Courage acquire Gianna Paul from Kansas City
On Monday, September 14th, ESPN’s Jeff Kassouf dropped a post-weekend bombshell: the North Carolina Courage were acquiring 21-year-old rookie forward Gianna Paul from the Kansas City Current for $150k. On Wednesday, the team made the transfer official.
What does Gianna Paul bring to the Courage, and why would they make this move? Let’s find out.
Gianna Paul grew up on Long Island, where she was a dual-sport star in both soccer and track and field. She was a 200 and 400 meter runner like another previous Courage stalwart, winning a New York high school state title in the 400 meters. Despite her track success, per interviews her mind was always set on soccer as a career.
Roll Tide #
After high school, she moved to the University of Alabama. Over her four years in Tuscaloosa, she set the school record for goals with 40, alongside fourteen assists. By her senior season she was a team captain.
As noted in the preseason outlook, we do have data via Wyscout on college production, which has been helpfully normalized into a dashboard by Paul Harvey.
Gianna Paul’s data, evaluated as an attacking mid/deep lying forward, shows her excelling at the skills of a striker: 1v1s, chance creation, and finishing.
A useful way to look at her data profile is in comparison to Chioma Okafor, whose overall ranking was similar. Compared to Okafor, Paul was:
- a less active, less accurate passer
- less likely to make long progressive carries or passes
- less active defensively (although slightly better at duel winning)
- more likely to take on opponents 1v1
- more likely to make the final pass to others for shots
- more touches in the box, shots and shot production
In short: she’s a striker. She gets on the ball in and around the box and looks to create goals. Her raw data ranking is likely a bit lower because of this: evaluating her as midfielder/forward hybrid expects her to be doing things on the field that she doesn’t do / isn’t asked to do.
The comparable that jumps out from that dashboard is Reilyn Turner: after not being particularly productive by the metrics in her rookie season (despite scoring four goals), she became a genuinely useful winger/striker in 2025.
How did that data manifest on the field in college? Her track speed does show up, but what you see is not just a bunch of breakaways. Instead you find smart striker movement and timing her runs against the back line.
Let’s start when Paul is a 17-year-old freshman in what was merely at that point the most important game in Alabama women’s soccer history: the 2022 NCAA quarterfinal at Duke.
This isn’t an amazing bit of finishing skill; it’s just potting a rebound spilled by the keeper. But Paul, a freshman in the second half of a tense, scoreless, tournament game, trusts her instincts to not break towards the net at full speed, but instead to drift into an open unmarked position in the center of the box for a cutback or rebound. She’s rewarded for those instincts.
In another game from her freshman season she does use her speed to make herself available and get to a ball in space. She then calmly sets up her defender so she can find Gessica Skorka right in front of goal for a near tap-in.
What regularly shows up in her highlights is her timing. Yes, she’s faster than most, if not all, of the defenders she’s going against. But it’s her timing to ensure she breaks past them into space that is key, not just her pace¹. Here she ties the all-time Alabama scoring record by deftly timing her run past the defender after a turnover to be wide open for the skillful one-touch finish.
¹ Of course, I am just looking at highlights, and there may be 20 times being caught offside that I don't see.Inside the box, she is still unselfish. Here when she could attempt to turn and shoot she senses she’s drawn multiple defenders, and flicks it to Nadia Ramadan for a wide open shot at goal.
An encouraging sign is her performance against good competition. Against the best teams on her schedule in her senior season (LSU, Vanderbilt, Duke, UNC, and Stanford) she had two goals and two assists, averaging right around her normal number of shots per game (3.4).
Against the number one team in the land in the NCAA tournament? Top corner from distance.
Moving to Kansas City #
After her senior season finished, Paul signed a three-year contract with a club option with the Kansas City Current.
After two very brief late-game cameos to start the year, she started the Current’s third game, playing about ⅔ of it. She then missed multiple months with a thigh injury before returning in July. Paul appeared in seven of the Current’s next eight games, primarily as a late game sub as the Current prioritized Debinha as a false 9 and Haley Hopkins as a more traditional striker. Overall for the Current she played a little under 300 minutes, primarily as a striker. She totaled six shots and three shot assists, with no goals or assists.
