The United States women’s national team is one of the world’s most prestigious organizations, and the players are well aware their group could get even more exclusive in the next month.
No nation has ever won three-consecutive World Cups, and the Yanks are one more challenging-but-glorious run from telling the world, again, that there’s never been anything like them.
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Just making the team is a massive accomplishment, whether you’re a new addition like Trinity Rodman or a four-time World Cup entrant like Kelley O’Hara. And that’s why Rodman’s tears at making the squad — captured by U.S. Soccer and let loose virally (0:26 in the video below) — resonated worldwide.
“I almost started crying myself,” Rodman told NBC Sports this week of seeing O’Hara’s reaction. “I played with her for a little bit with the Spirit and she was almost my little mom on the team. I’ve seen how hard she’s worked, just the hardships. Through it all she’s been a captain and a role model for all those around her. She’s so deserving and it made me emotional because I’ve looked up to her for so long.”
Whether it's your first or your fourth, it never gets old.
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O’Hara, for her part, did not see the tears coming until they were physically clouding her vision. It might seem a surprise that a program legend with 157 caps could be caught off guard by anything, even considering the 34-year-old’s long road back from injury.
“At no point did I imagine my reaction to saying I made the team to be crying,” O’Hara said. “It was immediate and automatic. I couldn’t help it. It was an immediate sigh of relief and then all of the emotions and stress of the last 10 months trying to get back from injury washed over me. It was a feeling of gratefulness. Everyone has had the same reaction that it was special and that it shows we don’t take this for granted. It speaks to what this means to us as players, even as someone going to their fourth World Cup. This is what I worked for for so long and I know how special this is. People can feel that in this video.”
Rodman might be going to her first World Cup, having just turned 21 in May, but she feels that, too. And there’s a vibe running through the conversation with both women; Winning this tournament is going to be exceptionally difficult and the group may run from very young to very... experienced, but no one’s as prepared as them.
What’s in a name? Trinity Rodman ready for the stage
You don’t have to ask Trinity Rodman about her background, because that ground’s covered often. She was the youngest player drafted in the history of the National Women’s Soccer League — 2nd overall — and won Rookie of the Year while starring in Washington’s NWSL Championship run... and she also happens to have that famous name.
She’s been driven since a youth, almost obsessively, and some of that’s come from those who she feels do not believe her promise.
“I’ve been the first to go from college, well, barely college to pro, and there was a lot of doubt with that,” Rodman said. “The only video people saw of me was youth camps, so obviously people would doubt me because they hadn’t seen anything, understandably. And no matter what, I can’t get around the name. I think the Rodman name had a lot to do with that, too. Coming from Dennis Rodman there’s a lot of expectations in terms of the athlete that I am.”
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Trinity Rodman’s been guided by her mother, and it’s well-documented that Michelle Moyer had work to do in keeping her daughter’s ultra-competitive nature in check. As a kid, she couldn’t understand why her teammates didn’t want to win as badly as her.
Things have changed since then, but only in that her surroundings are rising to meet her.
“I’ve always been emotional — I would cry every time we lost, or even if we won and I didn’t get the goals I wanted I would cry,” Trinity Rodman said. “My mom dealt with that a lot but I guess that got me here so I can’t be too mad. Through it all, my mom taught me to never get comfortable even if you’re near the top. Someone could top you at any point. Humility is a huge thing and I don’t think you even can get comfortable in an environment like this.
“Even now when I don’t perform well or my team doesn’t, I do get teary-eyed because we put so much work into this game. It’ll always be there but now everyone else is on the same level and has a common goal so it’s a bit different on a level mentality. ... It’s just trying to cope with it because I feel it’s a deep feeling, a test that doesn’t go away.”
And now she’s on the precipice of a dream, appearing in a World Cup.
But Trinity Rodman feels ready. Whether it’s her meticulous preparation or the bevy of experienced talent around her, the 21-year-old is ready to deliver and feels her whole crew is heading for Oceania on a very particular, focused mission of history.
“That’s where the veterans come in,” Rodman said. “I’ve been talking to some and expressing how I feel. They let me know how difficult it is and what you need to do to find ways to get through it. ... Everyone is so ready. I don’t think anybody’s taking it lightly. The mentality is (this is) going to be the hardest thing we’ll ever have to go through. The players in and out, the connections build and the connections that haven’t. Some results and performances this year haven’t been what we wanted but it’s helped us. We are so ready to be the best we can. We want it so bad. Especially for these veterans who have been to so many World Cups. People have seen Kelley O’Hara who has done everything you’ve done and she’s bawling. That speaks for itself. I’m ready.”
Kelley O’Hara ready to defend USWNT’s perch
What may benefit the USWNT more than anything else is the disappearance of an entitlement mentality — or at least the perception of one — that stopped it from reaching its previous goals.
The rise in popularity and development of women’s soccer globally has given the Yanks better competition than ever before, and the program knows what it’s like to not win, More crucially, it doesn’t lose sight of the fine margins and the things it can control.
“I know how precarious it is to walk into a World Cup,” O’Hara says. “You’re basically balancing on a knife’s edge. One little thing can tip you one way. One little thing can tip you the other way. Milliseconds between success and failure. I know how precious it is... precarious is just the way I could put it.
It helps that the team has been forced to consider its legacy time and again.
After all, the USWNT spent the run-up to the last World Cup being asked what it would be like to be the second nation to win back-to-back Women’s World Cups.
Now the Yanks can do something no one’s done.
“It’s funny,” O’Hara says. “Before last World Cup, it was about what kinda legacy would this team have. It was a question of whether we can repeat and now it’s can we threepeat? This program already has that legacy, that winning history and mentality. The reality is if you don’t continue to do that those are things of the past.
“For me it’s always been my goal to keep this country at the very top. When I came on this team that was the expectation. We want to be the best. We should be the best. We are the best. But to take that title you’ve gotta prove it. I don’t know if that’s the team that will cement that team in history because we’re already part of it but to do something that nobody else has done would be monumental.”
That feeling runs from the top of the team — would-be threepeaters O’Hara, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, and others — to the young stars like Rodman. And as Rodman acknowledges that the team mentality is “This will be the hardest thing we’ll ever had to through,” with injuries robbing Mallory Swanson and Becky Sauerbrunn of spots on the squad, that seems a good place to continue this journey toward, hopefully, more tears of joy.
