0:02

It's July 5th, 2015, the FIFA

0:05

Women's World Cup Final in Germany. Professional

0:08

soccer player Carli Lloyd and the United States

0:10

are taking on Japan in a Deja

0:13

Vu scenario. Here we are in

0:15

the final getting ready to play Japan,

0:18

who we have faced 2011 World Cup Final

0:22

and here we are 2015 World

0:24

Cup Final. Japan versus

0:26

the United States. US will try to become a

0:28

three-time winner and end this long drought.

0:32

The United States lost to Japan in

0:34

the 2011 World Cup Final in a thrilling

0:37

shootout. The two teams meet

0:39

again four years later, and the stakes

0:41

are high for both countries as

0:44

they each have gone undefeated in the tournament.

0:46

Both teams were under pressure, but for

0:49

US Women's National Team star, Carli Lloyd,

0:51

that pressure

0:52

fuels her. I mean, I

0:54

thrived under pressure. I was prepared

0:56

for pressure. I had trained millions

0:59

of hours.

1:00

Just three minutes into the game, Carly

1:02

gets her first chance to score during

1:05

a corner kick. That first corner kick was actually

1:07

designed for me. Played

1:09

in short on the ground, quick shot, go! The

1:12

way that I was able to get it in the back of the net

1:15

was just with the outside of my left foot. Carly

1:17

Lloyd, as the last second runs in, Kits

1:20

in front of her defender and perfectly

1:22

finishes it.

1:25

And the second one was a free kick.

1:27

Sending

1:27

it low again, the flip from John Stan loose.

1:30

They want to go. Kailing

1:33

on again. Turn up in the US. You

1:36

know, for me, it's just the willingness

1:38

to do whatever it takes. This

1:41

is just all about sheer desire and wanting

1:43

to get in front of your player. And

1:46

currently, Lloyd has done it in both of these set

1:48

pieces.

1:50

Karli has now scored two

1:53

goals in the first five minutes

1:55

of a World Cup final. She and the rest of the

1:57

US team don't show signs of stopping.

2:00

They

2:00

have their foot on the gas.

2:02

Only 16 minutes into the game, Carly

2:04

finds herself at midfield and

2:07

absolutely launches the ball.

2:09

Lloyd with Morgan

2:10

streaking, she's chipping the goalkeeper! I

2:14

knew that that Japanese goalkeeper always

2:16

played off her line, and I went for it. This

2:18

is absolutely world-class. From

2:22

Carly Lloyd to log up, see Carly

2:24

off her line. Another

2:27

goal hat-trick for Carly Lloyd.

2:30

I wasn't thinking about anything

2:32

a second past

2:35

what I was doing or two seconds

2:37

prior than what I was doing. I was literally in

2:39

the

2:39

moment. She's really in the zone. She

2:41

knew where the goalkeeper was. That's not

2:44

a fluke. That's not luck. That's Carly

2:46

Lloyd right now.

2:48

This is In the Moment from Religion of Sports

2:51

and PRX. I'm David Green. Each

2:53

week, I sit down with an elite athlete

2:55

to relive one of the most important

2:57

moments of their career and break it down

3:00

second by second. Recently

3:02

we had our first live recording in front

3:04

of an audience with former US national team

3:06

star Carli Lloyd. I spoke to her

3:08

in New York City at Religion of Sports House

3:11

of Football, a week-long event

3:13

that celebrated the world's most popular

3:15

sport. Carli talked about becoming

3:18

the first

3:18

woman in history to record

3:20

a hat trick in a World Cup final. These

3:23

moments don't happen all the

3:25

time because everything needs to

3:27

be synced up. And that was my

3:29

moment. That was my moment where my head,

3:32

my body, everything had been

3:34

synced.

3:37

Back after a break.

3:51

When Carli Lloyd joined me for a live

3:54

recording of In the Moment, she had just come back

3:56

from Qatar where she was working as an analyst

3:58

for Fox Sports covering the

4:00

Men's World Cup. She retired

4:02

from the sport last year after a 17-year

4:04

career. During that time,

4:07

she won two World Cups, two Olympic

4:09

Gold medals, and two FIFA Player

4:12

of the Year awards. She's considered one

4:14

of the best female soccer players of all

4:16

time. But the 2015

4:18

World Cup stands out in her career.

