Forward

by Abby Wambach

  I have a chance on March 5, Sarah’s birthday. We have off from practice the next morning, so a group of us go out to celebrate at the Eighteenth Street Lounge. I order her to sit and put her leg up while I fetch seven shots, each a different color of the rainbow. I help her to the bathroom, and when she emerges she grabs my hand, lacing her fingers through mine. I look at her, tighten my grip, but fail to make a move.

  By the time she has her surgery, I’m spending more time at her place than my own. I make her coffee, fetch her books and painkillers, perch trays of food on her chest. I keep her company while she lies on the bed, her leg in a contraption that moves it automatically, bending and straightening. Her mom comes to visit, and she leaves us alone for long stretches so we can talk privately. Sarah opens her eyes as I squeeze in next to her.

  “Do you want to be girlfriends with me?” she asks, the words slushy and slow.

  “Yeah, I do,” I say. “But can you ask me again when you’re sober?”

  Within the week I know that if I could marry her, I would.

  12

  HEAD CASE

  The pendulum swings again, knocking me off balance, and I do nothing to stop it. I can blame it on external factors, if I so choose. Maybe soccer is literally going to my head. What else should I expect when I use it like a hammer? When I fall from the sky and land like a meteorite? When I refuse to stop even with staples in my scalp and blood in my eyes? When, at the end of my career, I’ll agree to donate my brain for concussion research? Or I can acknowledge that I push the pendulum myself, and always have, ever since internalizing the idea that I have nothing to offer but my skill on the field. Give me that brutal, bruising pain that comes with moving; I’m not strong enough to handle the torture of being still.

  I have few clear memories from 2009 and 2010, good or bad. I remember a national team friendly against Canada, exactly one year and three days after breaking my leg. We happen to be playing in Rochester and my entire family is among the eighty-five hundred fans. Sarah surprises me by showing up, waving at me from the stands; it’s the first time she’s met my family, and I’m sure they’ll love her as much as I do. We’re tied, 0–0, and in the seventy-eighth minute I see my chance, shooting the ball past the right leg of the Canadian goalkeeper and into the net. It’s my one hundredth career goal, and the crowd erupts, their cheers lapping at me, eroding the misery of the past year.

  “I can’t really describe the emotion,” I say after the game, my platoon of nieces and nephews lining up to hug me. “It’s been a long year, and to come home to score the hundredth goal in Rochester couldn’t be more of a picture-perfect ending.”

  I remember a Washington Freedom game against the Boston Breakers in May 2010, an unremarkable, 0–0 matchup save for one spectacular collision: my nose against the opposing goalkeeper’s arm. The crack is amplified inside my ears, and I feel the bone and cartilage slide across my face, ending up in the middle of my left cheek, a deformity so grotesque my teammates avert their eyes. When I have the gauze removed, Sarah—who has a lifelong fear of blood—is by my side, rocking back and forth, hands shielding her eyes so she doesn’t faint from the sight. Four days later I send a triumphant group e-mail to select family and friends, including a close-up shot of my splinted nose and blackened eye: “Ever since my nose break on Saturday I can safely say that the gauze that was just taken out of my nose was the most incredible thing that’s ever happened!! The longest piece of gauze you could imagine. But now that I can breathe I am a whole new person.”

  I remember when the national team falters, losing to Mexico and facing the possibility of not qualifying for the 2011 World Cup in Germany. It’s inconceivable that we lose to Mexico—our cumulative score against them in past games is 106–9—and even more unthinkable that we might be excluded from a major tournament. In order to right our course, we have to beat Costa Rica, and we do, 3–0. I score two of those goals, undeterred by a deep gash along my forehead, yet we’re still not in the clear: next we have to beat Italy in the playoff series. Losing means we’re staying home.

  I remember the media attention surrounding our potential defeat and humiliation, and how it feels deliberately and sharply unfair. I take the opportunity to share my observations with the New York Times. “The irony of the whole thing,” I say, “is that when the U.S. men win, they get the coverage, but when the U.S. women lose, we get the coverage. . . . The joke among us is that we planned it this way and that we knew this was the only way to get the coverage that we think we deserve.” I tuck this feeling away to examine later, knowing it extends far beyond the tone of newspaper articles, affecting every aspect of our game.

