Abby Smith Is the Goalkeeper Denver Needed — and Saturday Proved It

Denver Summit FC's number one leads the NWSL in saves, survived a career-threatening injury that almost ended everything, and last Saturday played in front of the largest crowd in women's sports history in North America.

Abby Smith has 20 saves in four games. That's the most in the NWSL right now. By three.

She's doing it with a brand new backline. On an expansion team. In a city that had never seen professional women's soccer before last month.

That number doesn't happen by accident.

The Long Road to Denver

Smith has been a professional since 2016. Boston. Utah. Kansas City. Portland. Gotham. Houston. Six clubs across nearly a decade. She's seen expansion teams done right and done wrong. She knows what a real front office looks like versus one that's just going through the motions.

When Denver Summit FC came calling, she didn't hesitate.

"I want to be back in the mountains," she said on this week's episode of The 5280 Pitch. "Hearing what the city was doing, what the founders, the owners — they were building something amazing. I wanted to be a part of that."

She's been part of championship runs before. Two of them. Portland in 2022. Gotham in 2023. She knows what a winning culture feels like from the inside. And four games in, she says this one already has it.

"We have a base standard that's so high that a lot of expansion clubs don't even get there within the first two years," she said.

The Injury Nobody Talks About Enough

Here's what the stats don't capture. Abby Smith almost didn't make it here.

In 2023, what should have been a routine injury turned into something far worse. She went from not being able to walk to genuinely considering retirement. She started her rehab over from scratch after months of not getting better, feeling like she wasn't being heard. Four hundred and thirty-three days off the field.

"I wasn't getting better and I felt like I wasn't being heard," she told me. "And when they came, they listened to what I was needing and they walked every step with me."

She credits two people — Scott Ebsley and Megan Poehler — with saving her career. Full stop. Without them, she said, she wouldn't still be playing.

She came back 433 days after the injury. And now she's leading the NWSL in saves. That's not a comeback story. That's a statement.

What 63,004 People Feels Like From the Net

Last Saturday. Empower Field at Mile High. Washington Spirit on the other side. And 63,004 fans in the stands — a record for women's sports in North America.

Smith was in goal for all of it.

She talked about the moment the crowd started stomping their feet during a corner kick and she felt the rumble through the turf. She talked about stretches of the game where the ball was at the other end and she just let herself take it all in. She talked about how there were moments when yelling instructions to her defense was completely pointless — nobody could hear anything over the noise.

"I still am in shock and can't find the right words," she said. "We couldn't believe that we got to be a part of this."

The result was a 0-0 draw. Denver fans wanted a goal. Badly. But from where Smith was standing, a clean sheet in the first home game in franchise history — after a three-game week that included a historic win over the defending champions — means everything.

"It's really hard to do in this league in general," she said. "And I just feel very lucky that I'm with this team and we get the opportunity to celebrate that."

The Locker Room Nobody Expected

What makes Smith different from a lot of goalkeepers isn't just the saves — though 20 in four games speaks for itself. It's how she talks about the players in front of her.

She doesn't take credit. She deflects it, every single time. The clean sheets belong to the whole team. The saves happened because the backline put pressure on opposing forwards and limited their options. She is insistent about this.

And then there's the locker room itself. Smith described an ownership group that shows up to practice, knows every player's name, and is genuinely invested in the people — not just the product. She's been around long enough to know that's not standard.

"Our ownership is incredible," she said. "They are so present and actually want to be a part of our growth and development. It's not as common to see that."

She also talked about Carson Pickett — a friendship that goes all the way back to U-17 national team camp, long before either of them was a professional. A memory came up on her Facebook recently: the two of them standing next to each other as teenagers at a youth camp. She showed it to Pickett at the home opener while they were both watching their faces on the video board at Empower Field.

"Can you believe this?" Smith said she told her. "Can you believe they made this happen?"

The Goalkeeper Denver Needed

Denver Summit FC signed Abby Smith to anchor this franchise. To bring championship experience into a locker room full of first-year professionals, international players still learning each other's names, and rookies figuring out what the NWSL actually demands.

Four games in, she's doing exactly that.

Twenty saves. League leader. Two clean sheets. And one very memorable Saturday in front of 63,004 people at a stadium that belongs to the Broncos — at least for now.

She's not done yet.

Listen to the full Abby Smith interview on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts.