Her team was losing and they needed her – she couldn’t just leave the game. Like that time when Wambach collided with another player during World Cup qualifying in 2010 and, as blood gushed from her forehead like a running faucet, her head was stapled on the field and she played on. Wambach played no small role in the public’s growing fascination with women’s soccer by doing what she had always done: pushing herself to the limit. “It’s cool that I was a part of it, but I think it’s more cool to kind of look at it from an evolutionary aspect, to see where the game was and where the game has gone.”Ībby Wambach and the United States left things late against Brazil in a 2011 World Cup quarter-final. “People tell me all the time how they remember where they were when that happened,” Wambach said last year, recalling how the popularity of women’s soccer seemed to shift after that World Cup run. In the 122nd minute – injury time of extra time – Wambach rose up to meet a long, lobbed ball with her head and scored the latest goal of any World Cup, men’s or women’s, now considered one of the greatest goals in US soccer history. Chances did come, but the Americans needed someone to finish. After 120 grueling minutes – mostly with the USA playing down a woman after some refereeing controversy – Wambach kept telling her teammates that it would only take one chance to equalize against Brazil in the quarter-final. The example that is sure to endure came at the 2011 World Cup, when the Americans were on the brink of their earliest exit in the tournament. If Landon Donovan – American soccer’s other great legend, who retired last year – struggled throughout his career with the relentless grind of being counted on at all times, Wambach seemed to thrive on it. Indeed, Wambach’s legacy will be one of a player who stopped at nothing to win and continually pushed herself to the limit. “It gets harder and harder to be on the road all the time and push your body to its limits.”

“Over time, year after year, flight after flight, hotel room after hotel room, it gets lonely,” Wambach said. The lifestyle of being one of the greatest soccer players in the world was finally taking its toll. Mustering up the “it factor” that made her a leader on the US women’s national team for so long became increasingly difficult. She has scored against 33 different countries and 52 of her goals were game-winners.īut it hasn’t been as easy lately. She has scored 184 international goals, the most of any man or woman in history, and she scored nearly as many with her head as soccer legend Pelé scored with his entire body. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest soccer players of all time and somehow managed to make it all look easy. She retires with two Olympic gold medals, the World Cup trophy she helped the USA win this summer, and a long list of individual awards, the highest among them being the 2012 Fifa World Player of the Year. When Wambach steps onto the field tonight for a friendly against China in New Orleans, it will be her last time representing club or country.

Abby wambach stapled