4:21

It wasn't just her historic hat

4:23

trick, it was a comeback from a

4:25

disappointing showing in 2011 against Japan. The

4:28

two teams were tied 2-2

4:30

after extra time, and the

4:32

game was decided in a penalty shootout.

4:35

Three Americans, including Carly, missed

4:37

their penalty kicks, or PKs, and

4:40

Japan won the game. Can you just set

4:42

this up for us? I mean, the pain

4:44

from losing to

4:45

Japan in 2011, does that

4:48

stick with you for four years, like

4:51

just hoping for another chance? 100%, especially

4:55

when you miss a PK in the World Cup Final,

4:57

like I did. And... You held that personally.

5:00

I mean, that lost. Oh, absolutely. We

5:02

felt like we were destined to win in 2011, just

5:04

the way that everything kind of unfolded, our

5:07

win against Brazil that went into

5:09

PKs. We all made, you

5:11

know, every one of our PKs then, and

5:14

then to have faced Japan

5:16

in the final and to have another

5:19

penalty shot, a PK shootout.

5:22

Your mind starts to play tricks with you.

5:24

Do you keep your same spot? Does

5:26

the keeper know where you went last time?

5:29

And we stepped up and we second

5:32

guessed, we questioned. And yeah,

5:34

it was devastating. I mean, that's

5:36

something that you don't get over.

5:40

We flew back to the US and

5:42

we were treated

5:44

as if we basically

5:47

won the World Cup. And we were like, this is, you

5:50

know, we got second place. had it, had it, but

5:53

we started a trend

5:56

that kind of led us into 2015. What

5:59

was the key to that? It just was this

6:01

build. Everything was building.

6:04

Everything was just there for the

6:06

taking. You talk about moments,

6:08

you talk about opportunities, and do

6:11

you capitalize on those opportunities?

6:13

But we were just generating so

6:15

much support and so much following,

6:18

and then you have a Fox Sports that comes

6:20

in and takes over the rights for

6:23

the TV broadcast and invests

6:25

money and shares stories and

6:28

just highlight

6:30

our entire team. And it was

6:32

the moment we took advantage of. So 2015,

6:34

you go through six games, you give up one

6:37

goal. Were you feeling like this

6:39

is it, we're going to face Japan, this is Destiny,

6:41

we're going to beat them in that championship? Not

6:43

in the beginning, no. I think we started

6:45

off very defensive minded. Jill

6:48

Ellis wanted us to essentially,

6:52

in the midfield, almost play with two defensive

6:54

midfielders with Lauren Chaney and that's

6:57

obviously not in my nature. My nature

6:59

is attacking minded. So we

7:01

were not coming out on the front foot. We were

7:05

kind of taking the back foot and just

7:07

allowing teams to start to come to

7:09

us. And so getting through that group, I mean,

7:12

we got through the group and the

7:14

talk of the town was, you know, this team's not

7:16

gonna win a World Cup. Everybody thought we looked

7:18

terrible. Everybody thought that we

7:21

were gonna potentially go out in the first round of the

7:23

knockout stages.

7:24

So was that still nagging at you as you

7:26

faced Japan in the final, or had

7:28

you kind of gotten through dealing

7:31

with that narrative and those doubts? Well,

7:33

it was a build, right? So we got out

7:36

of the group, we then faced Colombia

7:38

in the knockout stage. That's

7:41

where we sort of started to come into

7:44

our own. And it wasn't until

7:46

we had some yellow card suspensions

7:50

where Megan Rapinoe and Lauren

7:52

Cheney actually had to sit out a

7:55

game against China in

7:58

the quarterfinals. So

8:00

that's when Jill decided to

8:03

listen to what pretty much the

8:06

entire media was saying, Unleash

8:09

Carly. Hashtag for tonight.

