(Photograph courtesy of Angel Metropolis FC)
Angel Metropolis FC has signed 16-year-old South Korea worldwide Casey Phair to a three-year contract. Final July, Phair turned the youngest participant to ever seem in a Ladies’s World Cup match when she took the sector within the remaining minutes of South Korea’s opening match of the match.
Phair went on trial with NJ/NY Gotham FC, the Kansas Metropolis Present and Angel Metropolis FC after the World Cup. Regardless of residing in New Jersey — near Gotham’s house grounds and coaching facility — Phair felt essentially the most comfy within the Angel Metropolis coaching atmosphere.
“One of many largest issues I favored about LA was that it was much like Korea, the place I felt very comfy within the atmosphere and simply assembly the workers and all of the coaches and the opposite gamers,” Phair advised (this writer for) ESPN. “They have been simply so welcoming. They gave off the vibe that they needed me there and that they needed to assist me. I believed Angel Metropolis had the perfect plan for me.”
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Who’s Casey Phair?
Phair burst onto the scene final 12 months when she was known as as much as South Korea’s senior group for the World Cup. Her first cap got here in that opening match towards Colombia in Sydney on July 25, 2023.
She made historical past due to how younger she was and since she was the primary mixed-race participant to play in a World Cup recreation for South Korea at both the lads’s or girls’s senior degree. Phair was born to an American father and Korean mom in South Korea in 2007. Her household moved to the USA just a few weeks later, first residing in New Hampshire and most not too long ago in New Jersey.
Phair was in a single camp with the United States U-17 nationwide group earlier than becoming a member of South Korea’s youth squads.
“It simply felt proper to me,” she mentioned of taking part in for South Korea.
Phair grew up writing in Korean earlier than even coming into American grade faculty, and he or she has lengthy spoken in Korean together with her mother at house.
Phair started her youth profession as a centerback in New Hampshire however finally transitioned to ahead, the place she excelled for New Jersey powerhouse membership Gamers Growth Academy (PDA). She says she “idolizes” U.S. ahead Mallory Swanson, and he or she likes to observe clips of fellow forwards Erling Haaland and Zlatan Ibrahimovic to refine her recreation.
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What does her signing imply for Angel Metropolis, NWSL?
First, Phair mentioned she takes consolation in not being the one teenager. Alyssa Thompson, the No. 1 choose within the 2023 Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League Draft, and her sister, Gisele, are additionally members of Angel Metropolis’s full roster. They’re 19 and 18, respectively. Angel Metropolis FC basic supervisor Angela Hucles Mangano mentioned that youth motion was carried out deliberately, to not have just one participant alone amongst veterans.
Phair has been introduced in as a No. 9, however that would change. The important thing to her growth, Hucles Mangano mentioned, is steadiness. There’s a give and take of what’s anticipated of her now, and there will likely be an understanding that she continues to be growing.
“I believe it’s positively about how we will push and apply stress in order that there’s an understanding of what it does take to be on this atmosphere at this degree to carry out, but in addition understanding that she may need somewhat bit extra leeway in some respects as a result of she isn’t there but,” Hucles Mangano mentioned. “So I believe it’s that type of nuanced steadiness of a push but being forgiving.”
Phair is Angel Metropolis’s solely present participant who falls beneath the U-18 entry mechanism, since Gisele Thompson has already turned 18. Phair is pals with Claire Hutton, a fellow teenager from New York who not too long ago signed with the Kansas Metropolis Present.
The NWSL launched the U-18 mechanism final 12 months in order that groups may begin signing youthful gamers exterior of the draft. The variety of U-18 gamers allowed on the complete roster doubled to 4 per group in 2024. It’s one other signal of the NWSL’s rising try and align with international norms during which proficient younger gamers can signal with skilled groups from younger ages to proceed their growth.
