The stadium seemed bigger, Tori Penso thought as she walked onto the field in Atlanta last month. It was taller, somehow. Grander.
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Penso knew, logically, that Mercedes-Benz Stadium, renamed Atlanta Stadium for the men’s World Cup, hadn’t changed an inch from when she’d previously attended matches there. But when she stepped onto the grass ahead of a group-stage game between the Czech Republic and South Africa, minutes from becoming the first American woman to serve as head referee for a men’s World Cup game, Penso felt the gravity of the moment.
“Every fan was on their feet, just enjoying the moment and celebrating soccer,” Penso said in an interview this week. “It was just incredible. When we walked out on that field, it felt different. It didn’t feel like a normal game. It felt like something of significance and magnitude. Every time we walk out, I always try and take a moment to look around and embrace the moment.
“That’s really the only time I do that. Once the whistle starts, it’s back to work.”
Six women were chosen among the 170 officials selected by FIFA to work at the World Cup. Penso was the head official on a crew of three American women, including assistants Brooke Mayo and Kathryn Nesbitt, who worked two games during the tournament. Katia Itzel García, who hails from Mexico, was the center referee for the Tunisia-vs.-Netherlands game in the group stage. Sandra Ramírez, also from Mexico, and Tatiana Guzmán of Nicaragua rounded out the group of six and worked matches as assistant referees and VARs.
At the 2022 men’s World Cup in Qatar, Stéphanie Frappart of France, Neuza Back of Brazil and Karen Díaz of Mexico officiated one group-stage match as a crew and became the first women to referee at the men’s World Cup. Four years later, Penso built on their accomplishment.
Now a 40-year-old mother of three, Penso began refereeing when she was 14. There were numerous times, she said, when she was ready to hang up her whistle and cleats. The intense criticism, most often from angry parents, made her work and effort seem not worth it.
“I remember [my mentors] telling me, you can let that parent run you out of the field, but don’t let him run you out of the park. Don’t let him make you hang up the boots,” Penso said. “In life, you’re going to have criticism. You’re going to have tough moments. And if you can learn how to kind of break and grind through that difficulty, you’re going to be better for it on the other side.”
Penso stuck with it, eventually rising to become the first female full-time referee in MLS. (Her husband, Chris Penso, also is an MLS referee.) Internationally, Penso worked at the 2023 women’s World Cup, including the final, and the 2024 Olympics.
All of those experiences built the well of confidence from which Penso drew at the recently concluded men’s World Cup. Technically, it was no different of an assignment than what she’d done hundreds of times before. Practically, it was a new level of scrutiny and pressure.
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“You kind of learn how to take up space,” Penso said. “That’s the example I use when I talk to my 12-year-old daughter today, because I see her at that age [where] she’s starting to shrink. Her shoulders are starting to fall. She’s starting to look and evaluate people and feel evaluated herself by her peers and society as a whole. And so I keep telling her, ‘Put your shoulders up. Take up space. Own the moment.’”
A moment of Penso doing just that in the Czech Republic-South Africa game quickly went viral on Instagram. When she called two players together to clear the air after physical contact between them, one of them began to walk away from the conversation while Penso was speaking.
Penso, who said that “we certainly can’t allow that level of disrespect to a match official or the game in general,” quickly called him back to the discussion.
“There’s nothing buzzier than watching a woman ref tell off these man babies,” sports content creator Coach Jackie J wrote in a comment accompanying the video she posted of Penso commanding the player’s attention.
“It was an important moment, I think, looking back on it now,” Penso said. “So many people have celebrated that in different ways. Some people say it’s mom energy. But for me, it was just me sitting in that moment, taking up space with the confidence to do that because of the experiences that I lean on and [knowing] that that moment demanded a referee to show up.”
She chuckled at the idea of going viral for her work as an official, which wasn’t ever something she anticipated. But the reach of that video and the number of viewers watching the tournament served as a reminder for her of the impact she can have on girls and women who watched her work.
“Research shows that one in two girls leave sport because of self-confidence issues,” Penso said. “I hope that seeing a woman strong and confident, excelling at the highest level of the game on the biggest stage in the world, is an image that sits with them.
“It’s something that they can rely on in moments when they feel small or they feel inferior. [They can] know that they are capable of more than maybe they think because they once saw someone do something that seemed impossible to them at the time.”
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