For San Diego’s Mia Fishel, Snapdragon Stadium beckons as something of a soccer paradise in coming days.
Sunday brings a 2:30 p.m. match between the United States and Colombia that’s also a homecoming for Fishel, a Patrick Henry High School alum who plays for England’s star-studded Chelsea Football Club.
“Oh my gosh, I have a lot of friends and family who can’t wait to see me at San Diego,” said the 22-year-old striker, whose appearance would be her second with the U.S. national team. “If everything goes as planned, I should be hitting the field at Snapdragon.”
Mission Valley has become a prominent destination for women who play the beautiful game professionally.
The National Women’s Soccer League will stage a postseason semifinals match next Sunday at Snapdragon. The stadium will also host the league’s championship match on Nov. 11.
Sunday’s contest marks the U.S. national team’s first appearance at the same Mission Valley venue where the San Diego Wave led the 12-team National Women’s Soccer League in attendance this year.
For Fishel, the homecoming serves as but the latest of several soccer adventures.
Her San Diego childhood east of the new soccer-and-football stadium planted the seeds to the journeys to follow.
Being near her older brother, Alante, who played soccer, cultivated her own love for the sport as a child, Fishel said.
Watching telecasts of English Premier League matches became a staple for a family that includes parents Contay Watson and Patrick Fishel and Mia’s younger sister, Sage.
“So my brother was cheering for Arsenal, my Dad was cheering for Liverpool and I really liked (Eden) Hazard for Chelsea, and (Didier) Drogba,” Fishel said of the creative winger, who retired this month, and Chelsea’s all-time leading scorer, respectively. “And, I decided Chelsea’s my team since I was like 8 years old. And, I’ve never really stopped rooting for them.”
She played for the San Diego Surf youth club, excelled at soccer and basketball for Patrick Henry and earned a spot on the Union-Tribune’s All-Academic team.
With UCLA, where she majored in psychology, she won two Pac-12 Conference titles and amassed 32 goals and 14 assists in a 59-game career spanning three seasons.
Upon leaving Westwood, she took a thoughtful approach to mapping out her career after the Orlando Pride selected her fifth in the 2022 NWSL Draft and hired her former UCLA coach.
Fishel said she wanted to have more say in where she began her professional life. After weighing an offer and detailed presentation from the Mexican powerhouse team Tigres of Monterrey, she settled on Liga Mexa although it was less established than the NWSL.
“I care a lot about my career,” she said. “I care a lot about the person that I’m becoming. And, that was the best decision for me in that moment.”
Helping the Tigres win a league title and winning a scoring title herself along the way, Fishel scored 47 goals in 64 matches across two seasons.
So, yes, choosing Mexico was excelente.
“I would say if I did not go to Mexico, if I didn’t go to Monterrey with Tigres, I would not be probably with the national team right now and I probably wouldn’t be at Chelsea,” Fishel said. “So, that’s how big that decision was I made. As well as the amazing people that I met there. Lifelong friends and experiences that not everyone can experience. With a whole new culture and language, I grew not only as a soccer player but as a person as well. The whole experience was amazing.”
Chelsea took notice.
But it wasn’t only the Golden Boot that piqued the Brits’ interest.
“A lot of people like statistics in sports,’’ said Fishel, “but, I think, me as a player, as a whole, not just scoring goals, also is what attracted Chelsea. Who I am. They did their homework.”
As the World Cup unfolded this past summer, Fishel moved from Monterrey to London and worked to get up to speed with a Chelsea club coming off its third straight Super League-winning season.
The U.S. national team came calling, too, not long after its elimination in the Round of 16, and she earned her first appearance September 24, replacing Wave star Alex Morgan for the final 22 minutes of a 2-0 victory over South Africa at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
She broke through for Chelsea on Oct. 1 by scoring off a header in one of her three matches with the Blues.
If she plays against Colombia, which advanced further in the recent World Cup than the Americans did, she might operate near Jaedyn Shaw. The Wave’s 18-year-old midfielder-forward who’s also part of the Americans’ youth movement.
“She’s my buddy here at camp,” Fishel said.
A 5-foot-7 striker with experience at various offensive positions including attacking midfielder, Fishel has succeeded via hold-up skills, strength, creativity and the ability to score off headers and quick efficient strikes with either foot.
Ideally for her, the performance in her home city would mark the first of many international-match steps toward the 2027 World Cup.
She said she intends to “have fun” and “be myself” while cleaving to the plans of U.S. interim coach Twila Kilgore.
“As long as I’m executing the game plan to how we want to play, and I continue to do what I do,” she said, “everything will be good.”
