The Utah Royals are headed to the National Women’s Soccer League playoffs for the first time in their history, and, though she would never say so herself, Cloé Lacasse is a huge reason why.
Lacasse leads her team with 10 assists this season, tied for second-most in the league, and has scored the second-most goals for Utah with eight to Mina Tanaka’s nine.
“I think her impact is insane this year,” Royals defender Tatumn Milazzo told The IX Sports. “She’s so dangerous, and not only on her own, but she sets people up on the field. … It makes us so dangerous in the attack where they’re like, ‘Is Cloé going to go herself? Is she setting up someone else to score?’ She’s just very versatile in her play, and you can count on her to always be working hard to get the job done or set someone else up to finish it off.”
Royals forward and captain Paige Cronin had a similar sentiment to share. “She’s always been such a great player, … but for her to consistently be in training at her position, being available, has been huge for our success,” Cronin told The IX Sports. “The stats obviously show it, but I also think another thing that she brings is she’s consistent. She shows up every single day and gives everything she can. And to have that kind of player — one who works hard and is talented — that’s a recipe for success.”
Even when she isn’t getting her name on the scoresheet with goals or assists, Cronin says they “feel her presence on the field no matter what” as she “has been consistently one of our best players” because she is “relentless.”
“If we get Cloé the ball, we know Cloé will do something with it,” Cronin said. “Whether that is getting a corner, gaining a foul, scoring a goal, having an assist. So I think to have a player like that, on the field, that we know that we just have to get her the ball and she will make magic happen on both sides of the ball, I would say is something that stands out to me the most about Cloé. … Also, it’s in how she defends, how she gets in the attack multiple times. It’s not even like she’s creating one assist and we score; she’s creating many opportunities.”
Even though Lacasse got a good amount of attention when she tied the NWSL single-season assist record (before Croix Bethune broke the record last weekend), Cronin thinks Lacasse’s crucial role on set pieces, which is how Utah scores a lot of their goals, is underrated. Meanwhile, Milazzo thinks Lacasse’s immeasurably important vision on the field isn’t talked about enough when it doesn’t land her a direct assist or goal.
Lacasse appreciates the praise and love of her teammates, but is not particularly fond of the attention.
What Lacasse would prefer people talk about, instead of her individual accolades, is her team’s story of adversity. From a rough first couple of seasons to now being one of the top teams in the league, Lacasse has felt the community’s belief in, love, and admiration for the club.
“I do believe the Utah Royals are important for the state of Utah and the community of Salt Lake City,” Lacasse told The IX Sports. “With that being said, we’ve persevered through so much. It’s tough having that many hard seasons and we’ve had a lot of good players that still stuck it out. We saw the vision and we knew what it could be. So we’re so happy that this year everybody got to see the fruition of what we’ve been working on, because it’s easier to hop off the bandwagon.”
After finishing in 11th and 12th place in 2024 and 2025 respectively, the Royals have turned things around this season with a record of 14-10-5 (W-L-D). Lacasse attributes the team’s success this season to their fierceness.
Particularly early in the season, Lacasse says the team went out with a competitive edge, thinking people didn’t have any expectations for them while they knew their own strength.
“I think now we go into games with expectations and we know that opponents have expectations for us as well. They know it’s not going to be an easy game and they’re going to have to battle to get a result from the Royals,” Lacasse said. “So I think it’s just us finding our confidence, honestly, and our bravery throughout the year.”
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A perspective-changing injury
Lacasse originally joined the Royals from Arsenal in the middle of the 2024 season and made an immediate impact. She scored a team-high four goals in nine games. But just one week after she scored the club’s first-ever hat trick, Lacasse ruptured her ACL and sprained her MCL in a game on October 20, 2024.
For the first two months of her recovery, Lacasse went home to her small town, Azilda, a community of fewer than five thousand people in Greater Sudbury, Ontario. In Azilda, there was basically one soccer team to play on and one coach to play for until one leaves. It’s the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, at least by face, and one’s entire year in school has anywhere from five to 60 people, but not many more.
Lacasse used to think that was a hindrance, something that prevented her career from kickstarting at a younger age. But spending those months back home, now in her 30s and having played all over the world, Lacasse realized she had been wrong.
Lacasse praised how they literally “moved mountains” to make her rehab possible. For example, her community only had one Alter G Anti-Gravity treadmill, which is specialized rehabilitation and training equipment used to reduce body weight in the early stages of ACL recovery. It was at the local retirement home. So Lacasse became such a mainstay that people there would regularly come and see her train.
As she watched her entire community rally to make sure she was okay and could rehab at home, Lacasse said she realized her small hometown was the foundation that rooted her in the sport and made everything possible.
“For that reason I am very grateful and thankful I got to experience that because I don’t know if I would have ever really realized that my hometown community was my foundation, and they kind of gave me all the skills and abilities that made me who I am, the athlete that I am today, the person that I am today,” Lacasse said.
Part of that foundation is being someone who puts their head down and gets to work. Lacasse knew she was going to approach the injury with that same mindset.
