USWNT defender Naomi Girma has completed her move from the San Diego Wave to Chelsea and become the most expensive transfer in women’s soccer history.

The Athletic reported earlier this week that Chelsea had agreed terms with the Wave for the transfer of Girma for a record $1.1million fee, according to sources briefed on the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The 24-year-old had been under contract at San Diego until 2026, which is why the deal required a fee, and this has made her the first $1million-plus women’s soccer player.

The deal surpasses the previous record sum of €735,000 paid by Bay FC for Zambia forward Racheal Kundananji from Madrid CFF in February 2024.

Girma attracted considerable interest from elsewhere in Europe, with eight-time European champions Lyon tabling a $1m offer of their own.

“I’m so happy and really excited to be here,” Girma told the Chelsea website. “It doesn’t feel real.

“There are a lot of things about Chelsea that made me want to come here — the culture, the winning mentality, staff and players. It’s a top environment to learn and grow in.

“Right now, that’s what I’m looking to do. It was an easy choice for me.”

Girma was presented on the Stamford Bridge pitch ahead of their Women’s Super League game against Arsenal (Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)

The Wave were prepared to lose the center-back for the 2025 season, having signed 17-year-old Trinity Armstrong out of the University of North Carolina to a three-year deal last week.

Girma joined the Wave as the first pick in the 2022 NWSL draft after playing for Stanford at the collegiate level. She was named NSWL defender of the year in 2022 and 2023 and was part of the Wave side that won the NWSL Shield in 2023.

Chelsea have now added further depth at centre-back after losing Canada international Kadeisha Buchanan to an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in December.

Sonia Bompastor’s side lead the Women’s Super League and have progressed to the knockout stages of the Champions League — the one competition they are yet to win.

Analysis from The Athletic’s senior soccer writer Jeff Rueter

When the U.S. won 2024 Olympic gold, Girma’s praises were sung as loudly as those of the side’s attacking trio of Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson.

Even with the advancement of modern metrics, it is difficult to quantify the extent of a defender’s value in numbers. Instead, a combination of data, the eye test and expert endorsement helped drive one point home: Girma had quickly entered her position’s highest echelon.

“She’s the best defender I’ve ever seen,” U.S. head coach Emma Hayes, formerly manager of Chelsea, said after a shutout Olympic semifinal victory against Germany. “Ever. She’s got everything: poise, composure, she defends, she anticipates, she leads.”

In that Germany win, Girma had a higher number of completed passes than any other player even attempted. She locked down Germany’s attackers whenever they neared the final third. She carried the ball for 687 meters, 24 per cent of the USWNT’s combined distance, giving crucial time for her teammates to make off-ball movements.

For now, Girma is in a class of her own. She is, by many people’s estimation, the best player at her position in the women’s game worldwide. That status also vaults her into the broader conversation about the sport’s greatest players. And on that front, she’s heading towards being among the best in USWNT history.

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Who is Naomi Girma? USWNT defender to break $1m transfer mark with Chelsea move

How does Girma’s fee compare to others in women’s soccer?

Girma’s fee marks the fourth time the women’s transfer record has been broken in less than three years. It was broken twice in the space of a month in 2024.

It also marks the third time Chelsea have signed a player for women’s transfer record fee, following the additions of Mayra Ramirez from Levante in 2022 and Pernille Harder from Wolfsburg in 2020.

GO DEEPER

The women’s world transfer record has been broken three times in 18 months. Is that good or bad?

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Analysis from The Athletic’s tactics writer Michael Cox

Ordinarily, it takes a few games to realise the full ability of a centre-back, but something about Girma is different. An excellent reader of the game, good at covering space in behind and capable of battling physically without leaning on physicality, she seems the complete defender.

Perhaps the only thing she lacks is true aerial dominance. At 1.68m (5ft 6in) tall, she’s not a towering presence and she won only 51.5 per cent of her aerial battles in the NWSL last season, which isn’t a particularly reassuring figure for a centre-back. But the fact she can dominate her own penalty box despite that relative lack of aerial power almost adds to her aura.

It also says something about the development of the women’s game overall. Whereas the men’s game has steadily weaned itself off a diet of long balls and crosses, the women’s game has evolved in a different way, more based around attacking on the ground through technique or speed. There are only around 75 per cent as many aerial battles in the Women’s Super League compared to the Premier League, for example.

Being the most valuable footballer in the world doesn’t translate to being the outright best footballer, of course. Still, centre-backs feel unusually prominent. Even before Girma’s move, 10 of the 50 most expensive transfers in the women’s game involved defenders, compared to just six of the top 50 most expensive transfers in the men’s game.

For once, the next generation of footballers might just grow up wanting to play in defence.

(Top photo: Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images)

Conor McGregor on Saturday ripped pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah demonstrators who raised the terrorist groups’ flags in a rally that took place in Ireland.

McGregor’s social media post came as Hamas released four female hostages as part of a ceasefire deal with Israel. McGregor appeared to be enraged over the rally.

“To raise the flag of a terrorist organization on Irish soil must become a major crime in the eyes of our state,” he wrote in a post on X. “It will not be tolerated nor lauded! 

“Raise a country flag, off your own person, and off of government buildings, yes, no problem. Raise the flag of radicalized terror organizations off of the same.. Big problem.”

One of McGregor’s biggest rivals, Khabib Nurmagomedov, praised Ireland on Saturday for being pro-Palestinian. His remarks came as he saw his cousin Usman Nurmagomedov defeat Irishman Paul Hughes for the Bellator’s lightweight championship.

