USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps signs with Denver - ESPN

United States women's national team captain Lindsey Heaps is heading home in June, when she will return to the NWSL to join expansion side Denver Summit FC.

Heaps is expected to join Denver in June after finishing the season and her current contract with French powerhouse OL Lyonnes. She is signed with Denver through the 2029 NWSL season.

It's a move that, for some, may have felt inevitable for the Colorado native, but she told ESPN that she wasn't sure the timing would work out when rumors of Denver expansion first surfaced years ago.

«I didn't want to just say, 'I want to do it because it's Denver,'» Heaps told ESPN. «I want it to be the right place for me and my career. So I tried to take as much of the Denver aspect out of it as possible, but it's very difficult.»

Heaps added that «the more I thought about it, the more it became real.»

The hardest part, she said, was keeping the news from her parents. Heaps, who turns 32 in May, grew up in Golden, Colorado, just outside of Denver. At 18 years old, she signed with Paris Saint-Germain in 2012, becoming the first U.S. women's player to skip college and turn professional straight out of high school.

Four years later, at the request of U.S. Soccer, Heaps returned to the U.S. to join the Portland Thorns FC, where she won two NWSL Shields and the NWSL Championship, in addition to league MVP in 2018, before she left for France again to join Lyonnes.

The midfielder helped Lyonnes win its record eighth European title in 2022, in addition to three straight league titles. She scored 12 goals with eight assists in 15 starts last season.

Heaps' arrival will be a huge deal for Summit FC, a team that kicks off in March and hopes to compete from the start. General manager Curt