Players›Nicole Payne

Nicole Payne

Position:: Defender
Nationality:: Nigeria
Born:: 2001-01-18 (age 25)
Height:: 165 cm

Career (2024–, regular seasons; 2020 excluded): 24 GP · 1,261 min · 1 goals · 0 assists

Composite 2026: -0.277 — ranked 285 of 385 Composite page →

Standard Stats

			Playing Time			Performance									Per 90
Rk	Season ▴	Team	GP	GS	Min	Gls	Ast	PK	Sh	SoT	KP	Pass%	CrdY	CrdR	Gls/90	G+A/90
1	2024	Thorns	19	11	1011	0	0	0	2	0	3	75.2	0	0	0.00	0.00
2	2025		0		0	0	0	0	0	0			0	0
3	2026	Pride	5	2	250	1	0	0	2	1	2	73.4	0	0	0.36	0.36
	3 Yrs		24	13	1261	1	0	0	4	1	5	75.0	0	0	0.07	0.07

Advanced Stats

Glossary

					Expected			VAEP				Threat
Rk	Season ▴	Team	Min	Gls	xG	G−xG	xG/90	VAEP	Off	Def	VAEP/90	xT	xT/90	DAxT
1	2024	Thorns	1011	0	0.17	-0.17	0.02	0.91	1.01	-0.09	0.08	2.58	0.23	0.225
2	2025		0	0
3	2026	Pride	250	1	0.10	0.90	0.04	0.93	1.00	-0.07	0.33	0.92	0.33	0.054
	3 Yrs		1261	1	0.27	0.73	0.02	1.84	2.01	-0.16	0.13	3.50	0.25	0.279

Composite Rating

Our overall player rating, unique to this site: five components — xG, ball carries, passes into the box, defensive value, and goalkeeping — combined into one score and averaged across every selection-model run of the season. Rank is her place among all rated players that year.

Glossary

		Components
Rk	Season ▴	xG	Carries	Box Passes	Defense	GK	Composite	Rank	Pool
1	2026	-0.354	0.733	-0.994	-0.641	0.000	-0.277	285	385

Structural Roles

Start counts by role, per season — twice. Explicit is where the team sheet wrote her; Inferredis what a model reading only her on-ball events made of each start. The Read column states each season's verdict from the two most common roles.

			Explicit (Team Sheet)								Inferred (Event Data)
Rk	Season ▴	Starts	GK	FB	CB	DM	CM	AM	W	ST	GK	FB	CB	DM	CM	AM	W	ST	Read
1	2024	11		11								11							played her role
2	2026	2							2								2		played her role
	2 Yrs	13		11					2			11					2		played her role

Similar Players

Nearest neighbors by playing-style embedding (most recent embedded season). Similarity is cosine distance in style space, not quality.

Rk	Player	Team	Season	Pos	Similarity
1	Lauren Milliet	Racing Lou	2024	Midfielder	0.888
2	Haley McCutcheon	Dash	2021	Defender	0.857
3	Christen Westphal	San Diego Wave	2024	Defender	0.826
4	Ryan Williams	Courage	2021	Defender	0.823
5	Olivia Griffitts	Royals	2024	Defender	0.820
6	Janni Thomsen	Royals	2025	Midfielder	0.816
7	Paige Metayer	Spirit	2024	Midfielder	0.813
8	Kate Del Fava	KC Current	2023	Defender	0.807
9	Dorian Bailey	Spirit	2023	Midfielder	0.801
10	Jasmyne Spencer	Angel City	2024	Defender	0.794