Forever, it was just soccer - passion, life, love. Then I got married, and I had to transfer some of my energy. I want to be my best for my country, but I also made a really big promise and choice to be the best in my marriage. That has not always been the easiest thing to manage.
— Abby Wambach
I think I take on a little more responsibility when push comes to shove. I'm not scared to fail.
Considering retirement is like skirting with the reality of what's to come, and I think that's why so many athletes decide to do more introspection at that point.
I'm fiercely patriotic, and the flag and the anthem is something that I really, really respect.
I don't know if I found soccer or if soccer found me. Especially because when I was younger, I was doing it, in a lot of ways, because I wanted the attention of my mom and dad.
I am going to change the world, and I'm talking to everybody in the possible world that I can get to that can help me to do that.
As professional soccer players, we take our bodies to the extreme. We're the people at the gym that look like we're breaking the machines. Pushing our bodies to the limits is what makes us so strong and capable and Olympians. It's not an easy thing to consistently do over and over again to your body.
The growth of women's soccer and women's sports all around the world has been slow.
When I was really young, the women's national team wasn't on a grand media stage, so my role models were male basketball and male American football players.
I'm not spending every second thinking about the World Cup, but it's always in my mind when I make choices and decisions.
Any little touch a defender can make on me when I'm in the air literally moves me. On the ground, I can use my muscle, but in the air, it's harder to fight that off.
My eldest sister Beth is a doctor who studied at Harvard and Columbia and played basketball for Harvard. She set the athletic and academic standard for the rest of us to follow.
Your heart can only take you so far - sometimes the physical body tells you otherwise.
As a competitor, I want to continue to keep turning the chapters and keep challenging myself.
My teammates have put me in all different kinds of positions to score goals, and I can't say it enough, and I really through and through believe it in my heart that I'm only as good as my teammates allow me to be.
Nobody is offered a World Cup.
I really enjoy helping people out, and I enjoy time spent with kids.
I'll be honest. After I got married, I definitely had a shift in emotional devotion.
I want my legacy to be about the soccer, and if I can help people be happier in life in any capacity, awesome.
When you're a pro athlete, life is very narcissistic - everything relates back to you and how you play. When you are getting out of pro sports, you suddenly have to get a little more mindful of what's going on around you and how you affect the rest of the world.
I always wanted to be more validated as a human being, as a person, than I was as a player. I think that was a really hard balance for me.
We need to have women in more powerful positions that are making decisions, so when that 10-year-old girl is looking up and wondering, 'What can I do and what do I want to be when I get older?' She has the opportunity to do and be whatever she wants.
Soccer players generally burn through all of their carbohydrate stores by halftime, so how are you going to replace those? That's what we do at halftime.
I am not a politician by nature, but I will say I think there need to be more women in FIFA, and I would be open to having those conversations when the time is right.
I would love to be a mum if I'm blessed to have children. My wife and I have those plans.
I would trade all the individual awards I've won for a World Cup.
When I look in the mirror, I don't see a person who's made the kind of impact that Mia Hamm made on the game. She's still my idol, the greatest player and the greatest teammate. She achieved so much in so many different ways. What she did for women's soccer can't be measured.
I have a unique ability to predict the flight of the ball, and my teammates have a unique ability to find me.
I'm not sure if I'm going to get into coaching. I'm sure I'll stay in soccer somehow.
People don't understand that the feel of the surface is so important for a footballer. The ball travels on the surface; our feet move on the surface - all of that goes into how the game is actually played.
The minute you step off that podium is the minute you start preparing for the next world championship. That's kind of how I work. You celebrate for a brief moment, then you move on.
One thing I love to do when I'm working out is take my watch off, take my heart strap off, and just run - not for time, not for exertion, but just to get the blood flowing.
I think there's so much emphasis on body image and results and outcome, but really what you should be after is to be healthy and to feel good about yourself.
From a pretty early age, my mother realized that I was a little bit more gifted and talented than my own age group. So, she moved me over to play with the boys' travel soccer team when I was about 11 years old.
International friendlies, they mean something, but what you want is to play on the biggest stage, play under the lights.
You can't cry when things get a little bit hard. You've just got to push through and know that there's a reason and end to the means.
It feels a little bit odd to me that you have some guys that have never lived in the United States that play for the United States because they were able to secure a passport. To me, that just feels like they weren't able to make it for their country and earn a living, so they're coming here.
When you're younger and traveling and visiting new countries and cities, that stuff is exciting; it's flashy, it's shiny, but I always had this separation between who I was as a person and who I was as a player.
I'm going to do anything I can do - whether that's being part of FIFA or creating some sort of movement that can actually impart real equality across all lines - in every country, every city, every sector all over the world, that's what I'm going to do.
At the most elite level, your nutrition becomes a lifestyle: it's not something you have to do when you're preparing for Olympic games or World Cup games - you just do it. You're more inclined to eat healthier because it's better for your muscles.
I hope we can get to a point where women players are being paid properly all around the world so the only thing they have to worry about is playing football and playing football alone.
I don't care how many championships you've won or how many records you've broken - if you've had a hand in pushing forward not only a game but women in sport's movement, then I think that's pretty darn good.
If you break an individual record, it's because of the greatness that comes before you.
I have never once dribbled the whole field and scored a goal by myself.
Any good attacker will always beat a defender who's face-marking you.
It's always really challenging trying to go from player to player/coach. You have a kind of friendship basis of relationship with all of your teammates, and now you go to this power position where you have to make decisions that might hurt people's feelings.
Sometimes if you have a coach or team-mates for too long, you get caught in certain routines. I think it's good to shake up things a little bit.
Whenever you get to win, you feel the satisfaction of all of your hard work, all the sacrifices, all the blood, sweat and tears. It feels right and makes you realise that you are really doing the right thing.
During events like the World Cup and the Olympics, I tend to get really wrapped up in my own experience to stay focused, but it's like a bubble. I don't see much outside my own perspective.
I think that in order to get better as an athlete and to see whatever kind of results you're after, you have to make goals. Whether you write them down or tell someone about them, it's important to set goals for yourself in order to achieve any kind of success.
