Costa Rica and NWSL star Rocky Rodriguez on the complexities of her “American dream”
From her earliest childhood memories in San Jose, Costa Rica, Raquel “Rocky” Rodriguez was laser-focused on a career in soccer. Perhaps it was the impact of her father, Sivianni Rodriguez, who played for the Costa Rican national team and began coaching her almost as soon as she could walk. But in both her recollection and that of Sivianni and Rocky’s mother Grettel, it was the internal drive that fueled the dream.
“When I was a little girl, around 7 years old, fútbol was running through my veins,” Rodriguez said in the latest episode of My New Favorite Futbolista, a podcast collaboration between NBC Sports, Telemundo and On Her Turf introducing listeners to some of the most dynamic players in soccer and their stories off the pitch. “I was very passionate about fútbol. I would breathe fútbol.”
“I would say, ‘Of course, my love,’ but deep inside of me I didn’t believe her,” Gretel Rodriguez remembers. “I would still say, ‘Darling, you can dream as much as you want.’ I would tell her, ‘We’ll see what life brings us. And she told me, ‘No one will stop me from reaching what I want. No one, not even you.'”
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That passion would take Rocky to the Costa Rican national team, Penn State, and the NWSL. She would score Costa Rica’s first ever Women’s World Cup goal and be named Rookie of the Year with the Portland Thorns in 2016. Her three childhood goals, written on a sheet of paper – “To get a university scholarship in the United States to study through soccer, to play with the Costa Rica national team, and to play soccer professionally” – would all come to fruition before she turned 23. But with those victories came the unique challenge of leaving family and making her mark and her home in an unfamiliar community.
As a teenager, Rodriguez earned the opportunity to represent Costa Rica with the U17 and U20 national teams, with an eye always towards making it to the U.S. to study and train. At the Concacaf Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament in 2012, Rodriguez played in front of Erica Walsh, head coach for the Penn State women’s soccer team, who immediately saw potential. Penn State offered Rodriguez a full ride, but the process for international application to an American university was fraught with bureaucratic slowdown. “I remember thinking,” Rodriguez recalled in 2023, “‘Please, let me in. I promise I will be a good student.'”
After a tense waiting period, Rodriguez was accepted to the College of Health and Human Development at Pennsylvania State University, beginning in the fall of 2012. On the field, she took Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors in 2012 and was named Big Ten Midfielder of the Year in 2014, but also dealt with major homesickness and an unexpected language barrier.
“I started learning English when I was in preschool,” Rodriguez said of her early years in the U.S.. “And yet I understood maybe 50% of what people told me. I had to learn the technical language of soccer, too.”
Confidence was a barrier too.
“First of all, the style of play of soccer and the intensity and just the physicality and fitness, that was a lot for me to handle,” Rodriguez recalled. “I thought I had prepared for preseason at Penn State, and then when I got there, I actually kind of broke down because I just felt like I wasn’t good enough. There were days when I would wake up, saying, ‘I’m super grateful to have this opportunity and to be here, how nice that this.’ And other days or the next time I would say, “’What am I doing here? I already want to leave; I don’t want to be here now.'”
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Despite these challenges, Rodriguez would leave Penn State as a four-year starter, team captain in her 2015 senior season and the MAC Hermann Trophy winner, given to the top men’s and women’s college soccer players annually. She started her professional career in the NWSL with the Sky Blue FC and was voted NWSL Rookie of the Year in 2016. In early 2020, she landed with the Portland Thorns, who took home the NWSL championship in 2022, while also putting together a powerhouse senior international career with the Costa Rican national team.
And along the way, she found a deepening respect for her home country, despite complicated emotions about the low pay and poor resources she’d seen herself and other female players receive early in her career.
“I think that when I left Costa Rica, I was very young,” Rodriguez told the My New Favorite Futbolista team. “I was 18 years old and I only saw the bad or what frustrated me in my country, but as I grew older, I go, come back, and come back. And every time I return to Costa Rica, I appreciate the little things. Since Costa Rica is a beautiful country because of its people, because of the food, the climate and well, my heart it is still in Costa Rica, because that is where my family, my story, my childhood is. It’s who I am, and nothing will ever be able to erase it.”
And as for the United States?
“Being in the U.S. hasn’t been easy,” Rodriguez said. “The most challenging part has been to leave my family in Costa Rica. And the most difficult part has been the physical separation. In a sense, I know that for my family it is also very difficult to have me so far away, but I’m very blessed to have this family because they thought about me first and never cut my wings. Actually, they gave me the wings to pursue my dreams, even though that meant a sacrifice for my parents too. And I know we cannot turn back the time that I’ve been far away. That’s the hardest part.”
My New Favorite Futbolista, hosted by World Cup champion Meghan Klingenberg and Mexico National Team star Janelly Farias, will introduce you to more inspiring soccer players leading up to the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Check out the podcast feed or watch the video version on the NBC Sports YouTube page.
2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup schedule, start time, dates, how to watch live
When: July 20 to August 20
Group stage kick-off times: 12:30am, 1am, 1:30am, 3am, 3:30am, 4am, 6am, 7am, 8am, 8:30am, 8pm, 9pm, 10pm (all ET)
Location: Australia and New Zealand
TV channels en Español: Telemundo, Universo, Peacock
Streaming en Español: Peacock (all 64 matches)
Follow along with ProSoccerTalk and On Her Turf for the latest news, scores, storylines, and updates surrounding the 2023 World Cup, and be sure to subscribe to NBC Sports on YouTube!
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Costa Rica and NWSL star Rocky Rodriguez on the complexities of her “American dream” originally appeared on NBCSports.com
