A biography for Abby Wambachhasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“I would trade all the individual awards I've won for a World Cup.”
“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.”
“I've always been motivated more by negative comments than by positive ones. I know what I do well. Tell me what I don't do well.”
“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.”
“I want my legacy to be about the soccer, and if I can help people be happier in life in any capacity, awesome.”
“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.”
“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.”
“There are standards of the game that FIFA governs and promises to uphold.”
“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 want to reduce my risks as much as possible and hopefully be able to go to the World Cup fit, ready and healthy.”
“The most important thing is to get better at your craft, and concussions and head impacts are a setback.”
“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.”
“I always think that struggle can bring out the best in people - or the worst.”
“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.”
“Sometimes there has to be a goat on some level, and I'm totally fine with that being me.”
“I really enjoy helping people out, and I enjoy time spent with kids.”
“Having different people come together and be on a team and win a world championship is literally, I think, the definition of being American.”
“I have never once dribbled the whole field and scored a goal by myself.”
“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.”