Ever since Natalia Kuikka, the 24-year-old Finnish defender who signed with the Thorns this offseason, graduated from Florida State at the end of 2018, she’s had a return to the US on her mind. After wrapping up a two-year contract with Göteborg—and winning the league in the 2020 season—the timing was right, both for her and the Thorns. She was ready for a new challenge, while Portland needs to bolster an aging back line after losing two starters in the last year.
Kuikka’s career has taken an unusual trajectory in several senses. First, rather than go pro—something many Americans think of as the obvious choice for talented young Europeans—she opted to go to Tallahassee to play for Mark Krikorian’s Seminoles and earn a degree. Once that chapter closed (ending with an NCAA championship), she made another surprising choice and opted out of the 2019 NWSL College Draft, despite being a top prospect.
Both choices have worked out. Contrary to the belief, now orthodoxy in some American soccer circles, that professional clubs are always a better development pipeline than college, Kuikka’s experience at FSU shaped her in important ways, both as a player and as a person.
When asked about what she learned in the States, it’s the latter that comes to mind first. “I grew a lot when I was there,” she said via Zoom. “I learned things about myself…I always knew that football and soccer is what I want to do, but then being in college, I figured out that there’s another part of me that’s not an athlete, and there’s other things I like to do.”
Being in the US and balancing soccer with school gave her opportunities players don’t get on a grueling European club schedule. “I started exploring and had a little bit more time to do traveling and seeing the world,” she says. “I think that it gave me more motivation to learn and experience, and see things in not just my perspective, but learning from others, and putting myself in others’ shoes…There’s so many different cultures and things to experience in the USA.”
Meanwhile, Krikorian’s impact on her development as a player was enormous. After recruiting her as a winger and playing her there during her freshman season, he decided to see how she’d do in central defense. “I don’t even know how it came to be,” she says. “I remember being called to Mark’s office, and he said something like, ‘We’re going to try to do some new things, and you might not play in your normal position, but don’t worry.’ I’m like, okay, whatever. It’s spring. And then we had a practice game against Boston Breakers at the time, and he [played me] as a center back, and after that, he just kept putting me there.”
As far as what qualities of Kuikka’s gave Krikorian this idea, she laughs and says “I don’t know!” She wasn’t totally new to defending—she was already playing left back for Finland—but she was very much an attacker, notching six goals and five assists in her freshman season.
If converting forwards into defenders is another American cliché, it’s also a move we typically associate with outside back, a position that requires speed, offensive aptitude, and a willingness to make lung-busting runs up and down the wing, on top of defensive chops. There’s quite a bit of overlap, in other words, with the role of a winger—something that’s much less true of central defense. But Kuikka stepped up to the challenge. “[Mark Krikorian] started talking about leadership and stepping up for the teammates and all this, and I couldn’t really say no,” she says.
As counterintuitive as the switch sounds, Kuikka’s experience playing higher up the field is evident watching her on the back line. She’s a gritty defender in one-on-one situations, but she’s also supremely calm and confident on the ball. She isn’t fazed by onrushing forwards and is rarely pressured into clearances. On top of that, she has excellent passing range, and it’s clear that even at center back, she still thinks of the game in offensive terms. Although she enjoys defending, she says, “I do like being involved in the game—opening the game and kind of being in control—I like that. So I think [Krikorian] kind of saw that as well.”
“I think playing as a winger and in a more attacking role, and now playing in defense,” she adds, “I know what kind of movements the wingers and attackers would do, and what I would do in that position, so it’s maybe giving me a little bit—I’ll be [more] prepared with those things as well.”
As to where she slots in in Portland, Kuikka says she’s had conversations with Mark Parsons, but there won’t be any final decisions until she joins the team. Portland doesn’t want for quality center backs in Sauerbrunn and Emily Menges, but in the short term, Kuikka adds crucial depth there, and would be a great option if the Thorns ever trot out the back three again. She’s also not likely to start over Kling at left back, but given that she’s naturally right-footed, it’s easy to imagine her becoming the first choice at right back. It’s also not impossible to see her at the No. 6, though that’s a position the Thorns are quite deep at.
Talking to Kuikka, another reason she caught Parsons’s interest quickly becomes obvious: She has the team-first attitude he praises in the team’s leaders and talks about working year after year to cultivate. She’s also a proven quantity as a leader, having captained the Seminoles during her junior and senior seasons. She comes across as thoughtful and understated, always bringing the focus back to contributing to the team.
“I’ll do whatever for the team, and what’s best for the team,” she says, referring to her positional switch. “If [what’s] best for the team is me playing as a center back, I took that challenge, and focused on the next summer, playing as a center back in the summer leagues and making sure I can be the best center back for my team that I can be.”
As far as opting out of the draft, in addition to giving Kuikka a chance to be closer to family and to the Finnish national team, which had just hired a new coach at the time, it also gave her a control over her fate most draftees don’t get. She was able to choose to sign with Göteborg, and then, a few years later, to choose Portland. “I just kind of wanted to have something familiar and safe,” she says—she spent a summer in the Pacific Northwest in college, playing for Seattle Sounders Women, and still has ties in the area—”yet something new.”
The philosophy of the Thorns coaching staff appealed to her, too. “The player approach was what I was looking for,” she says. “The way Mark wants to develop the players and wants the best for the players.” Unsurprisingly, the fans were also a factor: “I’ve always wanted to play in a big crowd, so that was a big thing for me.”
“I think at the end for me, it was a pretty easy choice to go for Portland.”
