'It is more meaningful': Meet Maddie Moreau, the NWSL's first-ever player from Louisiana

Author note: This story has taken a while to publish because I was pitching it to newspapers and magazines in Louisiana & the South. Unfortunately, I was told there was no budget for such a profile. Especially, in some cases, due to media resources being focused on the impending American Football season.

I understand this reality, but also it adds an ironic context to the story itself. Thank you for reading.

Maddie Moreau is unassuming. A humble trailblazer. So much so that she doesn't even realize her path is one no person has trodden.

"I didn't know that," Moreau responds when asked how she feels about being the first player from Louisiana to appear in the National Women's Soccer League.

It's a Wednesday afternoon, in July, and she is speaking to Squad Depth via a video call. She smiles with a look of ponder, and notes: "People have asked me [about being the NWSL's first Louisianan player], and I did not know the answer. I didn't want to claim that if that wasn't true."

Well, it is true. In the 12 years since the NWSL was founded, no player from Louisiana had ever featured in a match.

On April 20th, when Moreau made her Bay FC debut, as an 80th-minute substitute at CPKC Stadium, she officially became the first player from the Pelican State.

"The food is terrible for you, but it's delicious"

Home for Moreau is Lafayette, LA – some 2,076 miles from where she now plays her club football with Bay FC in San Jose, CA.

"I think maybe because Lafayette is not a super wealthy area, everyone is just willing to help everyone all the time," Moreau said. "Conversations with random people, it's just really nice. It's definitely Southern hospitality at its finest."

The 'Heart of Acadiana', as the Southern city is sometimes known, is famous for its Cajun and Creole culture.

There is a richness there. Twangy melodies, guttural coos, and lots of butter. From the food, which Moreau calls "terrible for you, but it's delicious" – to the unique music and art of the area that she dubs "a special, special culture."

Nestled on the I-10 motorway between oil industrial hubs in New Orleans, LA, and Houston, TX; Lafayette is another humid and hot flatbed prone to summer storms and surrounded by factories and refineries on the horizon.

"The weather is terrible, but it makes people nicer," Moreau adds.

Lafayette may have one of the richest cultural histories in the United States for preserving a tradition of creativity and expression. But soccer? Well, that legacy hasn't yet been woven in. Even though Moreau admits the city of around 240,000 is passionate about their sport, mostly the local University of Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns.

Moreau says that she grew up wanting to leave home in order to pursue a career i soccer. Something from a young age she was laser-focused on.

Youth coaches joked that it felt like she used to live at the training complex in Lafayette. As a teenager, she would often be seen out there, on her own, with a bag of balls practicing until dark.

"Being from Louisiana, you don't have role models. Like you're not from Colorado, you didn't see Mallory Swanson and Lindsey Horan do all these things. And you don't have big clubs that a lot of other soccer states have," she explained.

"I do think it is more meaningful coming from a state that isn't really represented in the league."

After playing for local youth club Louisiana Rush – and winning the 2018-19 state Soccer Player of the Year award – she accepted a scholarship to LSU. After three successful seasons as an instant starter between 2019-2021, she then transferred to West Virginia.

Of course, LSU is no slouch. The SEC school has gleaming facilities and has been on a tremendous rise over the past decade or so.

The Tigers have a rich women's sporting history too, in particular with basketball and gymnastics. They also helped to produce another famous NWSL and international soccer player in Allysha Chapman (Houston Dash/Canada). For the region, it can feel like the pinnacle.

But WVU has more of a tradition of preparing players for the NWSL, and Moreau believes the transfer helped develop other parts of her in-possession game.

For a long time, it felt like Moreau had to leave her home state in order to live out her dreams, and for the final two years of her NCAA career, she stepped away from the Pelican State for the first time.

After 97 appearances, eight goals, and seven assists, in the NCAA, she went undrafted in January 2024 and was a subsequent preseason invitee to the Bay FC camp. Eventually winning a one-year contract with the club in March.

Growing up, watching the U.S. women's national team on television in Louisiana, Ali Krieger, Crystal Dunn, and Kelley O'Hara were Moreau's defensive idols. Now, Moreau is proud to imagine there will be other young people from Louisiana, or smaller cities in the South, looking up to her for inspiration.

"I think they're watching me and they're like: "Oh, that's one of us." You know? It's honestly more special for them than I think it is for me. So it's really nice to see how proud they are of me," she beamed.

Finishing strong as a rookie in the Bay

As an undrafted player on an expansion team, Moreau's rookie year was never expected to be headline-grabbing. But the hard-working defender, known for buoyant attitude, slowly earned her way into the Bay FC starting XI during the Olympic break.

During the first half of the NWSL season, Moreau made just four appearances, three off the bench, for a total of 102 minutes. Bay FC lost all four of those matches, but the only one where Moreau had a more prominent role was a commendable 3-2 defeat at home to the Portland Thorns.

With the regular season on pause, during the Olympics, Moreau has managed to find success in navy and grey during the NWSL x LigaMX Summer Cup. She started and played the full 90 minutes in all three of Bay FC's matches, scoring two goals along the way.

The second goal was a match-winning strike against Club America, where Moreau was used as an advanced right winger, rather than as a full back.

"As long as I'm on the field, I'm happy. As long as I get to help the team any way I can, I get to run...it was a little bit of a shock [to be in that position], but I want to do whatever I can to get on the field," Moreau said after the Club America victory.

Moreau also explained that as a defender, she knows what defenders don't like. And that is being pressed or harassed when on the ball.

"It's so hard to play out of a press," said Moreau. "So as a forward, I'm like, let me just run out here as fast as I can. Or scream, to make her nervous, and maybe she'll cough the ball up. And that's literally all in the press."

Admittedly, head coach Albertin Montoya was actively trying to experiment during the Summer Cup. He wanted to give opportunities to younger players and those who hadn't featured so much in the league.

But Moreau's summer performance levels will have turned some heads in Northern California, And, with the club currently sitting eighth in the table, the final NWSL playoff spot, there's a good chance she contributes more in the final 10 matches of the year.

"Eevery single practice, every single day, Maddie [Moreau] plays her heart out. And I'm just so happy for her, and so is the entire coaching staff and the team, because we see it every day," Montoya opined after the Club America win.

The NWSL will restart on Friday, August 23, with Moreau and Bay FC heading to east to take on fellow 2024 expansion club: Utah Royals.