An hour and a half after every training session, Kurt Kelley knew to reach for his phone. It was like clockwork: his screen alight, the voice on the other end apologising and promising that at tomorrow’s training session she would do better.
“She wanted to have the perfect session — no mistakes,” recalls Kelley of a 12-year-old Phallon Tullis-Joyce, laughing at the memory.
“People only see when you’ve made it, but there’s so much work that’s been done prior. So much sacrifice, emotions, good days, bad days. It’s just a grinding situation. Phallon was also striving.”
Kelley — a former professional goalkeeper in Costa Rica who runs KK Athletics training in Shoreham, New York — has seen the grind first-hand. That Tullis-Joyce, 28, now wears the No 1 shirt at Manchester United and has earned her first senior call-up to the United States women’s national team (USWNT) is a measure of it.
Her failure to make her local Olympic Development Program (ODP) team aged 12 was a setback, but Kelley remembers endless sessions of bare-handed tennis ball catches, trash-can dives and technical training. Tullis-Joyce chose to forego a career in marine biology but was not drafted into the NWSL, took a gamble in France and played second fiddle to Mary Earps last season at United.
The “consummate athlete” is how Tullis-Joyce’s former head coach at University of Miami, Sarah Barnes, remembers her.
“My dream goalkeeper is Phallon Tullis-Joyce,” said Leicester City head coach Amandine Miquel — who coached Tullis-Joyce for three seasons at french side Reims — when asked in the days leading up to the start of the season whom she would give the Leicester No 1 shirt to. “Phallon is my No 1. He (Manchester United manager Marc Skinner) doesn’t want to give me her, so we will wait.”
This is Tullis-Joyce’s speciality: for the space she vacates to linger in the memory.
“I remember her last season (at Miami), we played against eventual champions Florida State,” says Barnes. “We won but during extra time, the opposition fans sitting behind Phallon were cheering because they thought a shot was going into the top corner to win it. But Phallon got to it. And you could see the fans go from a celebratory position to putting their hands over their face, unable to believe what had happened.”
Over the course of her career, Tullis-Joyce has become synonymous with this involuntary sound of incredulity, generally inspired after a logic-defying save. Some might react to her success this season in the same manner.
But for those who have witnessed the American’s journey up close, it is anything but logic-defying.
Tullis-Joyce has earned her first senior call-up to the USWNT (Jess Hornby/Getty Images)
“She’s a unique young woman in that she was so good at focusing on the lonely process of being a professional,” Barnes says. “A lot of people say they want to be professional, but they’re not willing to put in all that extra work. She’s always been fantastic with that.”
Within minutes of meeting Tullis-Joyce, Kelley felt the prickle of irritation.
Before the former goalkeeper had potential. But New York’s ODP team had rejected Tullis-Joyce. Her mom could not understand. Kelley, however, could.
“They didn’t take her because they didn’t see the tremendous potential she has,” Kelley says. “A lot of times these development programs want players who can make the team and win at the age and level they are. They do not want to invest the time and effort to polish and develop raw talent.
“Phallon had better hand-eye co-ordination, sense of time and space, composure and fearlessness when coming off her line for one-versus-ones than most goalkeepers. It was just a matter of fine-tuning.”
So Kelley invested and after a year Tullis-Joyce made her ODP team. From there, Tullis-Joyce committed herself to “work, time and (sometimes) tears”. Sessions increased to four times weekly, with two-hour commutes to train at her club in New Jersey on top of that.
Exercises spanned the gamut of convention. Trash cans acted as hurdles to increase her distance on power dives. Kelley used a racket to hit tennis balls at her to improve hand-eye co-ordination and reaction time, while developing a lower, more forward-leaning stance to expand her shot-stopping range (Tullis-Joyce still incorporates bare-hand training into her sessions). Sometimes, there were blindfolds and a ball tossed against her body, with Tullis-Joyce tasked with reacting “to where she thought the ball would be”. Plyometrics became a must to build muscle on her towering but “wiry” frame.
The efforts could leave Tullis-Joyce bruised and battered. She also became a benchmark. When approached by parents touting their child as the “next best thing”, Kelley invited them to train with Tullis-Joyce.
“It was a wake-up call for the parent and for the player that, hey, you’re not as good as you think. I’ve got this 14-year-old and she’s kicking your butt,” he says.