8:12

And she did. Well, Unleash

8:15

Carly seems appropriate to talk

8:17

about that World Cup final.

8:20

I mean, your team comes out

8:23

four goals in 16 minutes, three

8:26

of them scored by you. And

8:29

the third one, did you plan for

8:31

that to happen? I

8:34

mean, did you see their goalie

8:36

in a certain place and be like, I'm literally

8:38

gonna kick this from near midfield

8:40

and I'm gonna score here?

8:42

So I'll go back probably

8:45

several months to when I was running

8:48

on the field by myself and I had my music

8:50

on.

8:51

And I just kind of get lost in my

8:53

thoughts and think a lot, obviously you're

8:56

doing grueling running. So your mind

8:58

has to go somewhere. So I actually

9:02

visualized scoring five goals

9:04

in a World Cup Final.

9:05

Five. Five. And

9:07

I did have the opportunity to score

9:10

two more in that game and I didn't. I

9:12

did not visualize scoring a goal

9:14

from midfield.

9:16

But

9:18

yeah, I visualized

9:20

it. Like I actually thought about

9:23

scoring five goals in a World Cup Final one

9:26

day when I was just running on the field with

9:28

no one around me doing sprints.

9:31

And several months later, I find

9:33

myself in this

9:33

situation. Did you think back to

9:36

the memory of that, that

9:38

dream, that fantasy when you were

9:40

on the field here? This was just

9:42

literally the flow state. And

9:45

that's why you think

9:47

about the great moments, you

9:49

think about the Michael Jordan flu game.

9:52

And I think when you are

9:54

prepared, when you're

9:57

having fun, when you're just

9:59

in. In the moment, things happen

10:03

that you can't really explain and

10:06

it just happened to pay off in a

10:08

World Cup final. What made me

10:10

and allowed me to thrive under the pressure is

10:12

knowing that I was always prepared. I

10:14

knew that no one else was training

10:17

as hard as I was, was focusing

10:19

as much as I was, was living

10:22

and breathing the

10:23

game of soccer as much as I was. I

10:26

would go to the training field and it

10:28

would never end there. I would come home, I was constantly

10:31

thinking about the game, thinking about things that

10:33

I needed to do. I don't know if you guys

10:35

have all seen that I've already filmed

10:37

this show, but the show's coming out on January

10:40

4th on

10:40

Fox. It's called Special Forces,

10:43

it's pretty wild. 16 household

10:46

names have left their lavish

10:48

lifestyles behind. I don't care

10:51

how rich or famous they are, they've entered

10:53

our world and they will play by our

10:55

rules.

10:56

There's things that I did on that

10:59

show, you know, repelling out

11:01

of 175 meter tower, back

11:05

diving out of a helicopter, lit on fire,

11:07

tear gas. I've pretty

11:09

much thought- So it's lit on fire? Yeah.

11:12

Okay. I pretty much thought I was gonna die every day.

11:15

I didn't, obviously. But

11:18

it's a show based on a very

11:21

condensed special

11:23

ops training course. And the

11:25

whole idea and premises on it is

11:28

to

11:29

try to survive 10 days without quitting.

11:33

And every bit of it is in your mind, you

11:35

know, like how you don't

11:38

panic, you know, your positive thoughts

11:40

of what you can

11:41

do to yourself, tell yourself.

11:43

I mean, it's unbelievable.

11:46

So we talk about pressure. It's all

11:48

in the mind. It's a self-talk and

11:50

it's your preparation that allows you to. And

11:53

don't get me wrong. special people that

11:56

are able to do it. Not everybody

11:58

is going to be able to. withstand

12:00

some of the pressure that even

12:02

these special ops guys, you know, withstand

12:05

or, you know, a football player

12:07

or soccer player. There's different levels

12:10

of it, but we're capable of

12:12

achieving and

12:14

doing anything possible in life. I really

12:16

believe that. Yeah.

12:22

So that show, if we watch a show like that

12:24

and think that it's all fake, that you're not actually being

12:26

lit on fire, you're actually being

12:28

lit on fire. It's real. Okay.

