How To Watch: Marquette’s Ryley Bugay At The 2023 Women’s World Cup

I know you’re all super fired up about the Women’s World Cup starting at 2am Central time on Thursday morning.

HOWEVER.

For the first time ever, we have a Marquette women’s soccer connection to the World Cup! Former MU midfielder — and current Indiana University medical student — Ryley Bugay is on the roster for the Philippines National Team. Bugay made her debut for their national team in the 2018 AFC Asian Women’s Cup, and by way of their performance in the 2022 version of that event, Philippines qualified for the World Cup for the first time ever. As mentioned a second ago, this also makes Bugay the first Marquette women’s soccer player to ever appear on a roster for a World Cup team. If/when she plays in a group stage match, Bugay will become the first MU women’s soccer player to appear in a World Cup, and dammit, don’t you want to make sure you watch that?

It’s going to take some doing though, at least if you’re in the United States. All three of their group play matches will be in the middle of the night here in the USA, which is the downside of Australia and New Zealand hosting the event.

Bugay was on the roster at Marquette for five seasons, going from a redshirt year in her first season on campus to playing 71 matches with 53 career starts. She recorded one goal, coming by way of a penalty kick in a 2-0 shutout of Louisville in 2017, and one assist, which was on MU’s only marker in a 1-0 win against Xavier that same season.

Here’s the schedule for Bugay and the Philippines National Team in Group A action.

Thursday, July 20/Friday, July 21: Philippines vs Switzerland
Midnight Central, FS1

Tuesday, July 25: Philippines vs New Zealand
12:30am Central, FS1

Sunday, July 30: Philippines vs Norway
2am Central, FS1