Abigail Lynn Dahlkemper

Bay FC signed Abby Dahlkemper on 26 August 2024 in a trade with San Diego Wave that sent $50,000 in allocation money the other way. Four days later she marked her debut with a goal against Portland Thorns, an immediate answer for a defender brought in on a deal built around name value as much as need.

Her route into the professional game ran through UCLA, where she won the NCAA Championship in 2013, before short stints with Pali Blues and LA Blues carried her into the NWSL. Western New York Flash gave her a first foothold in the league, but it was at North Carolina Courage, from 2017, that her reputation as one of the league's more composed centre-backs took shape. The 2017 NWSL Defender of the Year award, won during her time there, marked the high point of that spell.

A loan to Manchester City in 2021 took her briefly into the English game, followed by a stint at Houston Dash the same year before she settled at San Diego Wave from 2022 to 2024, the club she left to join Bay FC.

At international level, Dahlkemper has been part of the US set-up since 2016 and has made 84 appearances for the national team without scoring. She won gold with the United States at the 2019 World Cup and added an Olympic bronze medal at the delayed Tokyo Games in 2020, two campaigns that came either side of her club move to North Carolina.

At Bay FC, she wears the number 13 shirt, and her contract runs through the 2026 season with an option to extend further.