Mia realizes she doesn’t want to go back to school. All she wants now is to marry Oliver. Together, the two of them are fixing up the home that was Liz’s, then Mia and Cricket’s, and is now theirs. Painting the walls with Oliver, Mia envisions their future, together but without Liz, and thinks about how love and loss go together. She’s thrilled when Cricket tells her she’s dating Yaz and is in love.

Cricket brings Yaz home for winter break. Yaz gets along well with Mia and Oliver. After dinner one night, while the four are out on a walk, Oliver asks for Cricket’s blessing to marry Mia and Cricket gives it. He suggests the next day or the one after for a wedding.

Oliver proposes to Mia the day after his conversation with Cricket and the following day, they get married at the courthouse. Mia wears Liz’s favorite dress, a white one that Liz wore every Fourth of July and when they attended the World Cup Quarter-Finals in Paris. Mia also wears Liz’s red ribbon around her wrist.

In Cricket’s junior year of college, she stays at Sloane’s childhood home, a mansion in West Palm Beach, while they both attend the National Team’s January Camp. Sloane has Cricket sleep in her trophy room in what might be a playful bit of competitiveness or a mean-spirited intimidation tactic. Cricket laughs it off but wonders if she’s really in on the joke. Everyone at the camp is friends with Sloane, and Cricket senses how much she’s in Sloane’s shadow.

Meanwhile, Mia is pregnant. She and Oliver spend Christmas in Key Largo; when Mia has a miscarriage, Cricket blames the trip for jinxing the pregnancy.

Mia and Oliver have been dealing with fertility issues for two years when Mia decides her rigid diet restrictions aren’t working. She tells Oliver they’re taking a break from trying to conceive so they can enjoy themselves. The dinner table is covered with junk food, sushi, alcohol, and even drugs, including marijuana, mushrooms, ecstasy, and cocaine. The decision to stop trying is a huge and immediate stress reliever.

Cricket is spending the summer before her senior year coaching soccer in Victory. Yaz, now her girlfriend of four years, just graduated from UCLA and got a job in the LA Mayor’s office. While Yaz is visiting Cricket in Victory, she asks about Cricket’s plans to enter the NWSL draft in January and brings up events in her life that Cricket has missed because of soccer. Cricket avoids a fight by changing the subject.

Sloane makes the National Team roster, while Cricket remains in the pool but still has never gotten onto the team.

Cricket, Mia, and Oliver are at the Philadelphia Convention Center for the NWSL draft. Yaz opted not to come, knowing she’ll be too upset to be supportive if Cricket isn’t drafted by LA’s team. Cricket knows that only 25% of the 400 women registered for the draft will be selected. However, the Bruins won the NCAA championships last fall and Coach Teague invited Cricket to the National Team’s January camp again, so she has a good chance. The Chicago Red Stars select Cricket in the second round, much earlier than goalkeepers usually get selected.

Cricket has been in Chicago six months, and her long-distance relationship with Yaz isn’t going well. When Yaz visits, they argue and break up. After Yaz leaves, Teague calls to inform Cricket she isn’t invited to camp in June and therefore won’t be considered for the World Cup in Brazil that summer. Sloane, now the starting goalkeeper for the National Team, calls Cricket and urges her to focus on the next opportunity, the Olympics in LA next year.

Everything seems to be going terribly for Cricket. The Chicago Red Stars finish their season last in the league, while Sloane’s team is in the playoffs and ranked in first place. Playing soccer is now a joyless obligation for Cricket. She’s been passed up for January camp once again, and Yaz has a new girlfriend.

Cricket goes home for a visit and learns that Mia is pregnant again and having a girl. The good news helps snap Cricket out of her dark mood and motivates her to work even harder. Oliver helps her train and tells her about his new approach to coaching, part of which revolves around the concepts of opportunity, monomyth, and legacy. Pregnancy makes Mia miss Liz in a new way.

After Mia, Oliver, and Cricket spend Christmas together, Teague calls unexpectedly. Another player opted out of camp, so Cricket gets a last-minute invitation.

In Mia’s third trimester, Oliver convinces her to turn Liz’s room, which hasn’t been changed since Liz’s death in 2019, into a nursery for the baby. In the room, Liz’s spirit appears to Mia for the first time. She says it’s the first time Mia has needed her, and that although Mia has always been the rock of the family, she’ll need her own mother when the baby comes.

In the six months since Christmas, Cricket has played phenomenally, so Teague selects her for the Olympic team roster. She and Sloane will compete for the starting position. Sloane sends Cricket $500 bed sheets and says whoever earns the starting spot gets to keep them. The unused sheets are symbolic: In soccer, a clean sheet means a goalkeeper hasn’t allowed a single goal. Cricket uses them as motivation, seeing them as evidence that Sloane is nervous about the competition.

The day before Cricket’s team plays their first Olympic match, Mia and Oliver wonder if Cricket will get to be the starting goalkeeper. In the last week of training, she’s out-performed Sloane. The conversation makes Oliver reminisce about meeting Cricket when she was nine. He’s overwhelmed with pride in her.

Cricket is surprised and disappointed when Teague chooses Sloane as the starter because she has more experience. When Sloane gloats, Cricket responds with bitter accusations about Sloane buying her success rather than earning it. They stop speaking to each other and barely interact over the next two weeks as the team advances in the Olympics. Nevertheless, Sloane plays well and Cricket admires her poise and consistency. When Sloane’s injury creates a huge opportunity for Cricket, she makes the most of it and realizes her greatest dream, earning an Olympic gold medal.