Ashley Sanchez and Trinity Rodman experiencing success together for club and country

The Southern Californians are on their first World Cup roster and are looking to make an impact as they close in on opening matches.

Ashley Sanchez made the move from the West Coast to the Washington Spirit as the No. 4 pick in the 2020 NWSL Draft.

The following season, Trinity Rodman, another Southern California native, came east in the 2021 Draft as the No. 2 pick.

And an instant friendship was formed. Sort of.

“Everyone thought we knew each other before (becoming teammates),” Sanchez said. “At first we didn’t really talk. We were trying to feel each other out. We always had a great relationship on the field, then after two weeks, we hung out one time during preseason and then we’ve hung out like every single day after that.”

Sanchez, 24, arrived at the Spirit from Monrovia after a stellar career at UCLA.

Rodman, from Newport Beach, is the daughter of NBA Hall of Hamer Dennis Rodman. She initially committed to UCLA, then transferred to Washington State, but eventually bypassed college and went directly into the NWSL Draft.

Together they’ve terrorized defenders in the NWSL and with the U.S. Women’s National Team. Now, they’re headed to their first ever FIFA Women’s World Cup together.

They have already experienced success together, winning the 2021 NWSL Championship with the Spirit.

“Honestly, she’s one of my best friends and being able to experience both of our World Cups together is going to be huge,” Sanchez said.

Rodman, 21, is the second youngest player on the roster.

However, don’t let the age fool you. She has gained more than enough experience in making things difficult for opposing defenders.

She scored four goals in 13 games this season with the Spirit. In the send-off game against Wales earlier this month, she scored twice (76th and 87th minute) after coming on as a second-half substitute.

“She was one of the players that came in and had a task to change the pace and the tempo of the game,” USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski said of Rodman’s performance. “We saw that tempo change dramatically.”

If there’s any player on the U.S. roster in line for a breakout tournament it could be Rodman.

“For me, I’ve been working on getting my mental state in the best place, which is difficult, especially when you come into a camp when your team is not doing well or you have a couple of bad games in a row,” Rodman said. “Leaving each game as its own and moving forward has been my biggest takeaway from all of this and had allowed me to come into this experience with an open mind and a willingness to learn.

“I’ve been talking to Pinoe (Megan Rapinoe) a lot and she’s been very open and realistic and not sugar-coating anything and she said this (first World Cup) is a test and the biggest thing she told me is that I’m here for a reason, ‘Do you,’ and if you stray from that, you’re not going to perform the way you want to. When you’re on a big stage, you feel like you need to live up to everyone’s expectations, but in reality you need to play the way that you play and that’s the reason why you’re here.”

Sanchez made an impact from her first season at UCLA. As a freshman, she recorded 12 assists and scored six goals. She followed that with a 10-goal, five-assist performance as a sophomore. Then in her final season, she added 15 assists, giving her 42 for her career, before deciding to turn professional. Sanchez also starred at the U.S. youth level, adding the 2016 U.S. Soccer Young Female Player of the Year award.

Sanchez scored five goals across all competitions for the Spirit before departing.

“I hope to play whatever role is given to me,” Sanchez said. “I’ll accept any role. I think I’m just excited and you don’t really know how to prepare for something like this, something you’ve always dreamed of, but once you’re here, it’s like a surreal feeling and you don’t really know what you’re getting yourself into.”

Rodman didn’t have the college experience. She was dominant at the club level, played only her freshman year at Corona del Mar High in Newport Beach. At the youth level for the U.S. is where she continued to shine, scoring nine goals to help the U-20 win the CONCACAF Championship in 2020, she was the U.S. Soccer Young Female player of the year in 2021 and made her national team debut in 2022.

Even though she didn’t have much of a relationship with her father, she said she has watched videos of him action.

“Even the days he didn’t prepare the best, or he was out partying, everybody knows,” she said with a laugh. “But he was there. It doesn’t even matter what he was doing the night before, or the morning of, he was there every single game and you can’t take that away from him. His mentality was insane.

“Even if he wasn’t the first guy under the basket or if he was next to Shaq, who was way bigger and way taller, he was going to get the rebound, it was timing, it was anticipation, it was body movement, it was positioning, it was everything, he was so intelligent. He was an insane athlete and at the end of the day, I think he was one of the smartest players of that time, he knew the game.”

Trinity said on draft night in 2021 that she wanted to be “known as Trinity Rodman and not just Dennis Rodman’s daughter.”

She’s on her way.