12:31

How much or what

12:33

was the feeling of the pressure

12:37

you all were carrying to win this

12:39

game? See,

12:41

I didn't feel any pressure that day, which

12:43

is odd. I felt the pressure in

12:46

the beginning.

12:47

I think we all felt the pressure in the beginning. And

12:49

then I don't think that we felt

12:51

it as much in the semi-final game

12:53

and then we didn't really feel it in the final

12:55

game.

12:56

When I go back to that moment,

12:59

you have to believe and we

13:02

really did

13:03

believe that we were going to win that game. There

13:06

was just something about everything where we

13:08

knew it. What is it

13:10

like to represent your

13:13

country on a stage like

13:15

that and to

13:17

have that much personal success

13:21

with a hat trick? I mean,

13:23

it's indescribable. It was

13:25

one of the greatest moments of my career, hands down.

13:28

And I talk about this build from 2011, right? And

13:32

it just all came together at the right moment.

13:34

And all of our lives changed. And then the

13:37

pressure became even more immense.

13:38

How did your life change? You know, I

13:41

think for me, being

13:43

on the national team in 2005, I

13:46

was part of Olympics, World Cups, doing

13:49

well within the team. Just

13:51

not, you know, not really out there.

13:53

Didn't have a ton of endorsements,

13:55

didn't have a ton of opportunities, and it was

13:58

almost like I needed to score.

14:00

three goals in a World Cup final at

14:02

that moment for people to be like, oh,

14:04

wow, she does play on the team. No

14:07

one can take the history away from you, right? So

14:09

we're forever etched in history. And

14:11

it was really, it was just

14:13

such a spectacular moment, especially being

14:16

in Vancouver and

14:17

in Canada the whole time. I mean, we

14:20

felt like we were playing a World Cup in the United

14:22

States of America. And you

14:24

felt that you felt the crowd, you looked

14:26

up, you saw red, white and blue everywhere. And

14:29

so it was almost better we

14:31

didn't win in 2011. Because

14:33

I think for this moment in time,

14:36

social media, like I said,

14:38

Fox Sports,

14:40

everything just kind of came

14:42

at the right moment.

14:44

I want to ask you, there was a headline,

14:46

and I almost, I feel weird even

14:49

reading this to you because it's just,

14:51

it's mean. But the next day after

14:53

you win a World Cup title

14:56

and you score three goals. The

14:59

Washington Post has a headline about you. Beast,

15:03

weirdo, choker, winner.

15:07

And all about what they described

15:09

as contradictions in Carly

15:11

Lloyd. When you listen to

15:13

that, is that just

15:16

plain mean? I

15:18

mean, believe me, I took notes. I took notes

15:20

till the end of my career. I'm still taking notes.

15:23

This reporter should watch out, basically. I

15:25

haven't forgotten any of those bits.

15:28

In fact, it's in my Players Tribune when

15:30

I retired, just a lot of things

15:32

that I just took note

15:34

of. And I was fueled and always

15:37

fueled by my inner motivation, but

15:40

the haters and the doubters pushed

15:42

me to greater lengths. So

15:44

I'm appreciative of that, because

15:46

I don't know that maybe

15:48

there wouldn't be moments like this. Maybe

15:51

I wouldn't keep rising. And

15:53

I think, you know, when people

15:56

see a successful person,

15:58

but also a confident. person who's

16:01

not afraid to say what they think, who

16:04

isn't afraid to ruffle feathers

16:07

or, you know, just speak the

16:09

truth.

16:10

A lot of people can't handle that. And I think because I'm,

16:12

I'm female, it has never kind of gone over

16:15

well with people. They, they just label you

16:17

as arrogant. But if a male,

16:20

Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan say they're one of

16:22

the best players and, you know, no one trains

16:24

harder than them or, you know, no one's

16:26

more mentally tough than them, it's okay.

