Canada’s Jordyn Huitema: My Game in My Words

In this My Game In My Words series, The Athletic builds towards the Women’s World Cup by talking to leading players around the world to find out how they think about football, why they play the way they do and to reflect — through looking back at their key career moments — on their achievements so far. 

Jordyn Huitema has just come from training; so fresh off the field that her OL Reign teammates and head coach Laura Harvey walk by with a greeting for her as the interview rolls on.

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Having her speak on her game right after putting work into it seems appropriate. 

“I hold myself to being able to do and be more than one thing.” she says. “Whether that’s being very dynamic behind or off the front, I think I try to be a well-rounded player overall.”

Huitema wanted to be a striker when she first started playing; she enjoyed being closer to goal and in position to either help with the build-up to a goal or score goals herself. But at 5-foot-11, she could easily have been in the most opposite position possible.

“Honestly I’d be such a good goalkeeper, I’d be so good at it.” she states when I bring up her potential in a different position. “I’ve made a fighting argument that I’d be the backup backup backup for the national team and they’ve made me the backup backup. Like I have my job for that, I’ve been recruited.”

At only 22 years old, Huitema already has four and half seasons of professional football under her belt, and it all began when Paris Saint-Germain saw her play by accident when she was 16 years old with Canada at the 2017 Algarve Cup. 

“One of my teammates, Ashley Lawrence, played for PSG at the time so the GM of PSG was coming out to watch her,” she recalls. “During one of the games he showed up