Tullis-Joyce’s natural gifts were clear but it was her zealous work ethic that particularly impressed Kelley. Imperfect reps did not count in her book. Tullis-Joyce would demand more, until she satisfied herself or boiled in frustration.
“Especially at 12, 13, 14 years old,” says Kelley. “Eventually, she grew out of that and accepted mistakes. But previously, it’d be devastating or embarrassing to her.”
The pursuit for perfection on the pitch was even more striking given she devoted the same level of energy to her other life passion: marine biology.
Tullis-Joyce was in kindergarten when she announced to classmates her dream to pursue a career involving the ocean. That she simultaneously dreamed of one day playing for the USWNT did not exist to her as a tension but rather a matter of coexistence. In between training sessions and matches, Tullis-Joyce consumed books on aquatic life and took dives at nearby beaches. Competitive tournaments on the road became opportunities for further exploration. Museum trips were interspersed between match days. Her social media became a hub for her discoveries, eventually transforming into an educational space for her followers.
“Her goal was always to become a marine biologist,” Kelley says. “But she knew she could handle playing at the high level and also completing her career. She also knew wherever she played had to be close to water.”
Barnes remembers the day vividly. It is difficult to forget the sight of Tullis-Joyce, all 6ft 2in (188cm) of her, on the University of Miami training pitches saving shots in a chicken costume.
“It was approaching Easter,” Barnes says. “She had a scavenger hunt for her team-mates, with little candies and everything.”
Barnes laughs at the memory. There are more. Molly Lynch, a team-mate at Miami, recalls an ever-present catalogue of costumes gracing training: a chicken, a rabbit, a helmet-wearing ladybug. Team WhatsApp groups swam with marine biology factoids. Once, a clip about sea cucumbers from the cartoon series SpongeBob SquarePants was circulated in earnest.
Phallon Tullis-Joyce dressed for a team Easter egg hunt, left, and with coach Kurt Kelley (Sarah Barnes/Kurt Kelley)
“We both studied marine biology, and she was obsessed with the mantis shrimp,” Lynch says, holding back her laughter. “She used to do this little sneak attack-slap thing. She called it the mantis shrimp.”
The image is striking when juxtaposed with someone Barnes unequivocally calls “the hardest-working player” she’s ever come across in her playing and coaching career.
“That’s what probably pushes her most,” Barnes says. “She hates being scored on. She hates losing. She waited in the wings for a year (at Miami). But she can do that because she has the ability to create fun and joy.”
Tullis-Joyce was ‘red-shirted’ during her freshman year — a system in American collegiate sports that allows student-athletes to sit out of competitive games in their first season to develop but keeps them eligible to play in the four years after, despite being a fifth-year student. Still required to train and attend matches, Tullis-Joyce also joined the university scuba diving club, eventually qualifying to conduct scientific marine research for the school.
On the pitch, Tullis-Joyce continued to fight for the No 1 shirt, eventually claiming it in her third year and establishing herself as one of the best keepers in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
But results were difficult. Under manager Mary-Frances Monroe, Miami lost double-digit games in the 2014 and 2015 seasons. A first-round qualification for the ACC tournament in 2016 was eclipsed by a torrid 2017 season, which ended with five wins and 11 defeats and Monroe’s sacking.
Barnes’ appointment in 2018, Tullis-Joyce’s final season, became a moment of “release” for the team, says Lynch.
“It was that freeing feeling, and I think that really let Phallon fall into herself,” Lynch says.
Struck by Tullis-Joyce’s natural athleticism, Barnes focused on improving her goal kicks and distribution. Tullis-Joyce took the focus to another level. “Even to the point where she had left the university and was playing in France, she would send me videos of her trying to improve her kicking game,” says Barnes. “Videos from the front, the side, behind, all on her own. She wanted to analyse where her non-kicking foot was, where she was striking, what part of the ball and foot, how the eighth video compared to the first.”
Tullis-Joyce has always been a dedicated trainer and USWNT manager Emma Hayes says her kicking is an area to work on (Luke Walker/Getty Images)
Just as Tullis-Joyce did not countenance poor reps as a pre-teen, mistakes in small-sided training games were treated to the same vocal instructions as in matches at Miami.