16:29

But why wasn't it okay if I was

16:31

confident in myself? I

16:33

backed it up and I prepared to

16:35

be able to speak that then there shouldn't

16:37

be anything wrong. So I think that people

16:40

just look at things. They've got

16:42

no clue of the situation. I

16:45

failed a whole lot in my career and because

16:47

of those failures, I've been able to have those

16:49

moments. You

16:50

say it's different, um, being

16:53

a woman. Is anything getting better? Have

16:55

you seen progress in your career in people

16:58

in the media and fans?

17:00

I mean, I think it's different circumstances.

17:03

I think that people

17:05

just really misunderstood me in the beginning

17:07

of my career. You know, all they saw

17:09

was literally the tunnel vision, the crazy

17:13

eyes. That was all I was about, you know,

17:15

and now in this life after soccer, people

17:18

are seeing a different light of me,

17:21

you know, the smiling. I'm smiling,

17:23

I'm sharing a little bit more about my personal life,

17:25

but that's always been there. Just

17:27

not for the whole world to see.

17:30

And

17:31

I think in the end of my career, I

17:33

think people now have understood why

17:35

I was the way that I was. You can't have

17:37

it both ways. You can't try to

17:40

be the best of the best and not have

17:42

a crazy tunnel vision of focus.

17:47

You just can't do it. And that's why there's

17:50

very few of them. There's not

17:52

a thousand Tom Brady's or Michael

17:54

Jordan's or Kobe Bryant's. They're

17:56

few and far between. and the

17:58

singular focus that is. needed is immense.

18:02

It's a lot and it's not for everybody. So

18:04

in that department, I think I don't

18:07

care either way. Like I'm just going to keep

18:09

being me. But I think on

18:11

the other equality issues, yes,

18:15

it's starting to

18:17

get better. But I still think that

18:19

there's still a ton to go.

18:20

We should say US soccer pay

18:23

equity for men and women. Finally,

18:25

far too late this year. Is that something

18:27

to celebrate? Or is that something

18:29

we should say it shouldn't have taken that long or both?

18:32

Yeah, I mean, it took long, you know, but I

18:35

always knew that the deals we were signing

18:37

were never good. You know, it just it

18:40

made us think that they were

18:42

good. And it made us believe

18:44

that we just had to accept what we were given. It

18:47

was almost criminal in a sense where

18:49

we win a World Cup, which is one

18:52

of the hardest things to do.

18:54

And we not only win it and

18:57

get a, you know, a little bit of a bonus month

18:59

once it's split amongst all of us.

19:02

We then have to play 10 games to earn

19:04

more of a bonus. So we have to do

19:06

more work, even though we just won an entire

19:09

World Cup. So

19:11

it was always baffling. You know, you would think

19:14

that that you'd make like

19:16

six times the amount of what you're meant to

19:18

make by winning a World Cup. And that just was

19:20

never the case. And I think because you

19:23

a soccer knew that we would most likely

19:25

win. And so they didn't want to put

19:27

the bonuses super high.

19:31

When we come back, we talk to Carly about

19:34

some of the sacrifices that come

19:36

from playing at the highest level of a sport.

19:39

It's a lonely life. You know, it's

19:42

football is an amazing game and it

19:45

gives you amazing moments, but it's also

19:47

lonely.

19:47

That's after the break.

19:58

Carley Lloyd has told us about the

20:00

ups and downs in her career. One

20:02

of the toughest times was in the run

20:04

up to the 2012 Olympics in London,

20:07

when

20:07

she got pulled from the starting lineup.

20:10

That whole 2012 Olympics was

20:13

pretty devastating, to be completely honest. I

20:16

remember playing a game in Philadelphia

20:18

right before we were kind of getting

20:21

ready to go over to London. And,

20:23

you know, I was dealing with ticket

20:25

sales and my friends

20:27

and family coming and all sorts of things.

20:29

And we talk about kind of the mindset and

20:31

the tunnel vision of focusing and what

20:34

the mind can do. And I didn't

20:36

have a great half. And so I came out at

20:38

halftime. Pia was the coach at

20:40

the time. Jill was

20:43

the assistant coach. And

20:45

from that point on, I pretty much

20:47

lost my starting spot.

