After all the photo-ops and basic questions about the second year of the Washington Freedom as a part of Women’s Pro Soccer, Abby Wambach gave the real lowdown. No longer the upstart youngster, she’s the grizzled veteran, and she had quite a bit to say when asked about the parallels of the development of WPS vs. WUSA, and even more on the development of the young WPS player.
My initial question was about the continuity that the Freedom have tried to maintain.
“It’s very important to feel like you’re building something still,” said Wambach. “But do I think that other teams are going to play poorly because they’ve readjusted their entire rosters? No. I think that Gold Pride probably will be very good this year. They have a pretty steep roster. Having said that, I think that in order to develop for the long term, a core and a system, and a culture, if you will, it’s important to keep players on year after year, and I believe in it. It’s kind of old school. We don’t have enough money to buy players. That’s the truth of this league. I think that you have to still be able to field a great team, and we believe in our system. It worked, in 2002-03, we went from seventh place to second and then to first. It’s a process, and we’ve got to be about the process.”
But the real revelations came when I asked specifically about the young players who are entering their first or second season as pros. Take it, Abby:
“It’s interesting because I can’t believe when some players they go out to train, they wait for the coach to start warming up, or they wait for the coach to start training. I’m like, well, you’re here, why not get as much time in on the ball as possible? I get it: sometimes you’re tired, some days you’re over it, but that’s being professional. From a team perspective, defining what that means changes from team to team. It changes from WPS to the national team. I think that it’s good because we have enough international player, enough people who have been playing professional soccer for a long enough time that the younger players can learn from just by watching what they do.”
“Fortunately, when I was coming out from college to the pros, Mia was there. I’m like a sponge and I’m 22 years old, and I’m like, ‘I’ll do whatever you say,’ and I’m thick-skinned enough that I didn’t take anything she would say to me personally. So you’re getting a sense now that the next generation has a bit more of an ego, and their feelings get hurt more because they’ve been kind of told one thing their whole life, whether they’ve been good enough or the best player on each team.
“You come to this team, and now you’re maybe not the best player. Actually, I can assure you you’re not the best player. So do what you can now because I wasn’t the best player when I got to the Freedom. I wasn’t even close. I was impact player. I was a goal scorer. I did things for my team. But I also knew that I had to earn my right, and I had to make a lot of mistakes, and I had to do a lot of things in order to get to the place that I am now in my career. That’s the shortsightedness that some of the rookies coming into the league now have on some level. It’s good for them because it’s going to be a wakeup call the first couple of weeks of the season.”
Clearly, it weighs on Wambach as she watches some but not all of her teammates, develop their games:
“You see some players getting more confident because they went and played overseas during the offseason, and then you see other players readjusting their expectations. Because realistically speaking, if you’re a good college player, an above average college player, you can probably make a roster. But are you content to sit on the bench? This league is so competitive. You’re playing with players that have won world championships. You’re playing with players that have won Olympic medals. If you’re trying to compare yourself against those players, you’re going to have a rough time. Having realistic expectations is one of the most important things that every team has to struggle with because you don’t ever want to lower your standards. But you don’t wwant to set people up to fail, either. That’s the struggle as a leader, trying to inspire and trying to get the younger players to play to their potential.”
