Last Wednesday, USA National Team athlete, Isabela Da Cruz played the last 15 minutes in OGC Nice‘s French 1st Division match vs St Amand and made the most of her opportunity, scoring 3 goals with active play on both offense and defense. She was clearly OGC Nice’s bright spot in a 23-32 defeat and deserving of the club player of match award. This video shows the three goals she scored and the entire match can be seen at this link. (queued up to the last 15 minutes) (Side note: St Amand’s Head Coach is former USA Women’s National Team Coach, Edina Borsos)

OGC Nice’s 1st team is currently in 5th place in the Butagaz Energy League and Da Cruz plays behind the team’s leading scorer, French International player Marie-Helene Sajak. Da Cruz who is 19 years old and turns 20 later this month gets most of her current playing time with OGC Nice’s 2nd team which plays in NF1, the 3rd level of French Women’s handball. For the 2nd team she has 35 goals in 10 matches for a 3.5 goals/game average. (See Below)

Commentary: Unfair Expectations, Now on a Path to being Met

I first heard of Da Cruz back in 2021 and the bio of a 15 year old American, 5’9″ (176 cm), left handed, Right Back who had already played some handball in Brazil seemed too good to be true. And, my expectations further climbed when she made the leap to move to France to attend a French Handball Academy in Dijon. To put things into perspective, this was a remarkably unprecedented move for a U.S. Handball player. We have hardly anyone this age even knowing what handball is, let alone playing the sport and being deemed worthy of attending a French Handball Academy.

When I started to see her play for U.S. Youth and Jr National Teams my expectation was for a European trained player to tear through inexeperienced North American and Caribbean Handball Confederation (NACHC) competition. So, I was disappointed to see a competent player, but one prone for mistakes and somewhat hesitant at times. Over the course of several competitions I saw improvement, but nothing to the level to match my expecations.

Fast forward to today and I’m rethinking those initial expecations and deeming them unfair. The trajectory of development is different for every player. And, looking back at my own skills development in different sports… I really should know better. Slow and steady development can lead to a moment when everything starts to come together and click.

Perhaps, one shouldn’t read too much into one 15 minute stretch in a match, but I now see a player where things are coming together. Isabela Da Cruz doesn’t have lightning 1v1 speed, but she’s starting to understand the game and is putting herself in position to score and/or be a threat to score so she can make that next pass for a great scoring opportunity. I’m not sure what the trajectory end point will be, but she’s just 19 years old… with plenty of time to further improve.