20:50

And I lost my

20:52

starting spot mainly because Jill Ellis

20:55

convinced Pia to keep me

20:58

out of the starting lineup. So

21:00

that kind of started from 2012 on. And

21:04

so I got pulled

21:08

and I remember coming home for about two

21:10

weeks before I was getting ready to go over

21:13

and, you

21:14

know, just absolutely devastated, you know,

21:16

crying, feeling like my

21:18

whole career was going to be pretty much over.

21:21

And what I did was

21:23

I trained three times a day. I trained

21:25

in the morning. I came back in the afternoon

21:28

after lunch, and I trained in the evening,

21:30

and I ran, and I did ball work. And

21:33

that was literally the only thing that I could control.

21:35

And so when I went there over

21:38

into camp,

21:39

I was playing so well, I was fit,

21:42

I was feeling confident. And I

21:44

obviously had a point to prove, because

21:46

I knew what

21:47

was going on. Shannon

21:50

Box had gotten injured in one of the training sessions.

21:53

And so I knew that there was the possibility

21:55

of me perhaps going in the game

21:57

at some point or, you know, the

21:59

team. And so that happened first game of

22:02

the Olympics against France. We

22:06

were actually losing to nothing. We

22:09

talk about, you know, the visualization again,

22:11

I visualized the

22:13

night before coming in and scoring the winning goal. And

22:15

Pia

22:16

had also come into my

22:18

room the night before and said, you know, just be

22:20

ready to go. I'm not sure how much Shannon

22:23

can can play. So I said, I'll be ready. I'll

22:26

be ready. And sure enough, 16 minutes

22:29

in, Shannon box goes down. Unfortunately,

22:32

you never want to see that happen. So

22:34

I went in, you know, we're losing

22:36

two nothing then two, one, two,

22:39

two, I score the winning goal three, two, Alex

22:41

ends with the last goal four, two.

22:43

And

22:46

at that point, same thing, couldn't

22:49

take my foot off the pedal, because I

22:51

knew at any moment, they were going to be looking

22:53

to take me out again. And I

22:55

never left the field after that. And

22:58

we won the Olympics. That was a big

23:00

turning point in my career. That was a moment

23:03

where I knew that

23:05

I could go on to become the best player in the world

23:07

and nothing and no one

23:09

was going to stop me. I was lucky enough

23:11

to interview you a few years ago when

23:13

you released your memoir, when

23:15

nobody was watching. It's an amazing book.

23:17

So you're in addition to all the other things we've talked about, you're a great

23:19

author. And I remember

23:22

you and I

23:23

spoke about your youth

23:27

and sort of dreaming of playing

23:29

soccer, and there was a time, and this was

23:31

astounding to me that you thought about quitting

23:34

the sport altogether when you were trying to get on the,

23:36

the under 21 team

23:38

and you told me that, that you were

23:40

missing something in your life. Like the someone,

23:43

like a person to guide you, to ask

23:45

you challenging questions. What exactly

23:48

were you

23:49

missing and how hard was that?

23:51

Well, I think for so long, I had never

23:54

really been, you know,

23:56

I guess all of my coaches, if

23:59

I was... giving 80%

24:00

of my 100. It

24:03

was still better than most people's 100%. Sounds

24:06

about right. So I would

24:08

just play, but really, I needed

24:11

somebody to kind of kick me in the butt a little

24:13

bit and say, hey, you know, you've got to work hard every

24:15

single day, not just pick and choose your moments.

24:18

And I really just needed someone

24:20

to tell me, this is what you need to

24:23

do in order to get to the next

24:25

level. The next level, everybody's talented.

24:28

Everybody's good. Everybody's fit. And

24:30

in order for you to stay there, you've got unique

24:33

qualities about you that you could

24:35

be a part of that team. But

24:38

this has to be part of your life. You've got to train

24:40

hard. You've got to get yourself fit. You've

24:42

got to become mentally tough,

24:45

tougher. So I really hadn't

24:47

failed per se up to that point.

