Taylor Marie Otto (born October 23, 1997) is an American professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

A-League Women A-League Women (known as the Liberty A-League for sponsorship reasons), formerly the W-League, is the top-division women's soccer league in Australia. The W-League was established in 2008 by Football Australia (then known as Football Federatio ...

club Melbourne City.

Club career

Born in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, Otto began her career with CASL ECNL before joining the

North Carolina Tar Heels The North Carolina Tar Heels are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to individuals from the state of North Carolina, the ''Tar Heel ...

of the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

. She red shirted her first season with the Tar Heels after she participated with the United States under-20 side at the

FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup The FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup is an international association football tournament, organized by FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association), for national teams of women under the age of 20. The tournament is held in even-numbere ...

. The next season, in 2017, she became the starting center-back for the Tar Heels, playing all 22 games for the side. After spending four seasons with the Tar Heels, Otto had played 84 matches, scoring 11 goals.

Racing Louisville

On January 13, 2021, Otto was selected first pick of the second round (11th overall) of the

NWSL Draft The NWSL Draft is an annual event which takes place in January of each year where the teams of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) select players who are in their senior season in college or have exhausted their collegiate eligibility. Prior ...

Racing Louisville Racing Louisville Football Club is a National Women's Soccer League team based in Louisville, Kentucky. It began playing in 2021 at Lynn Family Stadium. The team is owned by Soccer Holdings LLC, which also owns Louisville City FC of the USL Cham ...

. She made her debut for the side on April 15, 2021, in the

NWSL Challenge Cup The NWSL Challenge Cup, currently known as the UKG NWSL Challenge Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual tournament organized by the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the top-tier women's league in the United States soccer league system. Th ...

against the Washington Spirit, coming on as a 78th-minute substitute in a 1–0 defeat. On July 27, 2022, Racing Louisville announced that Otto had mutually terminated her contract with the club to pursue playing opportunities in Europe.

Celtic

On August 7, 2022, Otto signed for

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

, and she made her Celtic debut in a 9–0 win against Hibernian.

Gotham FC

In July 2023, Otto joined Gotham FC as a national team replacement player, due to six players of the club being selected to play in the

2023 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is scheduled to be the ninth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the quadrennial international women's football championship contested by the women's national association football teams organised ...

Melbourne City

In September 2023, Otto joined Australian club Melbourne City on a one-year deal.

Career statistics

Club

References

External links

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Profile
at

1997 births Living people Soccer players from Cleveland American women's soccer players United States women's under-20 international soccer players United States women's youth international soccer players Celtic F.C. Women players Melbourne City FC (A-League Women) players National Women's Soccer League players NJ/NY Gotham FC players North Carolina Tar Heels women's soccer players Racing Louisville FC draft picks Racing Louisville FC players Women's association football midfielders {{US-women-footy-bio-stub