I know that I’ll end up being a role model for many, many people out there for all kinds of reasons.
Abby Wambach

I can’t speak for other people, but for me, I feel like gone are the days that you need to come out of a closet. I never felt like I was in a closet. I never did. I always felt comfortable with who I am and the decisions I made.
Abby Wambach

I’m honestly not the kind of person who wants to step up to a podium, test the microphone and be like, ‘Hey, I’m homosexual and this is who I am, hear me roar.’ That’s not who I am.
Abby Wambach

Having different people come together and be on a team and win a world championship is literally, I think, the definition of being American.
Abby Wambach

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.
Abby Wambach

I know that I was put on this planet to be an athlete.
Abby Wambach

This might sound masochistic or narcissistic, I don’t know, but when I’m not playing the game, the validations I feel about life are always through the hardships. I relate more to sadness, in a lot of ways, when I’m not playing.
Abby Wambach

It’s a heavy burden to look up at the mountain and want to start the climb.
Abby Wambach

I’ve always had a dream of owning a restaurant.
Abby Wambach

People don’t think an athlete nowadays can have a team-first mentality and I do.
Abby Wambach

As an athlete, you are literally programmed to endure a specific amount of pain.
Abby Wambach

I haven’t won a World Cup. There’s things that haven’t been finished, and I’m not afraid to fall flat on my face trying.
Abby Wambach

My sole focus is to help bring a World Cup back to the U.S.
Abby Wambach

My nephew has type 1 diabetes, and it’s my goal and hope that in his lifetime there will be a cure for diabetes. There’s no place better to give the money to than the Juvenile Diabetes Association.
Abby Wambach

The truth is, I’ve been on a team my whole life. I’m the youngest of 7, so I’ve been training to be an athlete my whole life.
Abby Wambach

Sometimes there has to be a goat on some level, and I’m totally fine with that being me.
Abby Wambach

2014 was physically a tough year because I injured my knee, and you know how that goes with your emotions and the mentality.
Abby Wambach

To win a championship, you have to have a little bit of luck on your side.
Abby Wambach

There are standards of the game that FIFA governs and promises to uphold.
Abby Wambach

I think making the referee aware of a situation, there is nothing wrong with that.
Abby Wambach

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.
Abby Wambach

Nobody is offered a World Cup.
Abby Wambach

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.
Abby Wambach

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.
Abby Wambach

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.
Abby Wambach

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.
Abby Wambach