“I come from two very blue-collar parents, so I’ve seen them work so hard for everything we’ve ever had,” Lacasse explained. “At the end of the day, it’s not going to change that you’re injured. But if you stack up your wins and just keep adding every day, hopefully something will attribute to it.”
Lacasse kept that mindset and more when Milazzo tore her ACL in March 2025, and they became rehab buddies.
“I wanted her to feel optimistic going forward. I didn’t want her to see somebody who was just negative and always kind of in towards themselves,” Lacasse said. “I think she added a lot of joy in my rehab as well.”
Milazzo has stated on multiple occasions that she loves talking about Lacasse, and it stems from their rehab connection.
During the early stages of Milazzo’s rehab, which were the end stages of Lacasse’s, the pair spent many hours a week in the gym together. In between turns or during breaks between sets, they would always be talking, so they got to know each other increasingly well. It soon extended outside of workouts too, whether it was keeping in touch through the week, or checking in with the other about how testing went, or just hanging out when they weren’t travelling.
Milazzo spoke glowingly of how she could always count on Lacasse to be her support during that time, and said getting to know her during that time made her appreciate her as a person more.
“I think having her when I was going through my surgery and the recovery was the most important part,” Milazzo said. “I think having her friendship and her be there for me and be able to lean on her when days are tough — and even when days are tough or have been tough like this last year, she’s always reaching out and we can always talk things through. And so I depend on her a lot, and she’s always been there for me.”
It was a running joke that Lacasse got to be the guinea pig for a lot of the lifts and exercises they did with the sports performance coach. But she also served as an inspiring example of the level Milazzo could return to after injury when things got hard.
“Seeing her back on the field training, and then when she subbed in her first game, and scored again, it was really motivating for me,” Milazzo said. “It was really important to see, like, okay, we’re doing a lot of the same stuff, she came back so healthy, so great, so fit, just like herself again.
“So it made me feel a lot more confident in what I was doing because I saw her do it, and I saw how she attacked a lot of the days that we did together. And so it gave me a lot of motivation and just like a blueprint of how I wanted to do my rehab and then come back eventually.”
Lacasse made her return to NWSL game action in August 2025 while Milazzo returned at the beginning of this season. When they finally got to play together, Milazzo felt like they could read each other uniquely well. Lacasse ended up assisting Milazzo’s first two of four goals scored this season.
Now both players are well removed from rehab and once again playing their best — though the pair still gets in extra work together with the trainer for 15-20 minutes before team work and extra lifts “just to keep the knees going these days.”
But the injury, coupled with being a Canadian playing overseas up until recently, has led some people to say Lacasse is having a breakout season.
One particular digital feature of Lacasse called Primed for Takeoff, a collaboration between the NWSL and Delta Airlines, was titled “A rising star.” That post circulated while Lacasse was with her national team, causing teammates to joke, “oh look at you rise,” as she is in year five with the senior team, nearing 50 caps, and has played in the 2023 Women’s World Cup and 2024 Paris Olympics.
Lacasse understands where people are coming from, but she and her teammates know her form this season is just a continuation of what she was doing before her injury.
“It’s funny because she’s always been like this,” Cronin said. “We now have a team around her too just to let Cloé be Cloé. And obviously she showed that she’s dangerous, but she was dangerous at her other clubs as well. So I really think it’s just her being her, and I think we have given her the space to do that, and she’s taken on that role and just done her thing.”
Leading by example
While Lacasse is a key contributor on the field, she also brings invaluable leadership to her young team as one of just two players over 30, even though her age has nothing to do with it.
Lacasse knew she wanted to take on a leadership role even when she first got to Utah because she had already found a lot of success with young teams, like playing for Benfica in their first year in Portugal’s top division and Champions League. There, Lacasse kind of fell into the role, but with Utah she knew she was signing up for a similar kind of project.
So when she joined the Royals, she knew making sure that people continually believed in the desired direction of the club and were all in was key.
Cronin thinks that Lacasse has grown into the role even more lately and made the team even more special because of the variety in leadership she brings. As team captain, Cronin recognized how different types of leaders help them reach more people in different ways.
However, Lacasse says she hasn’t necessarily worked on growing as a leader. It’s a position people have put her in more than they did in the past but she has always stayed grounded in her strong values as she stuck with it throughout the years.
“I think for me, I like to give what I want to receive at the end of the day,” Lacasse said. “I want honest feedback. I want something that’s constructive. But also, when you do something well, I want to celebrate their success, and I hope they like to celebrate mine as well. I want to put out what I would like to receive out in the universe. At the end of the day, it’s as simple as that.”
Her leadership style developed through her variety of experiences on different teams and with different coaches. Those people and places showed her, for example, that negative communication and raising her voice did not work for her. She also experienced being the player who didn’t get many minutes on the field while still having to grind it out, “even though you might not want to show up at the pitch every day.”
