San Diego Wave FC 2022 Player Postmortem: Mia Gyau

Mia Gyau was a free agent signing out of Duke University for San Diego Wave FC in 2022. Part of a huge rookie contingent, Gyau comes from a family with extensive soccer experience — her grandfather, father and brother were all internationals — and from a good program like Duke, I think there was a hope she’d be ready for the pros right away.

Gyau’s NCAA career was injury-plagued, as she tore her ACL/MCL and then each Achilles in back-to-back years, taking a medical redshirt year to heal up. That she even made it to the pros is pretty remarkable. There are definitely pros who find a new lease on life after the gauntlet of college sports, and San Diego were effectively taking that gamble with Gyau.

Here are Gyau’s stats with San Diego in 2022:

In the end, Gyau was slowed by injuries in her rookie campaign, albeit more minor ones than the horrors she endured at Duke. She was a regular off the bench in May, picking up the bulk of her minutes in that month, with her last appearance of the month coming in early July.

The highlight of Gyau’s season was her “hockey assist” on her NWSL debut, setting up the winning goal in San Diego’s first-ever regular season game.

It’s too bad NWSL doesn’t keep track of second assists, because Gyau did well to keep the ball moving into the box in what ended up being a smash-and-grab victory for Wave FC.

Gyau didn’t see the field a lot, but San Diego must have liked what they saw, as they exercised her contract option for 2023. At this point, the 24-year-old firmly appears to be depth at fullback, but I think if she can stay healthy she could definitely see some run next season. The sample size of her play in one year is very small, but there does appear to be some potential, and I wouldn’t be shocked if she starts to push for more playing time if she finds a rhythm.

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