job for four years before moving to Utah (funnily enough they won the Belgian Super League the season he left). Coenraets was still in his 20s when he became Utah’s permanent head coach, and had no NWSL experience outside of the handful of months he spent under Rodriguez. His adjustment took time, and during that time his most naturally gifted attacking player—a barely 20-year-old Ally Sentnor—became his, and the team’s, savior.
Sentnor led Utah in goal contributions (3 goals, 4 assists), helping them finish 11th out of a then-fourteen team league. It wasn’t a barnstorming season by any stretch but given the turmoil and reliance on such a young player in her first year as a professional, it was a respectable debut. Their 2025 season went much worse.
Utah won just one game before the summer break, and lost ten. Sentnor can hardly be blamed for trying what worked the previous season, but managed just one goal and one assist before being traded to Kansas City during the summer break. There, then head coach Vlatko Andonovski attempted to use Sentnor as an attacking midfielder to support a roster of some of the best attackers in the league—Temwa Chawinga, Debinha, Bia Zaneratto and Michelle Cooper. Talk about whiplash.
Despite Chawinga winning MVP and Golden Boot, and the aforementioned attackers combining for 36 goals and 10 assists, Sentnor finished the season with zeroes in both categories. That offseason the Current signed Croix Bethune, one of the most dynamic central creators in the league. Sentnor again moved positions, this time playing mostly as a support striker and goal poacher.
To make things even more complicated, prior to the 2026 season Andonovski yeeted himself into the front office and somehow Chris Armas (it’s another long story)—who’d never coached women’s soccer—was hired as head coach. During yet another summer break Sentnor was traded again. This time to Angel City, whose coach, ex-Bayern Munich skipper Alex Straus, left the club two days prior to the Sentnor announcement.
To recap, just over two and a half seasons into Sentnor’s professional career she’s been on three teams, played at least three positions, and had five coaches—four of which had never coached in the NWSL, with two coaching professional women’s soccer for the first time. So while Sentnor’s development as a professional has been slow, or in the worst reading, nonexistent, she’s had a gauntlet of bad-to-weird scenarios that aren’t conducive to the stability and development she needs. More than her errant shooting, Sentnor’s primary flaw has been having the cosmic misfortune to continuously arrive at clubs the moment they’ve lost the willpower to not hit the big red button.
Watching Sentnor waste possessions can be frustrating. It seems apparent that if the twentieth long distance blast doesn’t find the net, that maybe something else should be tried. Sentnor’s current bad habits—dribbling with her head down, impatience, tunnel vision, distance shooting—are less about a dogged determination that her decisions are correct and more about leaning into what’s worked in the absence of guided development, defined roles, and consistent and focused work on the training ground—leaving instinct to step in where quality coaching isn’t present.
Ally Sentnor has had a crash course in especially chaotic NWSL scenarios. From stumbling expansion team to the good ol’ boy network delivering an unqualified coach to a lifestyle brand that keeps forgetting it’s a soccer team—she’s already experienced it all. As a result she’s continued to rely on the skills that got her to where she is, and is relentlessly criticized for it. In reality these criticisms are tantamount to blaming an individual for what is more truthfully a systemic failing.
The most tragic part is to consider the player Sentnor could be by now. The mix of her raw talent (strength, agility, balance, low center of gravity) and unique skillset (futsal background, foot speed, close control, powerful shot) gives her a foundation that few players have ever had. I don’t know what a fully refined and composed Ally Sentnor looks like, but I hope we get to see it—and the fact more frustrating than her habit of long range shooting is that it isn’t entirely up to her. ■