Angel City announced the signing of 18-year-old defender Gisele Thompson, a Los Angeles native who is a part of the U.S. women's national team's youth setup, on Thursday. Thompson signed her deal on Nov. 28, four days before her 18th birthday, through the NWSL's new rule for young players. The league introduced the Under-18 entry mechanism ahead of the 2023 season, which allows teams, with the consent of the player and their parents or legal guardians, to add players to an Under-18 entry list and then sign them within 30 days of being placed on the list.
Thompson signed a two-year deal with the club, skipping college despite committing to Stanford.
She will be joined at Angel City by her older sister, Alyssa. The 19-year-old Alyssa Thompson was a candidate for this year's NWSL Rookie of the Year award after scoring four goals in 23 games and was also a member of the USWNT's squad at this year's Women's World Cup.
The two become only the second pair of sisters to play for the same NWSL club after Tori and Maddie Huster, who were both on the books at the Washington Spirit in 2018.
Thompson, like her sister Alyssa, has been one of the U.S.' most well-known youth prospects. She and her sister made headlines in 2022, before either of them turned pro, as the first high school athletes to sign endorsement deals with Nike.
The 18-year-old's credentials speak for themselves. She was on the U.S.' squad at the 2022 U-17 Women's World Cup, where they reached the quarterfinals and also won bronze at the Pan Am Games and silver at the U-20 Women's Concacaf Championship this year. She also was part of the team that won the Concacaf Women's U-17 Championship a year ago.
She also won a state championship with Harvard-Westlake High School alongside her sister and a championship with Santa Clarita Blue Heat, a team in the semi-professional United Women's Soccer. Thompson was most recently competing with Total Futbol Academy, a boys' team in MLS NEXT, MLS' youth setup.
