Soccer: All or nothing for Wambach

The number actually came as a surprise to Abby Wambach.

These days, the U.S. women's soccer star splits her time between the national team and her Women's Professional Soccer team, the Washington Freedom.

Of the 1,620 combined minutes Wambach's teams have played in 2010, she hasn't spent much time on the bench.

“I've missed one minute, huh? Wow,” she said.

And the hardest working player in women's soccer keeps getting better. Wambach, whose national team is in Omaha this week for a Tuesday night game against Sweden at Creighton's Morrison Stadium, leads the U.S. team with six goals in seven friendlies this year. She also leads the WPS with seven assists and is tied for third in the league with five goals.

Wambach is one of only two players who have played all 630 minutes in those friendlies, and she's also been in on 989 of a possible 990 minutes for the Freedom this season, despite the fact she's been fouled 21 times — third-most in the league.

“I love to do it. I love challenging myself,” Wambach said. “That doesn't mean it's not hard. It's definitely grueling at times. It feels like a lot, but this is what I love to do.

“This is my passion, and in order to continue to get better I have to put myself in environments like that to get better.”

Her remedy for the rigors of playing for two teams at the same time is a simple one.

“You should see me on my off days: I'm on the couch and I don't do anything,” she said. “I know how to take care of myself so I can get through it.”

Wambach had a pretty good reason for missing that lone minute.

In the 89th minute of Washington's 0-0 tie with Boston on May 8, she collided with Breakers goalkeeper Ashley Phillips. As they fell to the ground, Wambach got smacked in the face by the heel of Phillips' left cleat.

Initially, Wambach thought something had happened to her eyeball — that it had gone into her brain, as she puts it. She was relieved to learn she only had a broken nose.

Four days later, Wambach had surgery to have her nose reset. And four days after that surgery, Wambach was back on the field for the Freedom.

Though she was still feeling an uncomfortable amount of pain, Wambach declined to wear the expensive protective mask Freedom trainers had made for her.

She didn't want to waste time thinking about the nose once play began, a mindset made evident by the way Wambach scored that day: on a diving header.

“I thought to myself, ‘Well, here goes nothing,'” she said. “I don't know how I even did that. I was actually impressed.”

And one week later, Wambach scored two goals and assisted on another in a 4-0 U.S. win over Germany in an international friendly.

The way Wambach sees it, this is her job. She doesn't call in sick.

“I guess I was just brought up that way,” she said. “When I do something, I do it totally.”

Wambach's all-or-nothing attitude is exactly what her coaches like about her.

“She's phenomenal in the air,” U.S. national team coach Pia Sundhage said. “On every goalie pass and long ball, she's winning pretty much everything in the air.”

Her relentlessness is a big reason why Wambach is almost universally considered the best women's soccer player in the U.S., but it hasn't always benefited her.

Weeks before the 2008 Olympics, during a meaningless final tuneup against Brazil, Wambach crashed into a defender while fighting for a 50-50 ball and broke her left leg.

She couldn't travel with the team to Beijing and instead had to watch the Games from her vacation home in the Thousand Islands, located just north of New York on the U.S.-Canada border, as her teammates won gold without her. She listened to their postgame celebrations from her cell phone.

“I still felt like I was a part of it,” she said. “I know I was a part of it for so many years leading up to the moments they had, and it was special to have a different perspective.

“I had my jersey on and I was cheering like their No. 1 fan, and I'd never felt that before. It was obviously tough emotionally, but I'm the kind of teammate who wants my team to win no matter what.”

And for a non-stop competitor like Wambach, spending weeks on crutches with a 13-inch titanium rod in your leg can do wonders for your love of the game.

Then again, it's not like Wambach listened when doctors and trainers told her to stay on those crutches for eight weeks.

“I was off by week four and was hopping around on one foot for a while,” she said with a grin. “Obviously, I know my body best, so I don't care what other people think.”

Wambach thought that 1.3-pound rod in her tibia would hamper her for the rest of her career, that she'd never be the same.

These days, though, she hardly notices it when running around, and it certainly hasn't made her a tentative competitor on the pitch.

“I don't see any difference from before the injury,” Sundhage said. “She's just tough. And I don't think she can be too tough for me, as long as she's not playing dirty or being stupid out there. She's tough in a good way.”

A year ago, Wambach became the fastest American to reach 100 career goals in international play. Her two scores against Germany in May moved Wambach into the No. 3 spot on the U.S. team's all-time scoring list.

“The amount of goals she's scored in the short amount of time she's played with this team is incredible,” veteran teammate Kristine Lilly said. “But it's also really important for people to understand that, yes, she's scoring all these goals, but she's also triple-teamed sometimes and is finding people for great assists.”

And while the stats and accolades are nice, Wambach has her eye on more important goals. She wants that gold medal back.

That's what is making her prepare all the more furiously for next year's World Cup in Germany. Her last two U.S. squads both finished third at the Cup.

“What gives me motivation is knowing other countries are not slowing down, they're not taking their hand off the throttle,” she said. “They're putting more money, time and effort into their programs.

“I know all around the world it's getting tougher and it will continue to get tougher, so when you get these moments you need to relish them. You've got to keep getting better.”

As she walked off UNO's soccer field on Saturday afternoon following the national team's first practice in weeks, Wambach couldn't have been happier.

“I never take for granted being together with these women,” she said. “It's almost like Christmas for us. That's kind of weird, but that's how much we love this game and how much we're passionate about it.”

Contact the writer:

444-1201, max.olson@owh.com

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