Olivia Moultrie Injury: A Season-Ending Setback for Thorns Star
Portland Thorns star Olivia Moultrie has seen a breakout season cut brutally short, with the club confirming Tuesday that the 20-year-old midfielder has been placed on the season-ending injury list after tearing the ACL in her right knee.
The injury came in training last week, a routine session turning into the kind of nightmare every player dreads. For Moultrie, who has been at the heart of both Portland’s attack and the United States’ next generation, the timing could hardly be worse.
She didn’t hide the devastation.
“Heartbroken doesn’t even begin to sum up all of the feelings right now,” she wrote on Instagram. “To be taken away from something you love more than anything is a feeling I never wanted to experience. I know there is a reason this path has been chosen for me and I can’t promise everything but I can promise I’ll be back and I’ll be better.”
Those words carry weight because of what she was in the middle of building.
A season interrupted
Moultrie had been one of the Thorns’ most productive players this year, finishing with five goals and five assists, a dual threat between the lines and in the final third. Her vision and fearlessness on the ball had turned her into a focal point of Portland’s attacking identity, not just a promising youngster finding her feet.
She has never really followed the standard path anyway.
In 2021, she forced open the league’s doors for under-18 players by successfully suing the NWSL over its age-restriction rule, then signed with Portland and began carving out minutes in a veteran locker room. This season felt like the payoff: a teenager no longer in name only, but a fully-fledged influence on games.
Jeff Agoos, the Thorns’ president and general manager, underlined what the club is losing — and what it still believes in.
“Olivia is one of the most driven players I have been around, and she will use that drive during her recovery and rehabilitation,” Agoos said in a team statement. “She has our full support and every resource this club can put behind her.”
Rising for club and country
The setback also hits the US national team.
Moultrie has already earned 18 caps and scored five goals for the United States, rapidly moving from prospect to genuine option in senior squads. Her performances in 2023 were rewarded with the US Soccer Young Player of the Year award, a marker of where the federation sees her future.
That future now pauses.
With an ACL tear at this stage of the calendar, Moultrie will likely miss the Concacaf W Championship, the key qualifying route for next summer’s Women’s World Cup. For a player who had every chance of shaping that campaign on the pitch, the prospect of watching from the sidelines will sting as much as any rehab session.
For Portland, it means navigating the rest of the season without a midfielder who knits their play together and provides end product. For the national team, it means rethinking an evolving midfield picture without one of its boldest young voices.
For Moultrie herself, it means another fight — different from the legal battle that brought her into the league, but no less defining. She has already promised she’ll be back and better.
Given the way she’s met every challenge so far, who’s betting against her?
