Abby Wambach

“I would say Hope Solo is competitive.”

“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.”

“The growth of women's soccer and women's sports all around the world has been slow.”

“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.”

“If I can help a kid feel more comfortable in their skin because they're struggling with maybe the things I struggled with in high school, that's great.”

“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 pretty goofy. I laugh at my own jokes.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“International friendlies, they mean something, but what you want is to play on the biggest stage, play under the lights.”

“Sometimes when you fail, it allows you the opportunity to grow more motivation and get more intense about your training.”

“You know me, I'm not that kind of person that cares to unveil all of my personal things to the world because frankly, in terms of my soccer, it doesn't matter.”

“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.”

“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 sure if I'm going to get into coaching. I'm sure I'll stay in soccer somehow.”

“A few goals is the way soccer is meant to be played.”

“As soon as I started to realize that I could make a living playing professional soccer, I went to that place where I could torture myself because I knew it would make me better for the championship game.”

“I would love to be a mum if I'm blessed to have children. My wife and I have those plans.”