We recently took you to Colombia. This month, we’re checking in with the first Paraguayan player in the NWSL.
Claudia Martínez stood frozen, as her Washington Spirit teammates swarmed around her. The familiar sounds of a raucous Audi Field in Washington, D.C. rang from the stands. Her smile widened as she soaked it all in.
The 18-year-old had just scored her first goal for the Spirit in a gritty display of her speed, athleticism and football IQ. As a quintet of defenders closed in, she struck the ball with her right foot. It ricocheted off an opposing player into open space and, without hesitation, Martínez shot again, this time with her left foot, scoring the Spirit’s fourth and final goal in a shutout win over the Kansas City Current last weekend. She fell backwards to the turf as the ball slid into the net and raised her arms. History made.
“I went looking for it in every match, and, finally, in that game, it happened,” Martínez tells The Athletic in Spanish during a video call on Thursday. “At first, I couldn’t believe it, but then I came back down to earth.”
In that moment, the quiet teenager — known to many as Claudinha — became the first Paraguayan to score a goal in the NWSL.
Martínez signed a three-year contract with the Spirit in January, fresh off her 18th birthday and moving for a reported near-million-dollar transfer fee. Her arrival was one of the biggest surprises of the NWSL offseason, signaling a historic moment for both the young star and her homeland.
“I can assure you,” Rodrigo Nogués, president of her Asunción-based previous team Club Olimpia, told The Athletic around the time of her signing, “this is one of the most significant deals in the history of Paraguayan women’s football.
“Today, we are presenting to the international market a mature, top-tier athlete ready to make history.”
Martinez inherited her love of soccer from her father, who played competitively in local leagues. She grew up in Capitán Bado, a “cozy” town near Paraguay’s eastern border with Brazil. Soccer wasn’t accessible to her there. She didn’t have access to teams or academies, and played her soccer with boys instead. She leaned into handball too, which was also popular. However, everything changed when she was 15 years old, and a woman who played futsal invited her to join in. She later connected Martínez with a team for a tryout.
It wasn’t long before she began playing professionally for Sportivo Ameliano, which competes in the top women’s division in Paraguay. After one season there, she signed with Asunción neighbor Olimpia, one of the nation’s most decorated clubs, scoring 10 goals across 25 appearances and helping the team to second-place league finishes in consecutive seasons.
“Individually, it helped me grow tremendously,” she says. “You had to bring out the best in yourself at every training session just to make the starting 11, and that was something that helped me a lot.”
Simultaneously, Martínez was on the rise at international level, fulfilling a lifelong dream to represent her beloved Paraguay. She received her first senior call-up at age 16.
“I always dreamed of wearing the Paraguayan jersey,” Martínez says. She pauses before switching to guaraní, a native language in Paraguay that many people speak. “Chemopirimba,” she said, explaining how the phrase is similar to goosebumps, or piel de gallina in Spanish. That is what she felt when she debuted in that kit. “It was an incredibly emotional moment for me,” she adds.
A year later, Martínez catapulted onto the global women’s soccer scene with a breakout performance at the 2025 Copa América Femenina in Ecuador, scoring a hat-trick on her debut against Bolivia and tying Brazil’s Amanda Gutierres, who would go on to be a Ballon d’Or Féminin nominee, for most goals in the tournament with six. She was also top scorer at the South American Under-17 Women’s Championship last May.
“Ever since I was a little girl, my dream was to play,” Martínez says. “I always had my sights set on playing in the big leagues, whether in the United States or in the Spanish League.”
The Spirit, among other teams, took notice.
Martínez knew from the moment she turned 17 that her future was outside of Paraguay: “When this great opportunity came my way, why wouldn’t I go for it?”
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Since arriving in Washington, D.C., Martínez has developed a routine.
Her days naturally revolve around soccer, but she makes time for moments that connect her to home – calling her family back home, or sipping tereré, a typical Paraguayan drink consisting of yerba maté. She looks forward to her folks coming to the U.S. to see her soon. While here, she said she may just make the most of seeing her favorite player, Lionel Messi, in action for MLS champion Inter Miami.
Spirit head coach Adrián González has steadily integrated Martínez into the group. He described her as a “huge talent with a bright future”, but wants to be “patient” with her. Martínez has featured in all seven of Washington’s games so far, with her minutes varying per match. The most she played was the second half as a substitute against Bay FC on April 5.
“We want to be patient with her because we know that coming to this league is always a big step,” González said at the start of the season. “It’s her first experience abroad, and we know that that’s going to take some time.”
That said, her wealth of experience with the national team at her young age had prepared Martínez for this moment. She values learning from her new teammates, including veteran South American stars such as Leicy Santos. The same day Martínez made history as the first Paraguayan to score in the NWSL, Santos became the first Colombian in the league to score two goals in a game.
Martínez is growing as a player already, she says, and even though she may be one of the youngest players in the league, that part has never phased her: “On the pitch, I forget about everything. Age doesn’t matter.”
The next generation of Paraguayan women’s footballers are poised to propel the sport forward, with Martínez leading the way.
She and the under-17s side won their age group’s South American Women’s Championship for the first time last year. That qualified them for the Under-17 World Cup in Morocco this past fall, and the team reached the round of 32 before losing 1-0 to eventual bronze medallists Mexico. Next year, Paraguay will host the Under-17 South American Women’s Championship. As for last year’s Copa América Femenina, Paraguay finished fifth.
Martínez, who dreams of one day winning the World Cup with Paraguay’s senior team, knows the fact she’s playing in the NWSL matters in the long run. Being the first to do anything usually comes with a sense of duty, but this teenager views her opportunity with more optimism.
“I don’t view it as a responsibility, but rather as a door — an opening for other girls to realize that they can do it, and that, by pursuing their dreams, anything is possible.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Washington Spirit, Paraguay, NWSL, Women’s Soccer, FIFA Women’s World Cup
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