Janine Sonis is in her eleventh year playing professional soccer. For most of that career, she played as a forward talented enough to maintain a Canadian national team career for 12 years and counting. This year for the Denver Summit, however, she’s playing as a fullback. No matter: Her goal contributions have skyrocketed.
“They take me further away from the goal, and I score more goals,” Sonis joked on the phone with The IX Sports.
In her first six NWSL regular seasons, Sonis had 25 goal contributions in 122 appearances. In 2026, that rate has more than tripled. In 28 appearances, mostly playing as a defender, Sonis has 20 goal contributions. It’s the third most in the NWSL, behind only Barbra Banda and Ashley Sanchez. Her 12 goals and eight assists are each tied for fourth most in the league this season. She has shown variety in her finishing, including rattling off many long-range bangers. Only three tallies have come from the penalty spot.
Sonis has carved out a distinct profile for what a fullback can be. “I think it’s partly the freedom that I’ve been given here to play what I want to play and kind of make the position my own,” she said of how her season has come to be.
Sonis thinks her experience as a forward has helped her best other team’s forwards who are tasked with defending her. “Being a forward for most of my career, I know how frustrating it is to play against fullbacks that want to join all the time, and how difficult that can be to defend,” she said. “And so I have that mindset when I’m playing a game: ‘How difficult can I make this for the winger?’ The one time that they switch off and don’t track me, then I’m going to get in, and I have to make the most of those opportunities.
“So, I think it’s just been trying to put myself in a position to have as big of an impact as I can on any given play in the game, and then just having the discipline and willingness to get back to do my work defensively as well. But I have to give a massive amount of credit to this team and the way that they allow me to kind of play that position the way that I’ve adopted it.”
Sonis first tried her hand at fullback at Manchester City, where she played from 2018 to 2020 under now Summit head coach Nick Cushing. City’s right fullback suffered a season-ending injury and Cushing considered Sonis to be the next best option, even though Sonis said she would not have put herself in that position at the time. She thinks Cushing tapped her because of her physical ability, pace and fitness that allowed her to get up and down the pitch for long periods of time. At the time, they were playing a somewhat lopsided formation that gave Sonis nearly the whole right side of the pitch to operate, and it worked really well.
Fast forward to playing for Racing Louisville in 2025, there was another injury to a fullback, so Sonis took over the position midseason. At that point, Sonis said it was clear to her that fullback was a position she could be really successful in.
“So I kind of pushed the staff to start treating me as a fullback full time,” she said. “You know, I want to learn the fullback position, want to be curious about getting better as a defender, being harder to beat one-v-one, learning how to stay with the line, defend in the box. So me kind of forcing that change to be permanent was definitely a conscious decision of mine.”
And she has continued that progression in Denver to the point that she now firmly believes she is a fullback, hoping to both continue playing the offensively impactful way she is playing now, and improve other skills.
“It excites me to have something to go towards,” Sonis said.
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Beyond her excitement and the shift being her choice, the position change has taken a lot of work behind the scenes. The biggest adjustment has been balancing her attacking and defending mindsets.
“In transition, I love to join the attack. But I also have to have a frame of mind of ‘OK, how many players do we have behind the ball? If I do join and we lose the ball, how vulnerable are we to a counter attack?’” Sonis explained. “And it’s definitely been a learning curve. There’s been moments where I definitely have not made the right decision, and I’ve left our back line open and vulnerable.
“And thankfully, I have great players that play beside me and in front of me. And more often than not, they’re able to stop the ball at source, and it doesn’t become something dangerous. But it’s that balance of risk versus reward.”
Sonis has learned by experience that she can’t give the ball away cheaply. She has learned to be patient in one-v-ones against the league’s incredibly talented wingers. She has found defending the back post to be one of the hardest things to do. The list of things she has learned this year about defending is long, and Sonis said it is by no means done.
But those defensive learnings and responsibilities may also be why she has been so efficient in the attack — it has become even more important to Sonis to make the most of her opportunities if she is going to leave a defensive gap. As a forward, she knew she had to capitalize on opportunities, but the opportunities themselves came more frequently.
“I think it’s just that extra level of focus and discipline in that moment to try and make the most of the work that I’ve put in to get up to that part of the pitch,” Sonis said of her mindset shift as a fullback. “As long as I’m doing my job as a defender, which obviously always comes first, the team allowing me to then have that freedom to join [the attack] is kind of just an added bonus.”
Denver has proven to be the perfect place for Sonis to hone her new skills. Acquired in an offseason trade ahead of the Summit’s inaugural season, the move was a dream-come-true homecoming for the Highlands Ranch, Colo. native. Playing out the season has only solidified that feeling for Sonis, who is under contract through 2028.
