Crystal Dunn: International career and move to Chelsea

“I feel left out because I didn’t play with boys”

Unlike most of her new European team-mates at Chelsea Ladies, Crystal Dunn did not have to prove herself against boys growing up. Yet hers is not the path well trodden. Ahead of World Cup and Olympic winners, Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd and Heather O’Reilly, the first Dunn deal from the United States was by a 24-year-old sociology major without the glittering international back catalog of the others and with another fundamental difference.

“I’m one of the few black women playing soccer” she states in the promotional video of her documentary series “Keeping Score” in which she is featured alongside Hope Solo and Megan Rapinoe. Dunn is now a trailblazer and a leader, a young American abroad, with everything to prove. A role model for her game and her country.

You were one of four high-profile Americans to come to Europe this year but you were the first and the youngest, so for you, why now and why here? Is helping to develop the popularity of the WSL something that appeals to you?

“So to be honest, I didn’t come into this saying oh I’m going to develop a whole league. I think that’s a lot of responsibility, to tell you the truth. For me, I don’t see myself as a player that can do all that. It’s been great for me to come over but for other people to think that I could potentially help this league grow, it’s something that is amazing. It’s not what I set out to do, but if I can help in anyway. . . it’s important to leave a footprint. With me being the youngest and possibly being one of the first to leave, I think just stems from where I am in my career. I’m 24, I’m not old but I’m not young, and I feel like there’s still so much growth still left in me. I’m now onto my fifth year on the national team and I want to continue developing myself as a player and performing at that stage. For me, it was a really scary move, I cry almost every other night, I feel like, but I think it was important for me to challenge myself”.

Reading a little about your career, it seems you’ve gone through many stages high school, college, NWSL and age-groups with the national team and played in different positions, could you just say a little about how your role on the pitch has changed over the years and are you now comfortable playing in your best position now?

“Yeah, I think, you know, yes I played in multiple positions. I think it took me a while to get used to it. I look at myself and I think I can play out wide and I think I can play up top. With that being said, if I’m asked to play center-mid I would be up for the challenge. It’s about being open-minded and I’ve always been open-minded as a player. I’ve always just wanted to be on the field. If the coach is saying, “you’re playing in goal”, I’m like “ok, that’s scary” but I’ll deal with it, you know. For me, it’s all about being diverse. I think, the way the women’s game is moving, I feel like you have to be open-minded, you have to be diverse. You never know where you fit in one formation versus another. You want to be that player, that coach says regardless of what we’re playing, she can be on the field. I think for me that’s how I got settled where I am now”

At Chelsea, you’re playing alongside, among others, a qualified lawyer and a financial analyst. You’re a sociology major, is that something you plan to go into when you finish playing? Is this where the men’s and women’s game diverges in that female players need to have another career path marked out?

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t graduate college. I studied sociology but I don’t have an official degree. I left college to go pursue my professional career. Yes, I do feel there’s a pressure on the women’s game to have that back-up plan. You feel like as a woman, oh man, if soccer doesn’t work out, I need something. I think it’s grown in a way, yes I want to look at my life aside from soccer but I could focus on that a little bit later. I don’t necessarily think I need to have a back-up plan. I think now, it’s ok to feel you can live in the moment and enjoy what you’re doing. In the later years of your career, you can start branching out and figuring out what you want to do. With the sociology major, I love kids, I think that’s really why I picked up sociology. I love analyzing life. I think, I’m a real people person. I love to picture myself in another person’s shoes. I like to see myself in a different way. Sociology was something I truly enjoyed studying”.

You’ve played with and against some of the all-time great leaders and personalities of the games in the US, what’s it like playing with Katie Chapman, what kind of a captain is she?

“Chapman is somebody I’ve never experienced before, she is a complete warrior. She’s somebody who leads by example, she rallies the team together. At aged 35, with three kids, I don’t know how she does it. I don’t know how she has time for herself, I don’t know how she has time to focus on her sport and on her craft. She has a family, that’s something that a lot of us don’t know what it feels like. I can barely remember to make dinner for myself or, you know, focus on only me. I can’t imagine doing that for three others that I have to watch out for. For me, she’s an incredible leader, she goes through so much on a daily basis that we never know about. She’s just a complete robot on the field. She’s just so strong and so structured, it’s incredible”.

You were in the preliminary squad for the 2015 World Cup but didn’t quite make the cut, what was it like watching a team you were so close to being a part of go on to glory? Is there a tinge of regret you weren’t a part of it?

“You know, it’s one of those things where, yes I would have loved to be at the World Cup. As much as I wanted to be there, I think there was a greater outcome for me not to be a part of that team. If I’d have gone, I wouldn’t have played a minute. As much I would have loved being a part of something great, I wouldn’t have truly felt complete. For me, I needed to be left behind so I can show how I am as a player and let the world see me for what they haven’t seen. It was one of the greatest setbacks I’ve had in my professional life but I don’t take it back for anything”.

However, you did go to Rio last summer and played a big role in the Olympics, scoring against Colombia. What was that whole experience in Brazil like, what it’s like travelling around as a representative of the best and most famous team in the game?

“Yeah, it was incredible. Being a Olympian is something I can hold dear to my heart. Granted, I wish we finished a bit higher than we did but I think, you know it gives me that drive to want to be at the next one. I think I definitely have four more years in me. There’s so many more things I want to achieve in my career”.

Now that you are living in England, how have you found it travelling to and from the States for international games? Have you had to change your preparations/training schedules around US games?

“No I’m accommodated really nicely, I do fly business when I go back to the States. That flight is not easy. The time change, I would say, is a bit harsh at times. For me, it’s the price I paid, it’s what I knew going into signing for Chelsea. I knew that the flight to and from was going to be long. but it’s been accommodated”.

While around 40% of the players in the English men’s league are black, there is nowhere near the same representation in the women’s game. Why do you think that is and what needs to be done to change that?

“I think, to be quite honest the men have it down. The men truly focus on stats, they focus on who’s the better player, they don’t look at image, they don’t look at anything other than, is this player performing. I think in the women’s side, we tend to not only focus on that. I think it’s getting better, I think there are more players that look like me coming up. I do think for a while, it was about what you look like, who can be marketable, who can sell tickets. In the men’s game they don’t care if you have one follower on Twitter they don’t care if you have a billion followers on Twitter. If you’re producing, you’re producing, and you’ll be in that starting line-up. I think the women’s game is slowly coming up but I think we have some way to go”.

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