Abby Wambach Quotes

"Sometimes there has to be a goat on some level, and I'm totally fine with that being me."

"At the most elite level, your nutrition becomes a lifestyle: it's not something you have to do when you're preparing for Olympic games or World Cup games - you just do it. You're more inclined to eat healthier because it's better for your muscles."

"Winning, you can overlook so many things."

"When you're a pro athlete, life is very narcissistic - everything relates back to you and how you play. When you are getting out of pro sports, you suddenly have to get a little more mindful of what's going on around you and how you affect the rest of the world."

"A few goals is the way soccer is meant to be played."

"My nephew has type 1 diabetes, and it's my goal and hope that in his lifetime there will be a cure for diabetes. There's no place better to give the money to than the Juvenile Diabetes Association."

"Your heart can only take you so far - sometimes the physical body tells you otherwise."

"I am not a politician by nature, but I will say I think there need to be more women in FIFA, and I would be open to having those conversations when the time is right."

"I don't know if I found soccer or if soccer found me. Especially because when I was younger, I was doing it, in a lot of ways, because I wanted the attention of my mom and dad."

"Sometimes when you fail, it allows you the opportunity to grow more motivation and get more intense about your training."

"I would trade all the individual awards I've won for a World Cup."

"I want to do what I can to give the next generation of athletes added advantages in the game."

"Considering retirement is like skirting with the reality of what's to come, and I think that's why so many athletes decide to do more introspection at that point."

"There are standards of the game that FIFA governs and promises to uphold."

"My eldest sister Beth is a doctor who studied at Harvard and Columbia and played basketball for Harvard. She set the athletic and academic standard for the rest of us to follow."

"When I was really young, the women's national team wasn't on a grand media stage, so my role models were male basketball and male American football players."

"Soccer players generally burn through all of their carbohydrate stores by halftime, so how are you going to replace those? That's what we do at halftime."

"I know that I'll end up being a role model for many, many people out there for all kinds of reasons."

"I always wanted to be more validated as a human being, as a person, than I was as a player. I think that was a really hard balance for me."

"I always think that struggle can bring out the best in people - or the worst."

"I want my legacy to be about the soccer, and if I can help people be happier in life in any capacity, awesome."

"When you're younger and traveling and visiting new countries and cities, that stuff is exciting; it's flashy, it's shiny, but I always had this separation between who I was as a person and who I was as a player."

"I would say Hope Solo is competitive."

"I don't care how many championships you've won or how many records you've broken - if you've had a hand in pushing forward not only a game but women in sport's movement, then I think that's pretty darn good."

"I'm going to do anything I can do - whether that's being part of FIFA or creating some sort of movement that can actually impart real equality across all lines - in every country, every city, every sector all over the world, that's what I'm going to do."

"You can't cry when things get a little bit hard. You've just got to push through and know that there's a reason and end to the means."

"I think I take on a little more responsibility when push comes to shove. I'm not scared to fail."

"As an athlete, you are literally programmed to endure a specific amount of pain."

"I am going to change the world, and I'm talking to everybody in the possible world that I can get to that can help me to do that."

"I hope we can get to a point where women players are being paid properly all around the world so the only thing they have to worry about is playing football and playing football alone."