NEW ORLEANS >> Abby Wambach finished her career Wednesday as a soccer player with 184 goals — the most in international competition by anyone, man or woman.
As much as the 32,950 fans at the Superdome chanted her name, as much as her teammates tried to get her the ball, she did not get goal number 185. And the United States Women’s National Team lost 1-0 to China, its first defeat on American soil in 104 matches.
Representing the United States since 2001, Wambach starred on two Olympic gold-medal teams and played on the World Cup winner last summer.
After it was all done, she brought a champagne bottle into the press conference on her way to Bourbon Street and said a storybook ending would’ve been nice but wasn’t necessary.
That’s because she achieved so much on the pitch, and because her most important work may be ahead of her, as an advocate for equality.
But many in Hawaii will mostly remember Wambach for being part of something unfair to our state’s soccer fans, stemming from ongoing unfairness to which her team has been subjected.
The match scheduled for Dec. 6 at Aloha Stadium never happened because the USWNT players — of which Wambach was clearly the leader — deemed the surface unfit for a soccer match, and U.S. Soccer agreed. It’s one of the seemingly rare times the team and the entity that governs it have been on the same page recently.
What comes around…
Some fans (or former fans) in Hawaii are even happy that the team lost Wednesday, calling it bachi or karma.
I still don’t buy that the Aloha Stadium turf was so brutally bad that playing on it would endanger the players so much it was worth hurting fans, especially the young ones. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them to see the best soccer team in the world play a game — and one of its best players before she retired.
“Having a chance to go to Hawaii even though we didn’t get to play our game, that was amazing to meet fans that would’ve never had a chance to meet us otherwise,” Wambach said Tuesday, recounting the highlights of the World Cup victory tour.
But that was just the kids who happened to be at Waipio for the unannounced training session on what should have been game day. Thousands others were just left with unusable tickets and massive disappointment.
It’s really too bad, because the cancellation was largely about the players’ general frustration with being forced to play on any turf field, in addition to the specific flaws of Aloha Stadium.
Since she decided to retire as a player, Wambach, 35, said she sees unfairness more clearly and plans to continue to battle all forms of inequality. Folks in the islands who got hit by the crossfire between the team and U.S. Soccer might find that ironic.
“When you’re in it, when you innately have been taught it your whole life, you can’t see it. I think that it’s time for something to change, and enough is enough,” she said.
“I’m not bashing U.S. Soccer. They’ve moved that needle more than any other country,” she said. “But when women make less (money), people with a different skin color don’t get the same opportunities … I want to make (equality) real. I’m very passionate about it.”
After her final match, she said FIFA has approached her to help reform soccer’s international governing body that is infamous for corruption. And she joked about replacing U.S. men’s coach Jurgen Klinsman, whom she’d earlier said on Bill Simmons’ podcast should be fired.
Soccer great
Regardless of what she says and what she does now, it’s undeniable Wambach is an all-time great. Even the jilted fans in Hawaii continue to acknowledge that.
“In scoring all those goals she is a be-all and end-all competitor, possibly surpassing Michelle Akers and Mia Hamm,” said Jack Sullivan, the state’s longstanding soccer advocate. “When witnessing her play you were just captivated in searching for her all over the field, not wanting to miss one of her terrific strikes. She was head of the class on those mighty headers. She reminds me of our own Brian Ching.”
And then there’s the flip side, the game that didn’t happen.
“It is still a big disappointment,” Sullivan said. “I do think they could’ve and should’ve. It was a black eye for the soccer community and the stadium. It was truly (U.S. Soccer’s) fault.”
