Even athough she will be 35 in June, Abby Wambach still a top goal-scoring threat for the USWNT.
By Ivan Yeo
The longer you continue to play, the more and more likely you role on said team is likely to change.
One minute, you’re the star, you’re the one teammates and coaches lean upon to win you a game, to deliver in the clutch and bring home the championship. As the years go by however, new blood starts to come in. Someone younger, with a fresher set of legs and more ambition, not to mention a whole lot of talent comes in and just like that, you’re now the teacher, the mentor, someone who,takes the young gun under their wings showing them how to get it done.
The United States women’s national team is no different to those sort of cycles. Four years ago in Germany, Abby Wambach, Christie Rampone and Shannox Boxx were the stars for,the USWNT. Back in 2011, it was Wambach literally putting the team on her shoulders in the knockout stages and into the championship match, Rampone was wearing the captain’s armband and solidifying the backline at the center back spot and Boxx was in the central midfield also while lining up to take the first penalty shots in its shootouts with Brazil and Japan.
Fast forward to the present, with the Women’s World Cup in Canada just a little more than three weeks away, Wambach, Boxx and Rampone are still there, but all three players have taken on different roles for the team, as veteran mentors to up and coming players like Sydney Leroux, Christen Press, Morgan Brian etc.
“They’ve embraced any role that they’re willing to take on,” USWNT head coach Jillian Ellis said of her three veteran players. “Their leadership off the field is tremendous, it’s huge for us, but I also know that I have the confidence to put them in when needed.”
Rampone is the not only the oldest of the current national team members, but she is also the only player remaining from the 1999 World Cup winning squad. Rampone was a rock in the U.S. Backline for years while also serving as captain since 2008. In addition to the 1999 World Cup title, Rampone also has three Olympic gold medals, a silver medal from the 2000 Olympics as well as countless other international titles. Rampone since then has given way to players like Julie Johnston, Becky Sauerbrunn and Whitney Engen on the backline.
“My role is more with my voice and communicating in training,” Rampone said. “When I get the minutes on the field, I’ll do the best I can with them, but it’s more about being that coach on the side and player motivator.”
Rampone certainly seems to know a lot about being a coach. Back in the inaugural season of Women’s Professional Soccer in 2009, Rampone was named “caretaker coach” of Sky Blue FC late in the season while also continuing to play for the franchise.
Sky Blue that year was in turmoil, as Rampone was the team’s third head coach after Ian Sawyers left his position a month into the season and Kelly Lindsey had resigned, leading to Rampone’s appointment. Rampone however held that team together and the team went on a Cinderella run, clinching a playoff spot on the last day of the season, then won three playoff games on the road, including a 1-0 win over a Los Angeles Sol team that had Marta, Boxx, Camile Abily, Aya Miyama and Karina LeBlanc at the StubHub Center (back then the Home Depot Center) to win the inaugural WPS championship. Rampone’s accomplishment was considered to be even more miraculous when it was revealed that she was pregnant with her second child during the run.
Wambach and Sydney Leroux provide the USWNT World Cup squad with a mix of youth and experience.
Wambach’s place on the team is a little more hard to gauge. Wambach, the USWNT’s all-time leading scorer, has been in and out of the starting lineup for the better part of the year, but there is no denying she can still put the ball in the back net whether she is starting or coming off the bench. Wambach scored two goals as a starter in the May 9 match against Ireland, then this past Sunday against Mexico at StubHub Center, came in as a substitute at the start of the second half and added two more goals.
“You have to be realistic, and you have to be optimistic that in the minutes you get, you’re going to do things well with it,” Wambach said.
But perhaps no player has had to endure more than Boxx, who broke out in the 2003 Women’s World Cup and was a stud at the defensive midfielder spot for nearly a decade. However, after winning her third Olympic gold medal at the London Olympics and being allocated to the Chicago Red Stars prior to NWSL’s inaugural season in 2013, Boxx missed most of the season with a knee injury, then gave birth to her first child, Zoe, on February 28, 2014. But perhaps the most challenging of all has been her on-going battle with Lupus, which she made public in 2012. With all that in mind, it would’ve been easier to conclude that Boxx’s spot with the USWNT were reaching their final days, but Boxx felt she still had a lot more to give to the team, a feeling also shared by Ellis.
“I give a lot of credit to Jill for giving me the opportunity to see what I can do,” Boxx said. “She could’ve written me off a long time before that, (but) she knew that if I could come back, I could be a help to this team, and that’s a big value that I hold strong, and I think I can definitely help the team.”
Boxx, who recently announced next month’s World Cup will be her last time with the USWNT, has also taken on the mentor role, and one player that Boxx has become a big fan of is fellow midfielder Morgan Brian, who is in her first year in NWSL with the Houston Dash after a standout career at the University of Virginia. Brian is regarded as a future star on the USWNT, and Boxx believes Brian’s challenge is not so much the physical side of the game, but more the mental side.
“She’s so talented and the things we’re going to be able to help her with is the calming of the nerves,” Boxx said of Brian’s potential.
The USWNT World Cup squad is loaded with young stars such as Leroux, Press, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Tobin Heath, and the list goes on. It’s always key to have youth on any team in any sport. Heck, the Men’s World Cup proves that it’s always best to breathe new life into a national team every four years in order to maintain success.
This USWNT squad appears to have the ideal mix of young players and veterans, and while it is to be determined whether this mix will prove successful for the USWNT in Canada, there’s no denying that when their number is called, Wambach, Boxx and Rampone will be ready to answer the bell come tournament time.
“They’ve been in the pressure cooker many, many times, so what they impart to their teammates in their leadership is invaluable,” Ellis said.
