USWNT takes on Portugal in a match that touches Savannah DeMelo’s heart
AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Near the bar at the D.E.S. Portuguese Hall in Artesia there are two famed photos.
One is a picture of a young Cristiano Ronaldo wearing a red No. 17 Portuguese national team uniform while running toward the camera. The other is a woman in a pink headband and a blue U.S. kit, pumping her first after scoring in the 2018 U-20 World Cup. That’s Savannah DeMelo.
Ronaldo is the greatest scorer in soccer history, winner of five Ballon d’Or, three world player of the year awards, a European championship and a starter in five World Cups. DeMelo has two international appearances with the U.S. senior national team.
Guess which one the folks in Artesia are most proud of?
“Judging by attendance and the atmosphere at the sports bar, there seems to be more excitement and hope for Savannah to do well,” said Roger Silveira, a coach with Artesia D.E.S. Futebol Clube, which plays in the third-tier National Independent Soccer Association.
That might be tested Tuesday when DeMelo and the U.S. face off against Portugal, which is essentially an elimination game at the women’s World Cup. With a win or a draw, the U.S. advances to the knockout phase and Portugal goes home. A Portuguese victory, on the other hand, would knock the Americans out of the tournament in the group stage for the first time.
Kickoff is at midnight and Silveira said there’s talk the bar may stay open for breakfast.
A few months ago, none of this seemed possible. Portugal had never qualified for a women’s World Cup and DeMelo, an All-American at USC, had never played for the senior national team. But in February, Portugal beat Cameroon on Carole Costa’s penalty kick in stoppage time to claim the 31st of 32 berths in this summer’s tournament. Four months later DeMelo was chosen for the U.S. team, becoming the first woman in 20 years to make the roster without ever having played for the team.
Her first appearance came as a starter in the World Cup opener against Vietnam.
“It’s been a crazy roller coaster of emotions,” she said. “It’s just been an awesome experience and I’m taking it game by game.”
That DeMelo, a 25-year-old midfielder from Bellflower, would still be playing soccer, much less with the national team in a World Cup, was in doubt four years ago. In USC’s final training session of the 2019 spring semester, DeMelo tore her Achilles tendon. The pop, she said, sounded like a gunshot. Her junior season — and maybe her career — was over.
But DeMelo turned the setback into a step forward.
“It just kept me super hungry to come back, and not just to come back the player I was, but even better,” she said. “I’m super proud of myself because I think I did do that, and I wouldn’t really have believed it if you told me that back then that I would be better than before I got injured.”
After graduating USC with a nursing degree, DeMelo, who also has a master’s in public health, was taken by Racing Louisville with the fourth pick of the 2022 NWSL draft. None of that was supposed to happen either. Although her father Robert played soccer for two decades in his native Portugal, and coaches the game in the U.S., he didn’t push any of his three daughters into the game. If anything, he pushed them away from it.
“My parents really wanted me to do it all,” DeMelo said. “Soccer was my favorite, but my mom and dad really wanted me to have that balanced life. I played volleyball and basketball just for fun. I wasn’t that great.”
What she was great at — well, as great as you can be in the third grade — was gymnastics. But on the way home from her first soccer practice, the 8-year-old DeMelo told her grandmother she was quitting that sport for soccer.
“I didn’t like that it was individual,” she said of gymnastics. “My dad was a soccer player, so I loved the lifestyle of it and I kind of grew up with my dad always watching soccer [and] Cristiano Ronaldo.”
Ronaldo, she said, was a god at her house. Now DeMelo’s picture hangs next to his at the D.E.S. hall.
Once she made that choice, her father began training Savannah and her two younger sisters, Makayla, who plays for Racing Louisville’s USL W League team, and Skylar, who plays for her father at Beach FC.
“Years back — probably 10 years ago now — when I was training our men’s Artesia team, Robert would always text me asking if he could use part of the field to train Savannah,” said Silveira, 49. “He would take out this massive heavy goal that we built ourselves from metal to have Savannah shoot on goal. I remember telling him during one of those trainings ‘for all that work, she better go to the top.’ Sure enough, she did.”
Under different circumstances, DeMelo could have been wearing a red Portugal kit in that portrait at the D.E.S. hall instead of the U.S. blue. As a dual citizen, she was eligible to play for her father’s country, which would have put her on the other side in Tuesday’s game.
“I always had the option,” she said. “But it’s kind of just always been a dream for me to play for the U.S. My heart was always with the U.S.”
On Tuesday, her father’s heart will be there as well.
A look at how Alex Morgan, Crystal Dunn and Julie Ertz had the support of U.S. Soccer, coaches and teammates to become moms while continuing careers.
“My dad is, for sure, cheering for the U.S.,” DeMelo said. “I’m not even going to ask him.”
And if the Americans win, her father might wind up having been an unwitting contributor to Portugal’s demise. Although DeMelo doesn’t speak Portuguese fluently, she heard her parents speak it often enough at home to understand it. So anything the Portuguese players say Tuesday night can and will be used against them.
“I’ll definitely be listening,” DeMelo said.
At the D.E.S. Portuguese Hall in Artesia, Silveira expects they’ll be watching, although it really doesn’t matter who wins. If the U.S. and DeMelo do, the large Portuguese community in southeast L.A. County will have a player of their own to cheer in the knockout rounds. If Portugal wins, they’ll have an entire team to follow.
“Whatever happens,” Silveira said, “we win.”
Columnist Helene Elliott contributed to this report.