  I remember when the WPS begins sinking, once again failing to re-create the buzz and excitement that follow World Cup and Olympic years. Franchises lose millions of dollars and begin dropping out, one by one. Toward the end of 2010, the Washington Freedom’s owners sell the team to a Boca Raton–based entrepreneur named Dan Borislow, who rechristens it “magicJack” after his prized invention: a USB-plug-in device that enables users to make unlimited Web calls from their phones. He recruits me and a few other high-profile members of the national team: Hope Solo, Pearcie, Shannon Boxx. Sarah joins, too, and we move together to Florida.

  I like Dan and the feeling is mutual; he sees himself in me—loud and unfiltered, prone to all-night revelry and vulgar proclamations. I admire his willingness to blurt out what others are thinking, his steadfast trust in his own instincts. He invites us all to test-drive his collection of luxury cars, my guilty pleasure, and ensconces us in condos with lavish amenities: a private theater, a spa, a rooftop pool. He takes us to Easter brunch at Mar-Al-Lago, where we feast on lobster and caviar. At dinner, he buys endless hundred-dollar bottles of wine and bluntly inquires about our sex lives. “Which one of you is the giver and which one is the receiver?” he asks one teammate, and then turns to another. “Why have you never had a sexual relationship with a woman?” During practice, he occasionally deems us “fucking idiots.” When a teammate inquires how he’d like to be addressed—Dan, Mr. Borislow, or Coach—he has a different idea, instructing her to call him “Daddy.”

  His boorish patter belies his remarkably progressive attitude toward women’s soccer. In e-mails to ESPN the Magazine, he touches upon issues I don’t yet have the courage to discuss out loud. “Why is it okay that the athletes who represent our country the best should be paid wages that leave them at the poverty level?” he asks. “I would never pay someone who is best in their field these types of ridiculous wages. It would be embarrassing. We should not have a pro league in this country unless they get paid real wages.” He backs up his bluster with action, giving us all a significant raise, and announces, “It is not okay to treat women like crap and abuse them. . . . The women to a large degree have accepted this treatment.”

  There are many, many nights out with Dan that I don’t remember at all.

  I remember going back to Los Angeles in the off-season, bringing Sarah with me, double-dating with Kara and her girlfriend. One morning, out of earshot of the others, Kara corners me. She speaks to me in a voice I don’t recognize, accusing me of things I am not ready to accept. I am drinking too much; I am numbing too much; I am wandering into a dangerous space. The situation has escalated since she first admonished me, back in 2007, to work on my responsible self.

  “You’ve ruined my day,” I tell her. “I’m going to the beach.”

  For now, we leave it at that. I soon turn back to soccer, the drug I have no choice but to take.

  13

  G.O.A.T.

  During the countdown to the 2011 World Cup, I break my strict, career-long rule and drink during camp—not excessively, but enough to dilute any thoughts that drift away from soccer. One thought I can’t suppress is that my body, day by day and degree by degree, is becoming a lesser version of itself. Every part of it has to be addressed, piecemeal, before I make it to the field. The shaky ankle requires wrapping, and the Achilles tendon needs a c
ombination of electric stimulation and ultrasound therapy, a process so prolonged and intense it seems to deaden my tissue. At night I wear a splint that dorsiflexes my foot, and in the morning I need to pump my ankle for a half hour just to be able to stand. I alternate between wearing cleats and a boot to keep my ankle in a set position. My leg bones can feel the rain before it falls. I’m newly thirty-one, and for the first time I’m wondering how much longer I can play this game.

  But now, in Germany, I have to talk myself through the tweaks and pangs, relegate them to the sidelines. I begin the tournament in a scoring drought, shots deflecting off the post and headers veering wide, an embarrassment underscored by my teammates’ unspoken concern: What’s wrong with Wambach? During our final group match game against Sweden, the ball soars toward me and I vie for position. Planting my legs, I rear my torso back like a slingshot, snap forward and connect with the knob of my shoulder, shoving the ball in for a goal. Nothing’s wrong with Wambach, I think. I’m back, at least for now.