24:50

And then when I got cut, I didn't really

24:52

know how to deal with it. I didn't know how

24:54

to bounce back from that. You

24:57

know, once I started to make some lifestyle

24:59

changes and start working hard

25:02

and making myself just

25:05

give everything I have, uh,

25:07

in each and every training session, then I

25:10

started to see things

25:11

changing a bit. It sounds like such a lonely

25:14

journey to be doing all of that hard stuff

25:16

without someone kind

25:19

of guiding you through it. Yeah. I

25:21

mean, the someone I had, I really

25:23

don't want to talk about. So, you

25:26

know, that was, there's some positive

25:28

things within that situation.

25:30

And there's a lot of negative things within that situation.

25:33

So I think we all have journeys

25:36

within our life that

25:39

shape us into who we are. And

25:41

I'm grateful for that. But,

25:43

you know, I think, yeah, it's, it's

25:45

incredibly important to surround yourself with

25:47

a good support system. I've had my husband

25:50

along for this ride

25:53

pretty much my entire career as we've been dating

25:55

since high school. seen

25:57

me at my high, seen me at my low. if

26:00

it weren't for his support all these years, it

26:02

would be truly very,

26:05

very difficult. But it's

26:07

a lonely life.

26:09

Football's an amazing game, and

26:12

it gives you amazing moments. But it's also

26:14

lonely. It's also

26:16

hard every day to

26:19

live up to the pressure, to deal with the pressure,

26:22

to reinvent yourself every

26:24

single day. You've got critics.

26:27

You've got doubters. You've got

26:29

all sorts of things that are kind of coming at you and

26:32

it can be very challenging. So it's,

26:35

you often see, you know, a lot of people kind of crumble

26:37

through tough and challenging situations.

26:39

So it's so important to make sure

26:41

that you've got good people around you.

26:43

A part of your journey, your life

26:46

journey that you wrote about was

26:49

losing touch with your parents for a long

26:51

number of years. How did that happen

26:53

and what did

26:54

the sport have to do with it? You know, I've

26:57

grown up with a great family. You

26:59

know, my parents supported me to do

27:02

what I love. Didn't have a

27:04

lot of money growing up, but

27:06

gave me the opportunity to succeed in

27:10

one shape or form. And, you know, when

27:13

I kind of went through this journey, they

27:15

were there in the beginning, and then we

27:18

had a bit of a falling out for about 12 years.

27:22

Everybody's sacrifices are different, And

27:25

mine happened to be, you know, 12

27:27

years of not speaking to my family, missing

27:30

birthdays, missing holidays, missing

27:33

weddings. Uh, you know, I wasn't at

27:35

my siblings weddings. They weren't at, you

27:37

know, at our wedding. You

27:39

know, 2020 is obviously a year that

27:41

none of us will, will ever forget. I

27:43

happened to be home for 10 months

27:46

straight. I also happened to have my

27:48

first ever surgery in my career.

27:51

So

27:52

whatever kind of came

27:55

throughout all that moment in

27:57

time, life changed

27:59

for the better for me. And

28:03

that

28:03

person I didn't want to talk to exited

28:05

my life, which was probably the

28:07

best thing that could have ever happened to me and my

28:09

husband and my family. And my

28:12

family came back into my life and

28:14

they were able to be

28:17

a part of my ending the

28:19

last year of my career, which

28:21

these last Olympics, right? Last

28:23

Olympics, you know, farewell

28:25

games, 300th my

28:29

last and final game in Minnesota.

28:31

It was almost like picture perfect. It was almost

28:34

like it was all meant to kind of go down like

28:37

this. And yeah,

28:39

it's been amazing so far. I've

28:41

got three little nieces. We

28:44

just haven't missed a beat, and life has been really good.

28:46

I'm so happy.

28:47

I remember talking to you and just

28:49

feeling with the end of the conversation we had a few years ago, like

28:51

that I'm so

28:53

grateful as a fan for everything

28:56

you put into this sport, but it sounded like

28:58

the sacrifices were immense and

29:01

you deserve this ending.