“I know what gets me in a place where I’m playing my best, my most courageous, my bravest, strongest soccer. So I’ve kind of found ways through that to be able to communicate it with players,” Lacasse said.
That manifests in what Milazzo and Cronin describe as a very ‘lead by example’ style. Milazzo highlighted how you will always see Lacasse doing the work and the “right thing.” In training, Lacasse is not afraid to speak up if she has a question or something doesn’t seem right and she wants to know why or what they can fix. It isn’t over-the-top communication, but she is super competitive, wants the best for everyone, and for the team to be successful, so she is “demanding” but supportive. She brings dry humor to the locker room and seriousness to her play. If something needs to be said, Lacasse will say it, but she is also always in the locker room checking on everyone and willing to be there for everyone.
Key to that being effective is what Cronin called Lacasse’s ability to “really gather people.” She knows it sounds cheesy, but Cronin feels Lacasse is truly friends with everyone on the team beyond basic work friends. Whether it’s going out to dinner, getting a coffee, or playing games with the team, Lacasse is always a part of it and treats people with kindness every single day.
“I think that it just shows her heart,” Cronin said. “She’s the first one to help someone if they need, to put a hand on someone’s shoulder if they’re struggling, or a kick in the butt if they need. I would say she has one of the best hearts, and that’s something that will go well beyond her stats and assists and career.”
On a team that prides itself on selflessness, Lacasse’s humble personality is a good fit. Cronin and Milazzo lovingly laugh at how awkward Lacasse gets when the team tries to praise her for impressive performances or breaking records; her putting the team above herself makes them want to root for her even more.
“I think so many people look up to her and admire her as a teammate, to where when anything good happens, we know it’s like a collective effort, and none of us would be achieving things or the season we’ve had without everyone on the team,” Milazzo said. “So I think she definitely leads that [selfless] feeling and that experience in the locker room. Which is nice because then you’re just so happy for her, like, you know she’s not doing anything for the recognition or for the records or anything; she’s doing it for the love of the team and to win. So I think that’s the best part.”
Building a future in Utah
In September, Lacasse and the Royals announced she had signed a contract extension through the 2028 season, after originally signing through 2027. Lacasse said she wanted to stay because of the happiness and pride she has in what she’s been able to do in Utah. She also feels like the organization has given her confidence in knowing what they want her to do going forward and acknowledging what she has done already.
“It’s a bit of pride and also knowing that the organization has belief in me,” Lacasse said. “Hopefully I can leave a little bit of a legacy going forward here, and people, when they come to the Royals, they know what needs to be done to find success.”
The attacker has also fallen in love with the community and outdoor lifestyle. Lacasse had never been to Salt Lake before signing with the Royals. Surrounded by all walks of life, what really strikes Lacasse is the vast community outreach.
“People just want to kind of be involved in a little bit of everything, and I think that’s what makes it so special,” Lacasse said.
Lacasse herself has gotten more involved with the community by volunteering with a kids’ soccer team. She has admitted that coaching doesn’t really interest her, but the opportunity fell into her lap. She was originally told it was just a kids’ after-school program. But when she showed up, they were all waiting for her with soccer balls. The kids don’t know much about soccer; they didn’t even have cleats when she arrived, but they come to all the matches because they just want to be involved and care about each other.
She was originally looking for something that would allow her to disconnect from soccer, and this did the opposite. Still, Lacasse feels the program has given her a different perspective compared to the other places she’s played as a pro.
“I think that’s been really special because where I’ve played in the past, like football, soccer, it’s been everything, it’s been life, life itself,” Lacasse said, referencing previous career stops in Portugal and England. “So it’s been a bit of a breath of fresh air being a part of something that’s bigger than yourself. At the end of the day, it’s soccer. But for those kids, they just want to get to know you on a deeper level and they just want to be a part of your life.”
Lacasse and the Royals will look to make that community proud and continue the project she signed up for on Decision Day. They will face a Gotham team that automatically wins the NWSL Shield with any result other than a loss (they could still take it with a loss, depending on San Diego’s result). But they are not focused on that. Instead, they want to focus on themselves and using the game as a way to pivot into playoffs.
“It’s a great way to get positive traction going into the playoffs,” Lacasse said. “So I think it’s important for each individual to get what they need to get out of that game knowing the next one is do-or-die.”
However this season plays out, Lacasse will continue to bring her newfound perspectives and best self to the Royals and Utah community.
“If I were to speak to my younger self, I would tell her that the foundation you’ve built from your community in your hometown is what’s made you what you are,” Lacasse reflected. “I think when you look at younger players, they see so many disadvantages coming from smaller communities or low resource places. But working with what you have can really strengthen yourself as an individual, yourself as an athlete, and that’s what’s happened here in my case.
“A lot of people say ‘don’t you wish you had this, or don’t you wish you grew up playing for one of these big clubs?'” she continued. “And truthfully, I don’t. I’ve gotten to play for the biggest clubs in the world, and I grew up playing in a town with 2500 people. So I think it’s just about staying grounded and really staying true to yourself and your roots.”
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