Nya Harrison Plays the ‘Beautiful Game’ on Two Sides of the Pacific
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Nya practicing with the Philippine’s Women’s National Football Team (Photo courtesy of San Diego Wave FC).
The Philippine Women’s National Football Team (Filipinas) won the ASEAN Football Federation title in 2022 and became the first Southeast Asian soccer team to qualify for the 2023 World Cup tournament. Nya has been training with the team and will likely be on the field in June.
As of this spring 2025, the Filipinas are ranked 41st out of the world’s 196 national teams by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). The next World Cup takes place in Brazil in 2027.
Nya (No. 26) with a few of her Filipinas teammates.
In 2023, San Diego Wave FC won the National Women’s Soccer League Shield (NWSL). After three games in the young 2025 season, Wave FC ranks fifth on the table. Nya is a recent team recruit.
Nya, a San Diego native, is the oldest of three daughters of Cheryl and Derrick Harrison. Nya is proud of her African American heritage on her father’s side and to be a Fil-Am on her mother’s side. Cheryl’s last name was Layson when she emigrated at age seven with her family from Quezon City to America.
Nya (second human from right) and her family.
The NWSL no longer has a player draft, so Nya was invited to a tryout with her home team after she graduated from Stanford in December 2024. “Being from San Diego, I’ve watched a lot of games as a fan, and with some of my old Stanford teammates on the team, it was just so cool getting to watch them play.”
As a Wave FC rookie who’s preparing for her first match, she says, “Now, being in this new role of a San Diego player, I’m getting to meet the fans after the game. Being so proud to represent the city is a special feeling.”
On YouTube, we can accompany Nya through the ins and outs of her rookie year with San Diego.
Covering the Field with Speed and Versatility
The San Diego Wave FC name and logo conjure up the pacifying ocean and jazz like the WAVE FM music that plays everywhere because it offends no one. But anyone who’s watched the team in SnapDragon Stadium or on the road knows they play in an up-tempo, percussive style reminiscent of jazz greats McCoy Tyner and Oscar Peterson.
This is an entertaining era in the sport when defenders must keep up with youthful forwards and are often using their speed to move the ball goalward themselves. With a Stanford degree in bioengineering, Nya is at ease with the technical aspects of her position whether defending on the right or left side of the field.
“Where I play depends on the game plan and which side wants to attack more. That can change game by game, but it’s good to play as an outside fullback. Being good at attacking as well as defending adds another element to my game.”
Growing up in Southern California, Nya sometimes played against those Fil-Am phenoms known as the Thompson sisters, Gisele and Alyssa. The sisters were the first high school athletes to be sponsored by Nike and had accepted scholarships to Stanford before the NWSL beckoned.
Nya anticipated playing with Gisele and Alyssa on the Stanford squad, but before they could don Cardinal kits, they withdrew to Angel City FC, NWSL rivals in Los Angeles.
“I was sad when they went pro. Now, I’ll always be playing against them and never get to play with them.” After a moment of reflection, she adds, “It brings a good challenge. I like that because I’m a big competitor.”
Her high work rate on the pitch is a family trait. Nya’s mother, Cheryl, operates a profitable food booth at soccer tournaments in the San Diego area. “My mother will have an idea and just run with it. If she says something’s going to happen, it will happen. I’m that type of girl as well.”
Note that Nya’s sister Ava is Stanford bound. Hope abounds that Nya and Ava will eventually do for women’s soccer what Serena and Venus did for tennis.
Philippines National Football Team photo. Their first 2026 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Asian Cup qualification game takes place on June 29, 2025 against Saudi Arabia in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Philippines Comes Calling
Nya’s competitive genes have been on alert since college when the Philippine Women’s National Football Team coaching staff began making overtures. At the time, she was still learning the procedures a foreign athlete must follow to obtain a Philippine passport. The Philippines’ new coach, Mark Torcaso, has since assumed the role of catalyst to speed up Nya’s route toward dual citizenship and field eligibility.
Nya didn’t yet have her passport to play in the friendlies during the April 2025 international break, but she is optimistic that by June she’ll be earning her first international caps against the best competition in the world.
A February training camp gave Nya her first visit to the Philippines and an introduction to her Filipinas teammates, many of whom are Fil-Ams, too. “We were mainly training or in the hotel. On our days off, we were able to explore a little more. We went shopping a lot in the Mall of Asia, which was fun.”
The Filipinas are a team the Philippine Diaspora can get behind since players come from professional clubs in Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and other countries in addition to the Philippines.
The team chemistry reminded Nya of home in San Diego. “There were thirty of us in the camp. It felt like family hour all the time. And then we played soccer for a couple hours before we go back to family time.
Some in her soccer family were Nya’s opponents in America. “I was familiar with some players whom I played against in college. Janae DeFazio became one of my close friends,” she says of the University of California, Los Angeles alumnae and current footballer for Racing Power in Portugal.
Once she mentioned Janae DeFazio’s name, she regretted not having time to list all her Philippine teammates. “I don’t want to leave anyone out.”
Stanford Women’s Soccer Coach Paul Ratcliffe (far right) with Nya’s family.
Filipinos Know How to Party
Matches weren’t played during training camp, but an intrasquad scrimmage provided a sampling of Filipino hospitality. To say the least, “The crowd was very fun.”
She shared the definitive Filipino experience with her teammates. “They had drones making different words and shapes in the sky. Five minutes into the game, and we still can’t hear each other because there’s fireworks going off. Then we get distracted by a girl kicking a soccer ball into the sky.”
She observed that fans were “highly invested” in the team following its 2023 World Cup run. “Even though there are higher expectations of the team, it’s important to take things one step at a time. Before you start assuming we’re going to make it this far in the World Cup, we need to make it to the World Cup first.
Qualifying games are only getting started with two years before the teams divide up into the group stage leading to the World Cup tournament. “We need to focus on what’s in front of us. Then we can focus on the World Cup.” One way to build confidence and momentum, she says, “is to hit milestones like beating a top-ranked opponent.”
An NWSL regular season lasts 30 games, not including the postseason, with plenty international games in between. Match after match will wear down bodies and build up stress levels. She acknowledges, “There’s going to be a physical toll, but at the end of the day, this is what I love to do.
“Representing your hometown and your country. That’s so much bigger than just playing soccer. Once you get to this level, it’s a great opportunity to step on the field every day.”
A February training camp gave Nya her first visit to the Philippines and an introduction to her Filipinas teammates, many of whom are Fil-Ams, too.
Why See Nya Play?
The late Brazilian soccer star (and G.O.A.T.) Pelé called soccer the “Beautiful Game.” An impromptu soccer match paused one of the bloodiest battles in World War I. Franklin Foer, one of the genius Foer brothers, wrote How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization to great acclaim.
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, and probably the universe (until NASA proves otherwise), not only because it’s entertaining. People of every generation feel a preternatural connection when kicking a ball whose circumference is slightly larger than their head. Anyone who senses something missing from their lives should attend a soccer game to find community and gather good memories to dilute the mean stuff we can’t ignore.
If there’s anything else I can say to convince you to see Nya Harrison play, assume I said it. You will be happy for 90 minutes plus stoppage time.
When Anthony Maddela was home in Los Angeles battling cancer during the pandemic, he streamed European soccer games. He follows Brest in Ligue 1, Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga, Real Madrid in La Liga, and Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League. He grew up a Seattle Sounders fan in the defunct North American Soccer League.
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