Professional athletes, as Tierna Davidson describes it, are perfectionists by trade — defined by a demand for excellence and nitpicky about the most minute areas of improvement, qualities that are only heightened for those who have tasted success at the highest levels. A Women’s World Cup winner and an Olympic gold medalist, Davidson is no different, but as a new season approaches, her objectives are more intangible than one might expect for an athlete of her caliber 15 months from a World Cup — but not less ambitious.
“I think,” the Gotham FC defender told CBS Sports, “[I’d like] to have a little bit more gratitude for what I do.”
Davidson will be available for selection in Gotham’s opening match of the 2026 NWSL season on Saturday at Boston Legacy, which could mark her first game minutes since tearing her ACL last April. It was her second ACL tear in three years, but the injury was not necessarily easier this time around, the 11 month spell away from the pitch causing friction with the perfection she chases – and teaching her valuable lessons she hopes to never learn again.
“I probably didn’t learn it until too late, but it is that oftentimes, people take you at face value, the way that you show up, so if you show up perfectly fine, people are going to think you’re perfectly fine,” she said. “I think that is difficult because obviously, in a professional environment, you always want to show up in a positive manner and a professional manner, in a way that you’re there to contribute in any way that you can and kind of leave your own things at the door but also, too, if you’re not sharing that with anybody then you can’t expect anybody to know.”
Davidson spent much of the last 11 months discovering what she needed to combat a sense of isolation athletes sometimes feel during long spells away from their teams; some lessons were easier than others to learn.
“I was around the team as much as I could be,” she said. “I watched all of our games, went, obviously, to our home games. I think it’s important for me mentally to try to stay in it as much as possible because I think the more I get removed, the harder than it is because it’s easy to feel isolated in these moments because the team travels a lot and you’re left at home and doing your rehab and there are a lot of kind of individual moments over the 10 month period but I think really understanding what I needed was something that I didn’t always get right but I was trying to work on so when could I give and when did I need time for myself and what did that look like and how could I ask for help.”
Those lessons helped her reach the “exciting part” of the recovery process when the finish line is in sight. Davidson’s return has felt imminent over the course of Gotham’s stop-start preseason – she took part in their training camp in Spain shortly after the new year began in the run-up to January’s FIFA Women’s Champions Cup in England. Though she didn’t play in that competition, Davidson continued to be part of the group in the final weeks before the start of the NWSL season, when preseason shifted stateside. Her time around the team this winter was not only helpful for her own return but the group’s vibes as a whole. Gotham’s players resumed activity just weeks after winning the NWSL Championship, a long 2026 season awaits them as a result.
“It was certainly a kind of continuation of last season just because there was really not a lot of time off,” she said. “It didn’t feel quite like [an] offseason because it was quite short for us, so in a way it was helpful to not feel really played out, and people still looked sharp, even on day one, but definitely, we needed to come together and say this is going to be a long season. We didn’t get a lot of time off after last season, but what can we do to support each other and just kind of make sure that we’re lifting each other up, whether we see someone that’s tired or whether we need to leave someone alone because they’ve seen too much of us, whatever it is.”
The final weeks of her recovery, though, offered up one final lesson – to afford herself some grace, even as she returns to her long-awaited routines.
“There’s the certainty of knowing that I won’t be the same, at least at the beginning simply because I’ve gone through this before,” Davidson noted. “Another lesson that you learn being injured is how to have patience even in the moments that you don’t want patience … If one of my teammates was in the same situation, I would never expect them to be perfect the moment they step back. You can obviously say they’ve been out for nine, 10 months,whatever it is. They need time to be themselves again and so to speak to myself in that way as well. You need time to be yourself again and it’s easier said than done when you’re in high-pressure moments but to also know that the players that I have around me are fantastic, both in character and in play, so if I’m making a mistake, I’ve got people around me that that will help me but also, too, if I’m not confident, I have players that can lift me up so to feel their excitement for me to be back on the field is really helpful to know that they’re going to be in my corner.”
It means, even if a World Cup is on the horizon, a return to the U.S. women’s national team is not an immediate priority for Davidson. Head coach Emma Hayes did offer a reminder in a press conference last month that the 27-year-old is still in her plans as she develops the USWNT’s center back pool, saying the team has “missed her” but Davidson does not want to rush herself back to the fold.
“I am excited to be back in that environment,” she said. “I think it’s important that it’s timed well … I think it’s important also to build up that confidence in your game and the mental confidence of just feeling like yourself and on top of being 90 minute fit again so I think it’s important that I am in that kind of headspace going into an environment like the national team because it is such a demanding place. I think it’s obviously a place that we want to be back in as quick as possible, but it’s also important that we’re back in with the ability to give as close to 100% of ourselves as possible, ’cause you always want to show well there. You always want to be your best in that environment, and it’s tough if you’re not.”
Davidson is focused on what is in front of her, the last 11 months offering enough insight to make her a better teammate and captain with Gotham.
“You get an appreciation and understanding for people that are in these positions and to make sure that, especially as a leader on the team, that I am really aware of that and [am] just connecting and checking in with people that, unfortunately, might find themselves in a long-term injury,” she said, “and just to make sure that they’re all right, their rehab is going well, they feel supported, they feel part of the team still. I think that’s really important because ultimately, everybody’s contribution is valuable.”
That includes her own contributions in a career that sometimes delivers a heavy dose of bad news, but in Davidson’s case, rewards that outweigh the downsides. It is no wonder, then, that gratitude is top of mind.
“I think it’s something that is easy to take for granted because I have done it my whole life, but having reflected on my career thus far and what it might look like over the next few years, it’s like coming to the understanding of [the fact that] I am In the latter half of my career now,” she said. “That’s just what the numbers say, and so to really be grateful for being able to step out every day and do something that I love to do as a job and to do it with people that are fun to be around, that are fantastic individuals, and also excellent players that push me. I think that’s really what I’d like to focus on, is just the time that we get in this career is very limited.”
