She wept at first, allowing her tears to soak into the grass at Kashima Stadium, and then she ran, meaning her sweat could follow the same course. Carli Lloyd would literally be leaving everything she had on the field.
Lloyd told us so much in the hour after the United States women’s national team lost its Olympic Games semifinal to rival Canada. She was among the most obviously affected by that defeat because it was not just a lost opportunity to play for a gold medal or to exact revenge in the final against nemesis Sweden. She knew she was departing the sport soon, and this had been her chance to exit at the very top of the world.
Lloyd had been dropping hints into her interviews about the price of playing soccer at an elite level up to and beyond her 39th birthday. She talked about the sacrifices made by those around her, most notably her husband of five years, Brian Hollins, and how it was time simply to experience another sort of life. And still there were many in the soccer media who contended Lloyd never would consent to leaving the national team by choice.
She had displayed such insistence about her place in the game, on the USWNT, in these final few years that it was reasonable to assume she lacked the ability to shut it down. But she will play her final match with the USWNT on Tuesday, then finish this season with NJ/NY Gotham FC of the NWSL, and that will be it.