  We move on to Dresden, where we face Brazil in the quarterfinals. I recall how the Brazilians not only trounced us in 2007, but danced and sang in our hotel lobby as we entered, inconsolable. There’s a chance the scene may be repeated—we’re again staying in the same hotel as our rivals—and I gather the younger players around to tell them the story. “I would give up every goal I’ve ever scored to win this World Cup,” I say. “You have to be willing to give up everything.” Silently I add an addendum: I’d give up everything because this might be the last World Cup I ever see.

  From the field the spectators seem miniature, with candlestick arms and pinpoint faces. My parents, siblings, Are, Dena, Kara, and Sarah sit amid thousands of people who are eager for us to lose. The July heat hangs heavy and low, whisking up a sheen of sweat before I even start to move. Seventy-four seconds in and we’re on the board, albeit accidentally, when Brazilian defender Daiane deflects the ball into her own net. Ugly, but I’ll take it. There’s a chorus of long and lusty boos; no one likes Americans.

  I get my first shot, challenging the Brazilian goalkeeper inside the box, but it swerves wide. Twelve minutes later Brazil comes to life, with Marta prancing fifty yards down the field only for her shot to sail over the bar. The crowd swells into a wave, standing and tossing their hands, hoping to fuel Brazil’s momentum.

  We’re going back and forth, up and down, and suddenly I’m airborne, a body on top of me, collapsing into a tangle of limbs as we slam into the ground. I twist my head to see the Brazilian defender Aline. She gets a booking—a yellow card from the referee—for the tackle, and then Marta earns one of her own by yapping her dissent. By halftime we’re still up, 1–0. Beneath the wrappings, beneath the shots and pills and all the deliberate numbness, my body and mind are both screaming.

  Pearcie and Pia do their usual thing in the locker room, dispensing strategy and sense, and then I do mine in the huddle: patriotism, camaraderie, grit, an expletive. On the count of three, we chant “Oosa, Oosa, Oosa, Ah!” and we’re back on the field.

  In the sixty-fifth minute, Rachel Buehler leaps sideways at Marta, taking her down, with the Brazilian performing her usual theatrics, flipping and writhing. The ruse works. Rachel gets a red card—instant ejection—and she leaves the field distraught. Later, she tells me she watched on a thirteen-inch TV in the doping room, crying the whole time, sure she had lost it for us. For the duration of the game we’ll have just ten players on the field.

  The Brazilian player Cristiane lines up to take the penalty kick, but Hope launches herself in its path and stops it. Wait—what the hell is this? The referee makes an insane call, claiming Hope moved off her line, and orders a do-over. This time, Marta steps up. She kicks one way while Hope jumps the other, and the game is tied, 1–1. The crowd turns, booing the referees and scowling at the Brazilians, and now we’re the good guys, the underdogs. Chants of USA! USA! filter down to the field. By the end of regulation, the game remains tied. We’re going into overtime.

  In the ninety-second minute, Marta scores on a set play at such an absurdly severe angle that I can’t help but admire the shot. Brazil takes the lead. That’s going to be that, I think. That’s how soccer goes. If you score in overtime, that’s usually the game. We’re still down a man, and everything is against us. Then my heart responds to my mind, raising an objection: No! We can still do this. It’s not over yet.

  We have to keep pushing regardless, acting as though we believe we have a chance. We hustle, we take our spots, we try to execute a set play but fail. Wasted moves, wasted energy. I am heaving, sprinting as fast as I ever have and not quite getting where I need to be; if only I could detach my leg or head or both and hurl them at the ball—anything to push it closer to the goal. I reach it, finally, and manage a weak kick that skids low and wide of the post.

  Now I’m getting angry. I want the ball to go where I want it to go; I want my body to do what it’s being asked. I want this to be as effortless for me as it’s always been. And just like that, my body talks back, louder than I’ve ever heard it speak: Make me. I dare you.

  I accept the challenge—I’ve never known how to turn one down—and scream to my teammates: “If we just get one chance, I know we’ll score!”

  Marta seems to be in three places at once, sailing and swooping. We are stretched thin and exhausted, trailing limply in her wake. Time is dwindling: 113th minute, 118th, 120th. The final whistle could blow any second. Brazil’s Erika goes down, writhing in pain over a phantom tackle, a classic ploy to run down the clock. A stretcher is called for, and she hops on and off it, miraculously ready to play again. Another waterfall of boos from the crowd. But her theatrics give us time to move the ball forward.