29:03

Yeah, and I think you don't realize, like I didn't

29:05

realize because you have such tunnel vision to

29:07

achieve something, you don't realize

29:10

how

29:11

much weight you're carrying with

29:14

the situation until you're almost kind

29:16

of removed from the situation. And yeah,

29:18

it was almost like the weight of the world was

29:21

just lifted off my shoulders.

29:22

Given everything we've talked

29:25

about, the sacrifice, the

29:27

needing the right people to surround

29:30

you. What lessons would you give a

29:32

kid who looks up to you and

29:34

is like, when I dream of my

29:36

future, I wanna be Carli

29:38

Lloyd?

29:39

I think that they're not gonna

29:41

be Carli Lloyd, right? We're

29:44

all different, you know?

29:45

And I think that you can be inspired

29:48

by someone, but

29:49

you shouldn't try to be somebody else because

29:53

everybody's their own unique

29:54

person. And

29:56

so what I would say is don't

29:59

be fearful.

30:00

anything, you know, I think

30:03

what kind of helped me through

30:05

this journey is just not

30:07

caring if I'm ever going to make a mistake

30:10

or fail, of course, at

30:12

training sessions and stuff you harp

30:14

on, you know, given the ball away or whatnot,

30:16

but just having

30:19

no fear to try different things,

30:22

to put yourself out there, to

30:25

make yourself uncomfortable. You

30:27

know, all of those things help just shape

30:30

you into who you are. And life

30:33

has taught me that you've got to work extremely

30:36

hard at whatever you

30:38

want in life.

30:39

And it sounds so easy, like, oh, yeah, like, I'll

30:42

just go home. I'll work hard. No, there's

30:44

a purpose to working hard. It's

30:47

not just saying you're going to work hard. It's

30:49

doing actionable things every single day

30:52

to better yourself. So, yeah, not

30:54

being fearful, working hard. And

30:57

the third thing I would say is

30:59

competing against yourself. That

31:01

has not failed me. I think

31:04

so often we look

31:06

to the person next to us or in front of us

31:09

and we wish, you know, we had something that

31:11

they had or we compare ourselves

31:13

to them.

31:15

I

31:16

did my absolute best to

31:18

never compare myself to anybody.

31:20

Just tried to be the best version of myself each

31:22

and every day and embraced that,

31:25

along with the working hard and not

31:28

fearing things has kind of allowed me to

31:30

take on this journey.

31:32

Thank you for inspiring all of us. Thank

31:35

you for your honesty. Thank you for getting off a plane from

31:37

Qatar and coming and spending time with us.

31:39

And I hope you continue to soak it all in. Carly Lloyd,

31:42

Carly Lloyd, thank you so much. Thanks everybody.

31:44

Appreciate it.

31:47

Women's

31:48

soccer legend, Carly Lloyd, speaking

31:50

to me recently at Religion of Sports, House of

31:52

Football, an incredible week-long

31:55

event that celebrated the sport

31:57

during the World Cup. about

32:00

our upcoming interviews, follow

32:02

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32:06

FearlessGreen, that is Fearless

32:09

underscore green with an E on the end. If

32:11

you like the show, leave us a review on Apple

32:13

podcast or wherever you listen.

32:16

I gotta say this show would not be what

32:18

it is without an extraordinary team making

32:20

it all happen. In the Moment is produced by Sarah

32:23

McCrory, sound design and mixing

32:25

by Michael Raphael and Jossson Gonzalez

32:27

at PRX Productions. Britt Khan is

32:29

our talent booker. Our production manager

32:31

is BJ Olin. Story research was

32:33

done by Joe Levin. Kevin Sullivan edited

32:35

this episode and is the head of talk. Gotham

32:38

Chopra, Amit Sankaran, and Adam

32:40

Schlossman are our executive producers, and

32:42

Fearless Media is our consulting producer.

32:45

Also special thanks to Teresa Tran.

32:47

In the moment is a production of Religion of Sports

32:49

and PRX. I'm David Green. We're gonna be

32:51

back next week with another athlete and

32:54

their moment.