“It’s been honestly better than I could have ever imagined,” Sonis said. “It’s been so fun to see the way that Denver has shown up for this team, and it’s not surprising. It’s just been really rewarding to have a full stadium for every game we’ve played at home. It’s been an absolute honor to play in front of these fans, to play literally just down the street from where I grew up, and I’m excited for more memories.”
That supportive environment hasn’t only come from the fans; it spreads across the entire club and has been crucial to Sonis’s career year. Sonis thinks that the best moments in her career — acknowledging that this is really her best season ever — have come from being in an environment where she has the freedom to bring her true self every day, whether that is in the locker room or facility, with staff or teammates, or on the pitch.
The Canadian feels that the coaching staff has full belief and trust in her abilities to play the position the way she has adopted it as her own. They have given her leeway to be curious about the position and try different things because they trust she’ll defend to the best of her abilities while continuing to contribute to the attack the way they want the fullbacks to in their system.
That feeling of being trusted and valued starts with Cushing. Sonis said Cushing makes her feel that way because of his “high level of criticism in a very helpful, forward mindset way.”
She explained, “I know he holds me to a very high standard, and the only way you can be held to a high standard is if that person believes that you can achieve that standard more often than not.”
That means, if there is a moment in a game where she hasn’t played her defensive role well enough or made the wrong decision getting into attacking positions, she is held accountable because the expectation is that she executes.
“I think what’s been really helpful for me here is just the balance of that,” Sonis said. “I have the full trust in the 90 minutes on the pitch to execute in my role, and then when we come back to training the next week — regardless of if we’ve won big or we’ve lost narrowly or we totally outplay a team and lose by margins — there’s always that magnifying glass of where are the percentages that we can get better.
“And I think that that’s what the best coaches in the world do: they continue to help players like me who have been around for a long time remember that you can never stop learning. And I think that just the level of standard that he holds us to as players is that of somebody who wants to continue to push and grow and get better and help us develop and be better, more well-rounded players.”
The conditions in Denver with Cushing and her new position have led to plenty of memorable moments. In their first game, she assisted the first goal in franchise history. (Later in the match, she recieved the club’s first-ever red card). In May, she scored a brace as her team beat the Pride 3-1 for their first-ever home win. But the one she remembers the most is her stoppage-time, game-winning free kick against Utah in August, after she had assisted Denver’s first goal in the 2-1 victory.
“I mean, it wasn’t even that good of a free kick,” Sonis chuckled. “That was probably one of the most exciting moments of my career, really, in terms of just the feeling around it.”
Though she loves scoring goals, Sonis said the assists are her favorite, and she’s had some impressive ones.
“Obviously, if I have an opportunity to score a goal, I’m not gonna pass it up. But it’s really also, I feel very lucky that I have really good players around me that, if I put a ball in a good area, the chances of them scoring are very high, and I think that that’s definitely not something that I take for granted,” Sonis said.
Now with just one game left to play this regular season, Sonis’s focus is not on any of those performances. On Decision Day, Denver will travel to play the North Carolina Courage. If the Summit defeat the Courage, and the Seattle Reign lose to the Orlando Pride, then Denver will snag the eighth and final playoff spot. The margins are incredibly slim, but Sonis’s team is still alive.
“I think the focus is fully on, ‘Look, we have an opportunity to put ourselves in the best position possible, and as long as we get our job done, then it’s not in our hands anymore and fate will fall where it does,’” Sonis said.
But Sonis has a good feeling. Around the team, everybody seems to share her positivity and intention to go put on a performance that they can be proud of whether they make the playoffs or not.
“There could have been opportunities for us to change the situation, but I think I’m proud of the way that the group has moved forward and not been stuck on that,” Sonis said. “The worst possible thing would have been to have to travel to North Carolina this weekend for a game that didn’t mean anything. And now it does. It means everything.”
Sonis relishes the pressure. “These are the games you want to play in as a professional,” she said. “These are the ones, you know, they feel like finals. They feel like a trophy’s on the line. And at this point, there’s only one thing we have control over, and that’s how we go into this game and how we perform. And I think the group’s feeling really good about that.”
No matter how the season ends, Sonis wants people to know she is full of gratitude. Sonis is honored to wear the Denver Summit uniform and to have been embraced by the community in a way that has given the team “the fire and motivation to do as much as possible.”
“It’s been an incredible season. I’ve had so much fun. This is probably the most I’ve ever enjoyed my football in my career,” Sonis said. “I think that speaks a lot to how I’m playing and the season that I’ve had is from a place of gratitude and joy. I don’t think you get to those historic seasons personally if you’re not enjoying yourself.
“So I’m just really grateful to the ownership, the club, the city, to everybody that’s been a part of this season, and hopefully this weekend’s not the end.”
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