  We’re ping-ponging it across and up the field: Pearcie to Ali Krieger to Carli Lloyd, who takes a bunch of touches. What are you doing? I think, and yell, “Carli, play direct! Don’t kick it wide!” My ear is anticipating the sound of the whistle, signaling our loss, our time to pack up and go home. Carli plays the ball to Megan Rapinoe. I’m not sure if she sees me, but she’s running toward me, and I know exactly what she’ll do next: look up and bomb it into the box. She does, the ball flying from her laces into a magnificent arc, stretching higher and higher . . .

  I creep into position, waiting to pounce. My mind gives me a last-second pep talk: Please don’t miss. It would be the most epic failure in the history of the game if you miss.

  The reflexive memory of every past goal is packed into this second, informing the way I move—leaping off my right leg, slanting shoulders forward, matching the ball to my hairline, as inevitable as a puzzle piece finding its slot. That sweet, familiar second of darkness.

  I open my eyes and know: I didn’t miss. It’s the latest goal ever scored in a World Cup.

  I celebrate as flamboyantly as any Brazilian, running saucer-eyed toward my teammates and sliding on the turf, stopping myself just before I reach cement. When I pop up they’re all around me, bouncing and slapping my back. Pinoe leaps into my arms and I carry her for a few steps. It’s not over, but we’re close. We got this, I think, and we do: Five penalty kicks later, the board is lit with the final score: USA 5, Brazil 3.

  We win the battle but lose the war, falling in the final to Japan, which is still recovering from that spring’s earthquake and tsunami; I reason that their country needs the win more than ours does. I also take the loss as a personal message: soccer still feeds me in a way nothing else does, and we are not yet finished with each other.

  14

  ROMANTIC

  Despite our second-place finish at the World Cup, America’s interest in soccer surges to a degree unseen since the era of the 99ers. I revel in the postgame reports describing celebrities’ reactions to our win over Brazil. “Wambach!!!!” comedian Seth Meyers tweeted after my late goal. “Wowwwwww! Goal was amazing,” added NFL star Kerry Rhodes. LeBron James, P. Diddy, and Gabrielle Union all chimed in with their compliments and congratulations. The team is invited to appear on the
Today show, Good Morning America, and The Late Show with David Letterman.

  For me, the most meaningful assessment comes from Mia Hamm. “How did you do that?” she asks. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever witnessed.” Dan Borislow, who watched from the stands, echoes that sentiment, telling me it was the “most impressive athletic play to ever happen in the history of women’s soccer.” Random people tell me they remember exactly where they were when they saw my goal, a phenomenon I thought applied only to assassinations and sensational trial verdicts. My agent’s phone buzzes with endorsement offers. I sense a pivotal turning point for soccer; maybe the women’s game will now find the attention and respect it deserves.

  When I return to Florida, I’m met with a hard dose of reality: my magicJack club team is about to implode. While the national players were in Germany, the rest of the team filed a grievance against Dan Borislow, citing “inappropriate statements and conduct toward his players, and players’ fear of improper retaliation by Mr. Borislow based on their grievance.” After a loss to Boston, Dan sent a blistering e-mail: “I didn’t play this shitty game, you did.” He also threatened them with “suicide runs”—a mile in only five minutes—and insisted they took scalding Jacuzzi baths before practice. My old teammate Briana Scurry quit. While the WPS investigates the grievance, Dan is banned from the sidelines, and I’m named the player-coach.

  Attendance in the beginning of the season was dismal, rarely exceeding one thousand spectators. After the World Cup, the numbers increase exponentially, culminating in a crowd of 15,404 when we head north to play the Western New York Flash at their home stadium—my home stadium, with my family filling rows and rows of bleachers. It’s a single-game attendance record for the league, and I address the cheering crowd at halftime, apologizing for riding the bench to rest my Achilles tendon. They chant my name and wave bobbleheads of my likeness. Our season ends the following month after a playoff loss to Philadelphia, and even with the renewed enthusiasm in soccer, I’m worried about the future of the league—especially when the WPS board of directors, citing ongoing issues with Dan, votes to terminate the magicJack team.