Full Circle: Abby Smith Is Having the Best Season of Her Career, and Denver Is Why

Ten years. Six clubs. Two championships. One torn knee. And now, at 32 on an expansion team, she's playing the best goalkeeper of her life.

DENVER, CO — Abby Smith has been in this league since 2016. She's seen franchises fold under her feet. She watched rosters get blown up and rebuilt around her. She won an NWSL championship with Portland in 2022 and another with Gotham in 2023. She tore her patellar tendon and her ACL in just her second professional appearance and had to fight her way back to a league that didn't slow down and wait.

Ten years. Six clubs. And now she's here. In Denver. On an expansion team that had never played a professional game before March. And through 11 matches of Denver Summit FC's inaugural NWSL season, by every number that matters, Abby Smith is having the best season of her career.

That doesn't happen by accident.

What the Numbers Are Telling Us

Through 11 games, Smith leads the league with 25 saves and is posting an 81.3% save percentage. She earned NWSL Best XI honors for March. She's logged three clean sheets and has 18 for her career — second among all active goalkeepers, trailing only Chicago's Katie Atkinson. On March 20 in Orlando, she logged her 250th career NWSL save and became just the 13th goalkeeper in league history to reach that milestone.

She didn't know it was coming. She wasn't tracking it. That tells you everything about how she approaches this.

Six Clubs and What She Learned From All of Them

Smith has bounced through more organizations than most players ever see. The Boston Breakers folded. The Utah Royals folded. She went to Kansas City, then Portland, then Gotham, then Houston, then Denver. And along the way, she won in two of those places — championships at Portland in 2022 and Gotham in 2023.

She talked this week about what those locker rooms actually felt like from the inside. Portland, she said, had a standard that was baked in before you even walked through the door. "You're telling me that you're playing with Becky Sauerbrunn, Megan Klingenberg, Christine Sinclair — you show up and if you're not training well, you're gonna hear it." Gotham was different. Harder to describe. But the buy-in was real.

Denver is neither of those things yet. And Smith will tell you directly — that's the point.

"Both teams have been established," she said of her championship clubs. "We have a really great opportunity that our locker room is brand new. We are trying to establish the culture that we want a winning environment to be — and bringing in more winners. If you have players that genuinely want to win and will do whatever it takes, everybody's feedback looks different. But having that mutual respect and understanding will make you that much better."

That's not a lack. That's an opportunity. And she knows the difference because she's been in both kinds of rooms.

"Everyone's Bought In"

Ask Smith when she knew Denver was different and she traces it back before she even signed. The conversations with ownership. The conversations with Nick Cushing. The alignment between what the front office said they were building and what actually showed up when the roster came together.

"A big part of it is — if you don't really hear much about what's going on, that's probably because they're doing a lot of work behind the scenes," she said. "If you're just not hearing anything at all, that's probably better. Which sounds a little silly, but it's true."

She talked about Rob Cohen showing up to away games. Coaching families traveling to be in the stands. Goalkeeper coach KB — who played at the highest level and still jumps in the net to demonstrate what she's asking for. The training environment with Geordie and Pauline. Competitive in the way that makes you better. Fun in the way that makes you want to come back tomorrow.

"Coming in, it was like — they wanted to make sure they were hiring the right people, good people that were truly invested," she said. "And you get here and you see that everyone's bought in."

Culture lives in those moments. Whether people actually want to be there. Whether the people around you are pushing you or just coexisting with you. Smith wants to be there. You can see it every weekend.

What She's Seeing That Fans Are Missing

From her position behind the defense, Smith has the best view of anyone on this team. So what is she seeing that the average Summit fan might be missing?

"None of these games have ever truly felt like we were out of it," she said. "At any moment the games are going to stay really close and we are pushing to be on top. That's something that gives people the highs and lows of soccer."

She's right. Denver sits ninth in the table, but the margins in most of these losses have been a single goal. The way this team is playing is better than that position reflects. Smith knows it. The advanced metrics know it. And with Lindsey Heaps arriving after the break — a player Smith has known for years — she thinks the second half of this season is going to look different.

"Lindsey coming in only pushes the group to be better," she said. "She has won at the highest level. Her ability to play through the lines is going to be really important. And I'm also excited to see the goal-scoring contributions she's going to have — free kicks, set pieces, in the run of play. I'm curious what other teams will do differently against us."

Leading the Ones Coming Up

The rookies on this team keep bringing up Abby Smith's name. Devin Lynch. Natalie Means. Over and over — she's who they point to when they talk about learning what professionalism looks like at this level.

Smith doesn't take that lightly.

"I definitely want our rookies to have a better experience than what I did when I came in," she said. "It's hard to gain that trust. But when veterans and coaching staff look at you and know they can rely on you — that's something that should be taken to heart."

She singled out Natalie Means specifically. The versatility. The open outlook. The willingness to be asked to do something different every single week and just do it. And Devin Lynch — "she has so much potential and you're just tapping into this as a rookie."

That's not standard veteran-praise-the-rookies-in-a-press-conference language. That's someone who remembers what it felt like to be the new one, and is actively trying to make it easier.

The Full Circle

At one point during our conversation, Smith got quiet for a second. I had just laid it all out — the torn knee, the franchises folding, the years of being part of championship teams without always being the one people talked about afterward. And now this.

"I want to say every day has been very fun," she said. "Some are harder than others, but when I walk away from it — am I having fun? Am I getting better? And I think if I can have a positive outlook on those two things, I feel like I'm in a really good place. Mentally, emotionally, physically."

She paused. Then: "Denver's pretty cool. So I'm happy that I'm able to be here and I'm getting to show up and play the sport that I love."

Simple as that. And somehow, after ten years of everything this league has put her through, completely earned.

The league is finally seeing what Abby Smith has always been. She just needed the right place to show it.

Listen to the full interview on The 5280 Pitch — available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere you listen. Follow us @5280pitch.