We do have a few short highlights.
Here against Orlando she drops deep to receive, picks up the ball after a bit of a miscontrol, and plays a very good pass on the wing to Laney Rouse. After Rouse’s cross is cut off, she pounces on the ball and gets off a shot on goal. You can see how quickly she closes on the loose ball once she spots it.
Her highest-quality passes for KC follow this pattern: from just past the center circle in the opponent’s half out to the wing. Outside of that it’s mostly short passes to retain possession.
Here against Houston she makes a skillful play to get off a first-time snapped shot in the box, which she sends just wide.
You’ll note both shots clipped from her KC time are with her left foot - she’s a natural righty, but she’s comfortable shooting with her left.
Defensively, Kansas City didn’t ask her to do much. She was willing to close down, and nearly picked the ball off Utah goalkeeper Mia Justus in her debut. Despite being 5'10", she was not a huge aerial threat. She only won 37% of her aerial duels her senior season, and two of six in KC.
A surprising move six months into the season #
Remember, there’s now no draft. College signings can negotiate with any and all teams, and choose where they want to play. In a preseason media session, Paul talked about what drew her to Kansas City.
I think the biggest thing for me when I was looking for a program to go to at the next level was the development aspect of things. And in talking to Vlatko [Andonovski], that was kind of something that he valued over anything else was the development and the aspect of, okay, you're a great player, but how do we make you even better?
She described her approach to training and growing as well.
Obviously we're all hard on ourselves but I think we're in an environment too where they encourage and champion taking risks because obviously risks can reap a little bit of damage if they're too crazy. But I think also risks come with massive rewards. And I think in a team where they're all about go, go, attack, attack, attack. I think that's an environment where I thrive in.
A few weeks later in a interview on the Polished Playbook podcast Paul talked about her soccer career, her mom, and her love of reading. She also expanded on her desire for growth fueling her soccer ambitions.
I wanted to be in a position where I'd be challenged and just not only as a person, but as a player. Just be an environment where I bring out the best versions of my soccer self. And I know growing up I've not been the most technical player, I'm not like known for that. But I think being in an experience like this and having such crafty players like Deb, having such crafty players like Lo, it forces you to be again the best version of yourself.
Paul herself described KC as “her dream team”. I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly what happened in six months that led Kansas City to decide to move her or led her to ask out of KC. But over the past year, KC has moved on a number of younger players, including Claire Hutton, Alex Pfeiffer, Ally Sentnor, and most recently Meila Brewer (who also was a December 2025 signee of a three-year contract). It’s also interesting to note that the first name she called out in the above interview was Vlatko Andonovski, who recently left the organization in a shock move.
In the same way that she was free to choose her destination coming out of college, Paul also needed to approve any transfer away from Kansas City. As a player who values development, being challenged, risk-taking, and attacking? North Carolina sounds like a great fit for her.
Why the Courage were interested now #
The Courage have had a very simple rotation at central striker the past few months. Evelyn Ijeh starts and plays most of the minutes, and Hannah Betfort fills in off the bench. No one else has played striker - they don’t seem to view Olivia Wingate as an option at the 9. They could use more depth and injury protection as they move towards the end of the season and the postseason.
Plus, North Carolina was going to need to sign depth at striker this offseason regardless. Both Wingate and Betfort are upcoming free agents. If their scouting was high on Paul coming out of college, and she became available, there’s no reason to not get her into the squad now and potentially cross an item off the offseason list even if she doesn’t get many immediate minutes. Her contract through the end of 2028 (with a team option for 2029) shows a commitment from the team in her as a long-term investment. (Does this signing also say something about whether they plan to re-sign either Betfort or Wingate? Maybe.)
Gianna Paul brings youth (despite four years of college, she doesn’t turn 22 until the offseason), glimpses of potential, and a desire to get better to North Carolina. She can play off the back line, run in behind, and finish with either foot. Even if her college production hasn’t yet translated to NWSL success, some time in the Evelyn Ijeh movement and Ashley Sanchez finishing symposiums can lead to her being an exciting new option for the Courage.