Chelsea have reached a verbal agreement with Angel City to sign United States international Alyssa Thompson, sources with knowledge of the deal told The Athletic.
The Women’s Super League (WSL) club will pay just under £1million ($1.3m) for Thompson, who has already agreed a five-year contract and travelled to undergo a medical ahead of the move, sources added.
On Monday, The Athletic reported that Chelsea were in advanced talks with Angel City over signing the 20-year-old, with the clubs attempting to complete a deal ahead of today’s WSL transfer window closing at 11pm BST (6pm ET; 3pm PT).
Thompson was not included in the NWSL side’s squad for the 2-1 win over Bay FC on Monday.
Thompson now appears set to become the third player to depart the Los Angeles club for the WSL this summer, after Alanna Kennedy and Katie Zelem joined London City Lionesses — the club controlled by Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang — ahead of their maiden campaign in the English top-flight.
Angel City’s founding control owner Alexis Ohanian took a minority stake in Chelsea in May.
Thompson was the first overall pick in the 2023 NWSL draft (Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)
Thompson was the first overall pick in the 2023 NWSL draft — becoming the first high schooler to be drafted first in NWSL history.
She has made 16 league appearances this season, scoring six goals.
Thompson has been capped 22 times for the U.S. after making her senior debut as a 17-year-old in October 2022 against England.
brb watching this Alyssa Thompson goal on repeat #USWNT x @VW pic.twitter.com/CMLjU6qw87
— U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (@USWNT) June 27, 2025
Thompson’s proposed move comes at the end of a high-spending window, with the transfer record broken twice. Arsenal made Olivia Smith the first million-pound player when they signed the Canadian from Liverpool for $1.3m (£1m), with Lizbeth Ovalle then joining Orlando Pride from Mexican side Tigres for $1.5m (£1.1m).
Angel City are ninth in the NWSL standings, only a point behind eighth-placed Gotham FC, who occupy the final playoff spot with eight games remaining of the season.
Chelsea, who secured a sixth successive WSL title among a domestic treble last season, have also added Ellie Carpenter, Livia Peng, Becky Spencer and Mara Alber to their squad this summer, but are dealing with injuries to Sam Kerr, who is recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear sustained in January 2024, Lauren James, who picked up an issue during the European Championship, and Mayra Ramirez, who has recently undergone hamstring surgery.
They open the WSL season at home to Manchester City on Friday.
Additional reporting: Charlotte Harpur
‘A loss for the NWSL and Angel City’
Analysis by women’s soccer writer Tamerra Griffin
At 18 years old, Thompson was a No. 1 draft pick who de-committed from Stanford to remain in her hometown of L.A. with Angel City in 2023. Fifteen goals and 11 assists later, her growth since that year still speaks volumes beyond the stat sheet. Thompson has only become a more complete — and therefore dangerous and essentially irreplaceable — winger ever since for club and country.
It’s not only Thompson’s impulse to dribble at defenders 1 v 1 at blistering pace, nor her ability to rip shots into the roof of the net at a moment’s notice. It’s also that she shoulders these duties while also settling into the superstar role laid out for her and her 19-year-old sister Gisele by Angel City as the club’s homegrown heroines, and also for the U.S. women’s national team as head coach Emma Hayes chisels down her core pool of players to take to the 2027 World Cup.
In some ways, the needs of the latter outweigh those of the former, especially as the returns of USWNT forwards Sophia Wilson and Mallory Swanson, both on maternity leave, remain unclear. I can see Hayes desiring more exposure to various styles of play for Thompson as she develops, which she’ll get plenty of in the WSL and the UEFA Champions League. Training alongside Catarina Macario and Naomi Girma — two players Hayes is undoubtedly building the USWNT around — doesn’t hurt, either. You can argue that the level of competition across Thompson’s WSL season with Chelsea won’t be as contested as it’s been in the NWSL, but in terms of her growth as a national team player, the benefits of this move are clear.
On the flip side, the losses for Angel City and the NWSL are equally obvious. Angel City coach Alex Straus is still in the early stages of implementing his vision into the squad but they’ve already seen success with it — however, those plans ostensibly involved Thompson in the long term. As the team hovers around the playoff line, forwards Sveindís Jónsdóttir and Riley Tiernan will need to take on more responsibility getting in behind and converting their chances. The NWSL is no doubt reeling from one half of the Thompson sisters now playing overseas — in addition to the absences of Wilson and Swanson — and will quickly need to select its next stars to prop up as the season reaches its climax.
‘Chelsea showing ambition — and pull in the market’
Analysis by women’s soccer writer Megan Feringa
Just when you thought champions Chelsea felt comfortably full of talent, they prove once again that being interminable domestic champions requires an appetite for success to the nth degree.
Thompson is obviously a product of that appetite, but also a necessity. A pre-season hamstring injury to Mayra Ramirez and the Colombian’s subsequent surgery means Chelsea are low on forward strength, and the London club are not taking any gambles on what further unforeseen injuries could do in a WSL season tipped to be the most competitive yet.
To pursue Thompson as the player to fill the gap embodies the sheer ambition at the club to not accept a potential hurdle as that but to make it an opportunity to pursue and acquire a player who has been on Chelsea’s radar.
Being on a radar and acquisition are two different things, though. For Chelsea to pull yet another USWNT international — and one with plenty of potential but one actively becoming the face of an NWSL franchise — demonstrates the sway they have in the current market, from historic investment to domestic titles to an ambition of finally achieving in Europe.
What Thompson offers on the pitch is obvious: pace, quality on the ball, and attacking threat. But off the pitch, there is the promise of tapping into an American market growing increasingly ripe for British teams to exploit, as Ohanian hinted at amid his investment into Chelsea. Every season seems to be prefaced with hope from opposition WSL clubs that maybe this won’t be Chelsea’s year. Thompson is an example of why such hope is often met with wry smiles.
(Top photo: Bailey Holiver-Imagn Images)