Conor McGregor takes part in a KnuckleMania V boxing news conference on Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025 in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

AUBURN’S BRUCE PEARL SLAMS HAMAS TERRORISTS AFTER 3 ISRAELI HOSTAGES ARE RELEASED

“I know this is not my time to talk, I just want to say one thing,” Khabib Nurmagomedov said, via Bloody Elbow. “With all the things between me and [Conor McGregor] when we were fighting. Don’t forget, Ireland is the biggest supporter in the world for Palestine. Don’t forget about this. We love you guys! You, your government, everybody.

“When we’re inside the cage, it’s only competition. MMA, all about respect. We love you guys because you guys support our brother[s] in Palestine.”

Buses carrying Palestinian security prisoners are greeted by a crowd after being released from an Israeli prison following a ceasefire agreement with Israel, in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Later Sunday, Israel and Hamas reached a deal to release hostages and allow Palestinians to return to the Gaza Strip.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Four days after Dorian Finney-Smith joined the Lakers, JJ Redick mocked something his newest player had said, using the kind of dismissive voice a teenager uses when they repeat something they thought was stupid.

One day later, following the Lakers’ win over the Hawks, Redick called his first-half performance “awful.” And last week after the Lakers dominated the Celtics, Redick, during a compliment, said Finney-Smith’s two shot attempts “looked like he’d never touched a basketball before.”

Kinda harsh, right?

“Yeah,” Finney-Smith said. “I like that.”

Huh?

“I just, I don’t know, I respect people that’s more honest with me,” Finney-Smith told The Times. “That’s how you can tell they really care. And that’s who my mama is.

“… She doesn’t play. She doesn’t.”

There’s no sugarcoating with Finney-Smith, a player who’s helping transform the Lakers’ identity in his first month with the team. And nothing the coach can say can compete with the texts he’ll get from his mother after a few bad games in a row.

“She’s said I feel like I’m bulls—ting with energy because that’s something you can control. She’ll tell me,” Finney-Smith said with a chuckle Saturday after the Lakers beat the Warriors. “…. Like now, she’ll say ‘You got no offensive rebounds.’”

She’s serious. At least Redick said some of his slander is in jest.

“It makes it easier to have a guy in the locker room that you can do that to. Cause I actually think it’s good for the group. The group knows I’m obviously joking. He knows I’m joking,” Redick said. “We played together, it was brief. But we both grew up in Virginia. We both played public high school basketball. We both played for [AAU coach] Boo Williams. We had like a shared experience.

“I know that he’s, I know how he’s wired and he can take it. And it’s all in good fun. I think he knows from day one what we’ve needed from him. And he’s done it at a really high level.”

As the NBA trade deadline approaches on Feb. 6, Finney-Smith’s impact on the Lakers has been both tangible and intangible, the veteran giving the Lakers defensive toughness and three-point shooting on the court and galvanizing presence in their locker room where he’s already become a favorite.

It’s a template for any future moves the Lakers make, finding a player who aligns with the style they want to play and the culture they’re trying to create.

“The ultimate glue guy,” Shake Milton said.

Finney-Smith’s defense Thursday on Jayson Tatum and his work Saturday against the Warriors have given the Lakers things they just didn’t have before they traded for him. He aggressively closes out on three-point shooters. He tries repeatedly to poke the ball free when he’s guarding an attacker. He’s low-maintenance on offense, always ready to shoot and always willing to hustle back and defend when he doesn’t get a touch.

And he’s never silent — calling out coverages, cheering teammates, just anything but quiet.

“I try to be an energy giver. So I just don’t shut up. I just talk. And I’m gonna make sure you hear my voice as much as I can,” Finney-Smith said. “And it can’t be [LeBron James] and [Anthony Davis] doing the talking. They’re the ones who gotta make the decisions. They got a lot of stuff [to handle]. So the rest of us can be the energy givers.”

And it’s been contagious.

“The talk is really contagious and I think the toughness. That’s what I was like really getting at a few weeks ago when I talked about the leadership component. Yeah. We all are leaders,” Redick said. … “Max Christie, just because you’re 21 doesn’t mean you can’t lead in some way. And that to me is like Dorian leading. His version of leading looks different than [Austin Reaves’] version of leading, [which] looks different than LeBron’s version of leading. And I think the biggest thing is … this isn’t shade at anyone else. It’s not shade at anyone else in the NBA. But Doe is comfortable with who he is — like the player, the person. And in my experience… people that are like that, people gravitate towards that. People want to follow that. That’s what Doe is.”

James said Finney-Smith is “exactly what we needed.” Reaves said that the veteran has been nothing but “fantastic.”

Since his Dec. 31 debut, the Lakers have been 51 points better than their opponents in Finney-Smith’s minutes — the best rating on the Lakers — even though five players have played more minutes.

And that’s just a part of his value.

“You could forget the basketball side. His energy, his personality. You can tell from the day he got into the locker room that he was a win-first mentality guy. So anytime you bring a guy like that on — him and Shake are both the same way. They care about winning and whatever they can do to help us win,” Reaves said. “So then when you bring the positives of what he does on the basketball court, that makes it even better. Long, versatile defender that can make open shots, plays the game the right way. You can go on and on, but I think really what I enjoy about him most is the personality

“He’s a selfless guy, cares about everybody, wants to win, and overall he’s a really, really good dude.”