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Kristine Lilly poised for fifth World Cup

Sept. 5, 2007 - The forward known as the “Iron Woman,” Kristine Lilly, is team captain of the United States Women’s National Soccer Team. She has started every match that the USA women have ever played in World Cup or Olympic competition and is the only remaining member of the WNT that first formed back in the ’80s.

Now she’s in China preparing for the three-week, 16-team tournament that begins with the team’s Sept. 11 showdown against fifth-ranked North Korea. While many predicted that the team would slump without veterans like Foudy and Hamm, Lilly and the team’s next generation have a 37-1-6 mark and have regained the No. 1 ranking in the world.

Flash back to the World Cup eight summers ago. When the American women’s soccer team won the championship, it was Brandi Chastain and Mia Hamm who got all the press. Kristine Lilly was the quiet one. But today Lilly is the one getting the lion share’s of attention. Most extraordinary is that at 36 and after a 20-year tenure, she remains at the top of her game and is, arguably, the greatest women’s soccer player in history.

Dubbed “Grandma” by her much younger teammates - Lilly heads into her fifth Cup competition as the cornerstone of the team. Soccer is a game that makes exceptional physical demands and Lilly is a decade older than most of the players running alongside her. But she has always been the best-conditioned athlete on the team, and her relentless running creates much of the pressure in the U.S. attack.

Lilly embodies commitment. She has appeared in 331 games for her national team, more than any man or woman in history, and has started every World Cup and Olympic game the American team has ever played. She is also the second all-time leading scorer in U.S. and world history and has played in 86 percent of the games the U.S. women’s has ever played. She has played over 26,000 minutes in her national team career, which is over 433 hours spent on the soccer field for the USA. Wow!

When Hamm and the rest of the thirty-somethings retired after one final gold medal at the Athens Olympics, Lilly knew she wasn’t done. She was still single at the time and not ready to move on to the next stage of her life. (She subsequently met and, last fall, married a Boston-area fireman, and so that next stage now awaits her). Her current teammates want to make sure Lilly leaves her last World Cup as champion and if that happens, she promises that teammates, old and new, will see another of the once shy Lilly’s heretofore hidden sides.

Lilly is focused on avenging the Americans’ 2003 semifinal World Cup loss to Germany so let’s cheer her and the rest of the team on.

–J. Schonberger

Quick Kristine Lilly Facts

Full name is Kristine Marie Lilly

20 year veteran of the National Team.

Named captain of U.S. team in 2005

Made the WNT in 1987- as a 16 years old Jr. in High School

First game August 3, 1987 vs China

First goal August 13, 1987 vs China

Played in 5 World Cups- 1991,1995,1999,2003, 2007 (World Champion- 1991, 1999)

Played in 3 Olympics- 1996, 2000, 2004 (Gold Medal- 1996, 2004 Silver Medal - 2000)

The second all time leading scorer in U.S and world history