When the 79th minute arrived in a 1-1 tie with France in the Women's World Cup semifinals, Lauren Cheney prepared to serve a corner kick. The French had dominated possession. The United States hung on tenuously. Cheney spotted Wambach, whose eyes were imploring, saucer-like.
"You can tell when Abby's seeing red," Cheney said.
The kick floated to the far post as directed. Wambach charged forward and nodded the ball downward, her head punching like a fist, putting the Americans ahead in an eventual 3-1 victory Wednesday and giving them passage to the World Cup final here today against Japan.
At 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds, with impeccable technique, anticipation and fearless determination, Wambach is considered the best header in women's soccer. Forty-nine of her 121 career international goals — 40 percent — have been scored with her head. Given that Japan has only two players as tall as 5-7, today's final might be decided not by anyone's dexterous foot but by the glancing accuracy of Wambach's forehead.
"If you want to stop her, you have to push and pull on her jersey before she starts to run," said Sonia Bompastor , a French defender. "When she moves forward, she's unstoppable."
At 31, Wambach has long been full of brawny assertion. She won the 2004 Athens Olympics for the United States with a header in overtime of the gold medal game against Brazil. Yet she views her career as incomplete.
She broke her leg and missed the 2008 Beijing Olympics as her teammates won another gold medal. The World Cups in 2003 and 2007 ended prematurely for Wambach and the U.S. in the semifinals. This might be her final chance to play in soccer's most important tournament.
"I would give up every goal I've scored to win this World Cup," Wambach said. "You have to be willing to give up everything."
That same bold abandon is required to proficiently head a soccer ball, one of the sport's most potentially dangerous yet valuable skills. Not only is proper technique required -- upper body arched, shoulders squared to the target, chest and neck snapping forward, head striking the ball at the hairline -- but so is courage in the face of a possible collision with a goalkeeper or with the goalpost.
"A lot of it is determination and will -- 'I don't care who is in the way,'" said Jim Gabarra, who coached Wambach in two professional leagues. "Some players have that fear: Is someone going to hit me in the air? Is the goalkeeper going to punch me in the head? Will I land funny?" Wambach traces her bravery and competitiveness to familial necessity, having grown up as the youngest of seven children in Rochester. To her four brothers, Abby was less a sister than a live-in goalie.
When she was 6 or 7, her brothers dressed her in pads and peppered her with slap shots in a neighborhood cul-de-sac. When her father, Peter, who had been a wrestler and a runner, asked how many goals she scored in a soccer game and she said three, he asked, "Why not four?"
"My mom would literally lock us out of the house and say go play," Wambach said. "We wouldn't be able to come in, not even to pee. I feel like I was kind of bred in some ways to do what I do now."
Socer by commercialappeal
Comments
Post a Comment