Abby Wambach: Final match wasn’t about ‘a result, it was about celebrating’

Before US women’s national team star Abby Wambach played her final game as a professional on Wednesday, a 1-0 loss in New Orleans to China, she had some parting words about the men’s national team and head coach Jurgen Klinsmann.

The career scoring leader in global play – for men and women, with 184 goals- kicked off her cleats and hugged each teammate on the field before walking to the bench, smiling, to embrace her coaches and remaining teammates as the crowd chanted her name.

Abby Wambach is soccer.

The public address announcer proceeded to list just some of her long string of career accomplishments, concluding by exclaiming that “her impact will never be forgotten!”

One-hundred and eighty-five goals later, Wambach plays her final match with the national team in New Orleans on Wednesday night. “He says he has, I don’t think that he has”. The mission was to get Abby Wambach a goal, and it wasn’t subtle. I was very emotional after the last game. The ball did not bounce in Wambach’s favor in at least once chance in front of goal, when the ball sprung too high for her to connect.

“Do I think that one day it’s possible?” It was eventually dropped so the players could prepare for the World Cup, but the point had been made.

It was perhaps a regrettable twist of irony that Wambach’s final appearance came on the exact sort of turf she railed against so much this year: uneven artificial turf on an American football field.

She questioned whether enough young American players were coming through the USA soccer system and whether Jermaine Jones and Fabian Johnson, who were born in Germany, should have been picked to play for the USMNT.

When asked what she would fix about the men’s team, Wambach again called out Klinsmann, whose team suffered a surprise defeat to Jamaica in the CONCACAF Gold Cup semi-finals earlier this year.

How Abby Wambach’s soccer career has evolved over the years. But if we had a team full of players like that it just wouldn’t feel the same as if we developed a team then that went on and won a World Cup.

“You guys won the World Cup without me on the field”, Wambach recalled herself telling Ellis. She is all ready to start on the next chapter of her life. But who can forget one of the greatest soccer players in the history of the sport? “As brilliant as a soccer player as she is, she’s an even better person”.

“I would definitely fire Jurgen, ‘ Wambach said in an interview on the ‘Bill Simmons Podcast”.

“Watch out, Bourbon Street”, she added.