“In all aspects of her life, from the field to the classroom, she was just very much aligned with that being perfect idea,” Lynch says. “Even outside of practice, she would visualise ways to improve not only her playing but also the team dynamics.”
Yet she did so with a rare mix of compassion and humour.
“Everywhere she goes, people love her,” Barnes says. “She toes that line between being competitive and bringing people in.”
Under Barnes’ guidance, Tullis-Joyce achieved Second Team All-ACC honours in her final season while registering 85 saves — the eighth-best single-season record at the university — lifting her collegiate tally to 259 saves, the third-most all-time at Miami.
A late call-up for the USWNT’s Under-23s followed Tullis-Joyce’s successful senior year. It required her to miss part of her graduation ceremony. Barnes knew there was no world in which Tullis-Joyce would not accept the call-up.
“When I arrived, Phallon expressed she had ambitions to play for the national team,” Barnes says. “Of course, you hear that all the time. But Phallon’s the kind of person who does everything with intensity and full effort, all without the ego. I don’t think there’s ever been a question that she wasn’t going to pursue soccer and take it as far as she could.”
Despite the promise of her final season at Miami, Tullis-Joyce was not selected in the 2019 NWSL draft. Foregoing the safe bet marine biology offered, she opted to travel to France for a one-week trial at then second-tier side Stade de Reims. She arrived with no professional contract and no proficiency in French. She departed with one promotion, two seasons of regular top-flight football, a captain’s armband, a fluency in French and a reputation burnished.
A move to NWSL side OL Reign followed, with Tullis-Joyce made to bide her time behind France international Sarah Bouhaddi, making just one appearance during the 2021 season. After Bouhaddi’s departure Tullis-Joyce started all 30 matches of the 2022 season, earning five Save of the Week honours and a nomination for NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year. On the sidelines, fans flocked to see her saves and waved signs with the words “Octopus Army” written on them, references to the educational marine biology videos Tullis-Joyce’s made on her Instagram alongside her work as a rockfish researcher and diver at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma, Washington.
Phallon Tullis-Joyce in action for OL Reign (Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
“She came in a tough time for us and was put straight into the spotlight, and she dealt with it brilliantly,” Reign midfielder Jess Fishlock tells The Athletic. “She’s an exceptional shot-stopper. But as a person, she’s great. She loves what she loves. She’s very eccentric, just a wonderful person.”
GO DEEPER
Jess Fishlock has lots to achieve — with Wales, the Seattle Reign and padel
As soon as Tullis-Joyce moved to Manchester United in 2023, the certified deep diver made the most of Britain’s landscapes, scuba-diving in Oban, Scotland and Anglesey, Wales as well as fossil collecting in Yorkshire and the coasts of Devon and Cornwall.
“You guys have some gorgeous natural marvels, just crazy things I haven’t seen before,” she said at the league’s media day in September. “I saw my first cuttlefish, so honestly, props to you guys! That’s really cool.”
A transfer to Manchester United in 2023 once again consigned Tullis-Joyce to a year on the bench, unable to usurp Earps, a two-time FIFA Best goalkeeper and England’s No 1. Yet the then-26-year-old remained positive. From a recruitment perspective, Tullis-Joyce fitted United’s bill in age, a mix of experience and potential, a hunger to be No 1 and, crucially, the right attitude to be patient. Earps’ departure for Paris Saint-Germain in the summer left a hole. Tullis-Joyce filled it.
If part of her specialty is for the space she vacates to linger in the memory, then the space she fills is becoming the other part. The announcement of USWNT No 1 Alyssa Naeher’s impending retirement from international football casts a sharper light on Tullis-Joyce’s ability to succeed the likes of Bouhaddi and Earps. But also the spaces for improvement.
“Her shot-stopping and her ability to cover the frame is second to none,” said USWNT head coach Emma Hayes after Tullis-Joyce’s call-up. “But in terms of building up with the team, connecting with the team — there’s room for improvement.”
Kelley does not doubt improvement will come. Tullis-Joyce still returns to KK Athletics when breaks permit, always promising to be better tomorrow.
“There are only a few professional athletes at the world level who know how to deal with those emotions,” he says. “It’s a matter of being patient, knowing your time will come. I’m glad things are finally happening for her.”
(Top photo: Matt McNulty/Getty Images)
