Exclusive by Ella McShane (13/2/26)
Above: Gabby Hollar celebrates after scoring for Perth Glory at Western Sydney Wanderers on the opening night of the season. Photo: Kris Goman for Impetus.
Following a decorated collegiate career in America, forward Gabby Hollar earned the move of a lifetime to Australia to pursue her professional soccer career.
After taking the NPL in Victoria by storm with the Boroondara-Carey Eagles, A-League interest naturally followed, the American now in her second season out west with Perth Glory. We sat down with Hollar for an exclusive 1:1 interview going through everything from the early years to her hopes for the future of A-League.
Hailing from a small town in Ohio, Hollar the oldest of three, has her earliest sporting memories dedicated to soccer and basketball.
“We were very much focused on that as family. I have two younger sisters and we’ve all played soccer for as long as I can remember.”
“I was a bit better at soccer than basketball, so that’s kind of why we stuck with that. I also could grow a few inches if I wanted to play basketball. I think in year eight was when I decided I actually wanted to play college soccer.”
“I live in the middle of nowhere in the U.S. So all the people who were trying to play college were playing on big teams that travelled all over the country.”
“For my family, that just was not a realistic situation for us. I wanted to be a kid for as long as possible, and so I didn’t want to spend my weekends during school travelling to go to big tournaments, and plus financially, [it] just wasn’t feasible. And so I played for a small club. I drove an hour each way to play and then spent my weekends, summers, going to college camps to try to get seen by coaches.”
Hollar’s efforts were rewarded following a camp with, then top dogs, West Virginia University, the young forward committing her collegiate career to the Mountaineers. However, it wasn’t exactly the right fit.
“I was at the standstill of, do I want to even keep playing soccer or do I want to transfer? Because transferring in college wasn’t very big back then. And I decided, let’s give it a shot. So I mid-year transferred to Purdue and then Covid hit.”
“Still again wasn’t exactly what I was expecting college soccer to be like when I was little, it wasn’t like, oh my gosh, I thought like, oh, once I got to college, it was going to be sunshine and rainbows and that’s not how my journey was personally.”
“[I] played at Purdue for a couple years, honestly didn’t play that much. I sat on the bench, and then because of Covid, I had [an additional] fifth year. I thought, why not try to make this be what I always dreamed of college soccer being? And so I transferred to South Alabama and it was like a dream come true.”
“A little bit of a rock rocky start. I actually got injured in our spring season and I didn’t start many games there. I played max 60 minutes a game, but I had such good coaching staff. It was such a good environment that my teammates were incredible. And it was finally like that’s what college soccer is supposed to be.”
“Towards the end of the season, I’d fallen back in love with the game and I was like, you know what, I’d kicked myself one day if I didn’t try [to pursue a professional soccer career]. And then I got in touch with an agency that helped me get to Melbourne.”
Hollar packed up a life in America following the completion of her admirable college career on and off the pitch, Hollar earning her undergraduate degree in Psychology with a double minor in Forensics and Sociology and then a masters in Sports Management.
Hollar shared that future career aspirations outside of football, have ranged from a field agent in the FBI to sports marketing and event management.
“I went to Melbourne and it’s very different to like set up compared to what I was used to in college. I mean college, it’s a full-time job. And in Melbourne, my teammates had full-time’s jobs and did soccer on the side”
“It was very difficult adjustment trying to keep myself like accountable with my training because we only trained two times a week and if you’re trying to go on to the next level, training twice a week isn’t going to do it.”
“It was a lot of training outside on my own or with some friends. It was an interesting experience, but it served its purpose and it got me to exactly where I wanted to be, which is here.”
Following her accoladed NPL season in Victoria, Hollar signed her first professional contract with the girls in purple in the 2024/25 preseason, honing in on an ‘All American’ mindset and sense of competition to the West.
“I think just the competitiveness of the collegiate environment and competitiveness to even get an opportunity to play for a collegiate team, is what drove me to coming to Australia. It felt like I was going through the college recruiting process again. In a way so just trying to fight for an opportunity, I think is is what I’ve learned from a young age”
“I’m just a big competitor. I mean, no matter what I do, whether it’s on the pitch or off the pitch, the competitiveness, I just can’t turn it off.”
Although Hollar admitted to enjoying the laid back Aussie lifestyle and her love for life by the beach.
“I think that Australia gets it right in enjoying life a bit more than Americans do sometimes. I don’t know if I can ever not live by the beach now”
From Alabama, to Melbourne, to Perth, Hollar is no stranger to a change of scenery in the name of soccer.
“I thrive off controlled chaos. I always joke, I like big change, but I can’t do little change. I’m such a routine girl, disrupt my nighttime routine and I’ll crash out. But throw me on the other side of the world and I’m good.”
“I’m super close with my family, I’ve been blessed that they’ve been able to come visit me and with technology we can stay in touch, but I’m not as much of a homebody as my sisters are so I’m like, what can I do next? What next adventure are we going on?”
Throughout Hollar’s playing career in Australia, the discourse surrounding conditions, pay and funding in what was promised to be a ‘prosperous post World Cup league’ has become increasingly multifaceted and pressing for the quality and longevity of the league.
Hollar expressed the importance of extending contracts from the current nine month period to a more sustainable twelve.
“We have girls who go and play in the NPL in the offseason. You play once week and I know the demands aren’t as high as this league. But if you’re staying on top of things and trying to stay fit to play in those games, you never get a break. You don’t have an off season.”
“We have a lot of young girls who are able to do it now, but personally I couldn’t go and do that in the offseason. My body can’t do that anymore. But that’s how we get paid.”
“Unless you have another job that can like sustain your living, then that’s what you have to do is you have to go play. And I think that it’s really sad that that’s where we’re at. To think that we can’t be employed like with a full-time job, with the amount of work and desire and effort and just time that we put into the sport.”
“If we have 12-month contracts, you get a longer preseason, it’ll show on the pitch. It is the next step that I believe needs to taken for the health and safety of the players too. so that people aren’t getting burnt out or injured or bringing injuries from either way into the other league.”
(c) Impetus 2026.
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