The Expert Edit features interviews with specialists about the products they swear by in their chosen field. For the latest installment, we spoke to star athlete Brianna Pinto about her top soccer product recommendations.
Soccer is in Brianna Pinto‘s DNA. Her parents were both NCAA Division I student-athletes, her father mastering soccer and her mom excelling in softball. When Pinto saw her older brother embrace soccer at a young age, it felt natural for her to follow in his cleat-clad footsteps. “I fell in love with the sport from day one,” she says, noting that she was the “only girl on a boys team” in Rainbow Soccer League in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Today, she continues to break barriers in the sport she so deeply loves, becoming the first academy player to play for N.C. Courage. And over the course of her decorated collegiate career at University of North Carolina, she was named the 2019 U.S. Soccer Young Female Player of the Year, a 2x All-American, and the 2021 MAC Hermann Trophy Finalist. “This sport has stretched me in so many different ways,” she shares. “It’s taught me how to devote my energy to something so much bigger than myself.”
This sport has stretched me in so many different ways. It’s taught me how to devote my energy to something so much bigger than myself.
For Pinto, that looks like creating opportunities for young Black girls who are still woefully underrepresented in the sport. In November, she’ll join fellow players from the Black Women’s Player Collective to co-host the Next Wave National Showcase, the first-ever national showcase of top-ranked Black women soccer players in the U.S. A partnership with Allstate and Black Star, the beloved soccer community platform cultivating Black soccer culture, this event aims to create pathways to the collegiate and professional level for the top-performing Black female soccer players from high schools across the country. “Not only will they receive high-quality coaching on the field, but they will also complete off-field educational programming such as career planning sessions, college prep sessions, and nutrition/mental health sessions,” says Pinto.
When she isn’t mentoring the next generation of athletes or playing herself, Pinto is all about cultivating new experiences with her family and friends. “I love to try new restaurants and go on new adventures while traveling,” she reveals, adding that reading and playing basketball, tennis, and pickleball are high on her list of hobbies. Her biggest priority, however, is her faith. “It helps me remain humble and grateful, but also hopeful and inspired,” she says. “I do all things in life for the glory of God because it is such a gift to be healthy, to have a wonderful family, and to do what I love for a living.”
Keep scrolling to discover Pinto’s top product recommendations for aspiring soccer stars.
