What’s next for USWNT striker Catarina Macario with contract talks and an injury lingering?

Catarina Macario’s 2025 was supposed to be a launchpad. Eight goals in ten U.S. appearances, three in the December friendlies against Italy, and a growing on-field chemistry that had teammates and coaches talking about a fully realized star entering her prime. Instead, two months into 2026, the 26-year-old finds herself sidelined by a heel injury, off both Chelsea’s Champions League roster and the USWNT squad for next month’s SheBelieves Cup, and—most consequentially—four months from the expiration of her Chelsea contract.

The timeline is now the story. Macario last played on Dec. 10 in a Champions League group match against Roma. A week earlier she had torched Italy in Florida, but heel pain that flared before Christmas has kept her in rehabilitation ever since. Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor, who lifted the 2021 Champions League trophy with Macario at Lyon, labeled the striker “heading in the right direction” on Jan. 16, yet ruled her out for the subsequent FA Cup tie. U.S. head coach Emma Hayes, who brought Macario to London in 2023, left her off the 23-player SheBelieves roster released last week, stating simply: “She’s not available for selection.”

Availability is only part of the equation. Sources tell The Athletic that Macario has already turned down Chelsea’s extension offer, opening a bidding window that stretches across Europe and back to her adopted home state of California. ESPN reported advanced negotiations between Macario and NWSL side San Diego Wave on Feb. 13; The Athletic describes the Wave as “front-runners.” A move to the U.S. would mark Macario’s first professional season on home soil since her Stanford days and would coincide with the introduction of the league’s High Impact Player rule, a mechanism that allows clubs to spend up to $1 million above the salary cap on marquee signings—though the provision is currently being challenged by the NWSL Players Association.

For Chelsea, the stakes are equally acute. The reigning WSL champions trail Manchester City by nine points and must navigate a quarter-final against continental holders Arsenal without their American No. 9. An early transfer would at least yield a fee; after June 30, Macario can walk for nothing. She is not the only Chelsea star whose deal expires this summer, but her departure would remove a potential game-changer ahead of a 2027 World Cup cycle in which England’s top flight hopes to reassert global dominance.

Wherever Macario lands, minutes are the priority. An ACL tear in 2022 limited her to intermittent cameos, and the current heel issue has again interrupted momentum. Hayes, who capped 44 players in 2025, still lists Macario and fellow forward Sophia Wilson as her first-choice nines “if fit,” evidence that the coaching staff views a healthy Macario as central to its Brazil 2027 plans. The question is whether she can reach that tournament at full strength—and in the right shirt.

The clock ticks toward March 16, the final day NWSL teams can register new players, and toward July 1, when Macario’s Chelsea tenure officially ends. Between now and then, every week of rehab, every training session, every phone call from an interested club will shape not merely a career crossroads, but the attacking identity of the U.S. women’s national team itself.