England to KC by way of LSU and UCLA, Lucy Parker just wants to play world-class soccer

Speeding along an English motorway late one evening, Lucy Parker decided it was time for a change. For 10 years, she’d traveled this stretch of road connecting London and Cambridge multiple times per week, going to and from the Arsenal Women’s youth headquarters.

The hour-long drive from her home in Cambridge to Arsenal’s indoor soccer facility in London Colney — plus the hour’s drive home — was a huge time commitment. It cut into her social life and made her early starts for school the next morning even tougher.

It was on one of those nighttime drives through London’s rush-hour traffic that the then-17-year-old started mulling other directions for her life.

“I just really want something new,” Parker said.

She had two options, as she saw it: Put her personal life on hold and fully commit to playing for Arsenal, or drop out of the academy and focus on her university studies in England.

But there was at least one other alternative, one that wasn’t readily apparent at the time:

Go to the United States.

“America kind of gave me the option to combine them (her life goals) and stay at a high level,” she said.

Parker’s older sister, Hollie, was already competing for LSU in track & field. And that helped lay the groundwork for a path that would lead Lucy, an English centerback, to becoming the 16th overall pick in the 2021 NWSL draft by Kansas City’s new NWSL team.

Coming to America

LSU wanted her, in part because of her sister’s connections. Once she became worn down by her tiring commute in England, she was was ready to take a chance.

“I’d known the coaches. They’re pretty persistent,” Parker said. “Originally I had no intention of coming to America — I’d always brushed them off, like, ‘I don’t want to come, I don’t want to come.’”

She relented enough to join a Skype call with the LSU women’s soccer staff and hear them out. That led to an in-person visit to LSU’s campus.

“After the visit, I was like, ‘I have to go,’” Parker said. “It was really amazing.”

Thus began Parker’s journey into unknown territory. She started playing soccer at age 6 after seeing a poster about a soccer camp. She begged her mother to take her and that led to a stint on a boys team at Cambridge City.

After dominating there for a couple of years, she was put up for trials at Arsenal. She was 9 at the time.

She made the team and didn’t look back, staying with the Arsenal club’s system for a decade. She won numerous competitions and awards in those 10 years, including three Arsenal Player of the Year honors, two FA Youth Cups and 22 international caps with the England youth teams.

She competed alongside current England internationals Georgia Stanway and Grace Fisk and others currently in the FA Women’s Super League. In short, Parker was positioning herself for a successful career in English soccer.

Moving to the U.S. for a new opportunity left all of that behind but ultimately opened the door to her future in KC.

New emphases

Despite her vast resume of experience, Parker’s move to America wasn’t an easy transition.

“There was a huge emphasis on the physical side of the game as opposed to the technical and tactical, which, growing up, it was a lot more focused on that,” she said. “And then, coming here, it was like weight room in the mornings, come back to the field in the afternoons, doing a lot of running sessions ...

“And although I come from a running background, I wasn’t really used to that when it was combined with my football.”

The concept of weightlifting was such a foreign concept that by the time Parker started at LSU she’d barely stepped foot in a weight room. In her freshman year of college, she focused on building muscle and stamina. She started all 18 games for the Tigers in 2017, then 24 in 2018 as LSU advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Then head coach Brian Lee and assistants Megan Kinneman and Carl Goody left the program. Another big life change was on the way.

“I did want a challenge somewhere at a higher level, I guess,” Parker said. “... (T)hey made a decision to leave the school, so I figured it was good timing just to make my own decision to leave, too.”

Parker landed at women’s soccer powerhouse UCLA for her junior season. Playing for the Bruins was like a return to England: UCLA played a possession-based style similar to what she’d learned at Arsenal. She flourished as a ball-playing centerback in Westwood.

“It was pretty easy and ... I just felt at home really early on,” Parker said. “I think the first day I was super-nervous, and after that I just settled in really quickly.”

Parker started all 24 games for the Bruins in 2019, scoring four goals. UCLA made it all the way to the NCAA semifinals before losing to eventual champion Stanford. That bitter finish, against a Cardinal team led by fellow KC NWSL draft pick and future teammate Kiki Pickett, fueled Parker’s desire to remain at UCLA for her final spring season of college soccer (Pickett’s doing the same at Stanford).

Now, Parker’s excited to show KC fans what she can do once her spring season at UCLA concludes. She figures to fit well into the “defense is the first form of attack”-style of play that KC coach Huw Williams hopes to employ.

“I think the way he wants the team to play is exactly how I see myself and how I feel that I play,” Parker said. “I’m a very forward-thinking, attacking-minded centerback, and my first thought is I want the ball and I want to do something with the ball.”

“So hopefully I can bring a little bit of excitement and something a bit different.”