To play soccer at a high level requires a certain amount of competitiveness. That quality doesn’t shut off when players leave the pitch and sit down in front of the TV.

“We played a lot of Mario Kart,” said Lexi Missimo of competing at video games with her family growing up.

“We always played it, and Lexi was really good,” explained her sister, Gabby. “We’re just all competitive. We go at it. Like, with anything. But especially Mario Kart.”

Lexi credits her mom as an opponent who drove her to develop her Wii racing chops. In recent years, she also took on her cousin Cole. She didn’t take it easy on him. And still doesn’t.

“I would always beat him. I mean, he’d probably lie and say he beat me, but it’s not true,” she claimed.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a female be so into a video game,” Cole said. “I thought I was good at video games, but no, she was amazing at it, too. She would freak out if she would lose, like, in a funny way, not, like, a ridiculous way. But she was, like, ‘Let’s fire it up again. Let’s go.’ You know, until she would win.”

Losing at Mario Kart in the Missimo household had consequences.

“I think we did punishments. Like, whoever was last had to go get, like, a snack or something out of the pantry,” Lexi explained about her karting contests with Cole. “We played upstairs, and it was downstairs. And I was like, ‘Okay, whoever loses has to go get the snacks, because we are so lazy.’”

Video games represent a space, like sports and STEM, in which women have often been underrepresented. As they have elevated their physical sporting profiles, however, it has also elevated their virtual profiles.

“FIFA actually came out with the NWSL teams and players and we all got rated. We all have our own little avatar,” said Houston Dash goalkeeper Savannah Madden. “I’m on FIFA, the new one, 2024. So if you want to play as me in goal, you totally can.”

Adding female options to the globally popular FIFA video game can only help raise the profile of the actual players those avatars represent.

“That is a huge door opening for female soccer,” suggested Madden. “Once they grow it to include more teams, more players, maybe even like college. Who knows? I think this is just the start, and I’m super excited to see where it goes.”