She dropped in inconspicuously at the Superdome, and reminded anyone who noticed her there of what a quiet retirement actually looks like.īefore she'd even taken the pitch on Wednesday, Wambach had already gone after USMNT coach Jurgen Klinsman in an interview with Bill Simmons. But within US Soccer she was known to be a nose-wrinkled tactician, who could dissect opponents with her beady eyes just as easily as with her feet.
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Hamm, slippery as a silverfish, is remembered for sparkling slashes to the goal. Wambach brought her 5'11" frame down on defenders like the wrath of God, and her overpowering tumbles to goal transitioned the US program past the Mia Hamm era. would eventually lose.īut if that impolite mantra is going to be your career's mission statement, then you'll accept the fact that sometimes people are going to want to cover their ears or hide their eyes until the W is locked up. Or when, in 2010 during a World Cup qualifier against Mexico, Wambach took staples to the head on the sideline in order to get back to a game the U.S. 20 and say "if I ever see you doing that you’ll have an oboe in your hand faster than you can spit."įrom her freshman season at Florida, when she put up 19 goals and 12 assists in 26 games, her teammates told NPR that their most vivid memory of Wambach was during halftime of the national title game when she yelled in the huddle, "we are not fucking losing to these bitches." You can imagine it's probably the same thing she said to herself, playing a woman down in stoppage time of the 2011 World Cup quarterfinal against Brazil, when she flung her face into a Megan Rapinoe cross and salvaged respectability for the USWNT. What do you tell the impressionable youth about the most unstoppably brutal goal scorer in soccer history? You don’t look at Wambach flinging her face past a goalkeeper’s fists and say, "make them forget her." You click on a YouTube link, point at No. Sports are the great teachers of all life’s lessons and children lack the critical thinking to make sense of Athletes Who Dab. In our American sports culture, there’s so much hand-wringing about kids. Both conspicuous and hard as hell to wipe away. For 14 years with US Soccer, and presumably long before and assuredly in her next career, Wambach has been as stubborn as red lipstick.
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In Wambach’s Gatorade spot she asks the next wave of athletes to, "make them forget me." Retiring GOATs get calculated hashtags and cinematic commercials to explain remembrance to fans. The crowd pleaded and her teammates pressed and China won a match, which was only notable for the fact that, for the first time, no one listened to Wambach. Wambach, who admitted postgame that she hadn’t been training for this victory lap with her normal intensity, barked at her teammates to start searching their shot. Every corner kick and lead pass was directed at Wambach’s hairline and the US Women’s National Team’s game plan in the friendly against China suffered because of it. With Abby Wambach - the scorer whose forehead has accounted for as many goals (75) as some teams - starting up top, players pressed to get their retiring leader a shot on goal.