Julie Foudy likes USWNT a lot in 2023 Women’s World Cup

Retired U.S. women’s soccer icon, two-time World Cup champ, two-time Olympic gold medalist and current ESPN analyst Julie Foudy kicks around some Women’s World Cup Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.

Q: What do you like about this year’s U.S. team?

A: Well, you’ve got a ton of young talent that are these game-changing type players. They’re going into their first World Cup, yes, but you look at that front line. … You went from an 18-year-old in Alyssa Thompson to 21-year-old Trinity Rodman to 22-year-old in Sophia Smith, and all of those three have the potential to really change games with a ton of pace and speed and dynamic play. So that’s exciting. Then you also have [Julie] Ertz back in the mix … her coming back is I think gonna be a huge boost. Then you have your veteran group like Crystal Dunn and Alex Morgan and [Megan] Rapinoe, Kelley O’Hara … so it’s a good mix, for sure. And hopefully you have your Lindsey Horans and your Rose Lavelles healthy, and they can win a lot of games.

Q: Is inexperience a concern?

A: I think it’s a wild card, I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s concern. You never know how a young kid’s gonna react in a pressure[-filled], global stage like this, but I also think that there might be ignorance is bliss. … There’s something to be said about not really understanding it all (laugh). … They don’t think much about it, and that, I think is gonna serve them well. And then you hear like a Sophia Smith for example who is gonna be a breakout star at this World Cup — I was talking to and said, “Now that Mal Swanson is out [with a knee injury], there’s gonna be a lot of pressure and eyeballs on you to produce, and how does that feel?”

Q: What did she tell you?

A: “I love the pressure. I love the spotlight. I love people depending on me to produce, I think I can do that.”

Q: Who are others who could be breakout stars?

A: I wouldn’t call her breakout, because obviously we know about Rose Lavelle, but she hasn’t been healthy, but she’s the most creative player on the team. Trinity Rodman has the potential, and then Alyssa Thompson, who’s got a ton of pace, is super skillful on the ball … but she’s only 18 and has the potential to break down a lot of teams as well.

Q: What do you think of Alyssa Naeher in goal?

A: Calm, steady, veteran. Been playing well, so I think she’ll be the one in goal. Never wants the spotlight, just gets the job done, exactly what you want from a goalkeeper which is so unlike goalkeepers honestly (laugh). I always laugh and tell her, “You’re way too normal to be a goalkeeper.”

Q: Coach Vlatko Andonovski?

A: He’s a fantastic player manager. Players love him. Incredibly detailed. Loves to really add nuance and layers to the game. This is also his first World Cup. I’m sure he is also a little bit nervous, but yeah, he’s a really good coach.

Q: Do you have any sense for the chemistry on this team?

A: Yeah, I do. They seem like they have a ton of fun when I see ’em. He’s got a bunch of characters on the team as well. Emily Sonnett leading that charge. And even though you have 14 players going into their first World Cup, outside of Alyssa Thompson, they really have the last three years together, a lot of ’em. I think that growth has been huge, and that’s always a hard thing when you have such a transition with a team as we saw after the Olympics, which was needed. But you have a lot of young energy, which is super fun, too. That’s something I remember really well when a young Abby Wambach came on the team, she was like a puppy. There’s a new perspective to everything from the young kids, you get a little jaded when you become a veteran and they bring this fresh energy and perspective that is such a boost.

Q: What has Megan Rapinoe meant to women’s soccer?

A: Obviously we look at all she’s done on the field. But I think her legacy obviously will be what we’re gonna see from her off the field and what she continues to do — obviously she was a huge part of equal pay, she’s been a huge part of this team, standing on top of podiums and demanding that the world get better, whether she’s at a ticket-tape parade in New York City or speaking in front of FIFA or meeting with Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA. This is a woman who’s not afraid to speak truth to power, and does it with a smile on her face, and does it with humor and is just so smart and cares deeply about people who can’t speak or who don’t have a microphone. So that’s what I’ve always admired about her is her willingness to be brave, courageous and speak for those who can’t, and to fight for things that people will say, “Why? Why are you merging in sports and politics or sports and society?” Her answer has always been, “Because the two are the same, and it matters. What matters on the field matters to me in life.”

Q: Describe winning the World Cup in 1991.

A: A bit surreal, ’cause I had to come back to Stanford and go straight to finals and no one knew that we had just won a World Cup in China. My professors were like, “Where were you? Why’d you miss school? … Where have you been?” We thought because it was such a big deal in China, they had done a great job hosting the tournament we thought well maybe it’ll catch back home, but it obviously took quite a while before that was gonna happen. Still, it was phenomenal, because it was something that no one thought we could do. The Americans don’t play soccer is what we were told and it’s really not our native sport, so we had no business being at the World Cup was kind of what we heard back in the day.

Q: Winning the 1999 World Cup at the Rose Bowl?

A: That goes right at the top, of course, because again, people thought we wouldn’t be able to fill the stadiums and put on the show that we put on in terms of the standard and the numbers of the attendance and all that went with it. We were very adamant that we go in big stadiums in a national footprint, not keep it regionalized in smaller stadiums. We didn’t know, obviously, how the country would react, having never hosted a women’s World Cup in the United States before — they’d hosted the men’s, of course, but not the women. We were super pleased, as we suspected. People say, “Were you surprised?, I said, “No (laugh).” But as we suspected, people care deeply about following the team and cheering for the team, especially a team that’s winning and has potential to win a World Cup. The reaction, although it was lovely, it wasn’t entirely surprising.

Q: Winning a gold medal at the 1996 Olympics?

A: That was amazing because we’d never been to Olympics. That was the first time women’s soccer had been in the Olympics. And then, obviously we had it in Atlanta. For us it was Athens, Ga., for our final. But to be in the United States for the first-ever women’s soccer at the Olympics was a dream. I don’t think you realize at the time what a gift that was. And then, as we know, the patriotism of this country and the Olympics as well. And so it was a window and a visibility into the program and to the personalities that we never had before with the amount of attention and eyeballs on the Olympics. Another moment in our history that was a real touch-point for our growth and exposure.

Q: How heartbreaking was settling for a silver medal in 2000?

A: I still get the cold sweats thinking about that one, actually (laugh). Norway … the worst part about it, I almost wish we had lost 4-nil and we just killed. It was one our best finals … you can dominate a game and play very well and just not be able to clinch it. That one hurt a lot, still hurts.

Q: Winning the 2004 gold medal?

A: That’s probably one of the more special ones. We knew we were retiring — Mia [Hamm] was done, I was done, Joy [Fawcett] was done — and we had come off two losses at the world stage with the Olympics in 2000 and then the World Cup 2003. So the last thing we wanted was to finish on three losses and end our career, so that one was huge. And then we played a really good Brazil team in the final that was much younger, had Marta and Cristiane and Formiga, tons of players, good players in their prime, and we just held on and gutted it out. Really probably got outplayed by them, but had the U.S. mentality that has always served us so well and ended up gutting that one out. So that one, to end everything on a high mine that, was enormous.

Q: Whatever comes to mind: Mia Hamm?

A: The best. The perfect superstar you would want for a team because all she cared about was doing the team right, and helping the team in any way she could. Yet she got all the spotlight because of how good she was, she always wanted to bring the team along. After that I always think of her because she single-handedly help grow the game of soccer in this country, both men’s and women’s side.

Q: Brandi Chastain?

A: Energizer bunny, contagious energy, tons of fun. Loves the moment as you see when she knocks in the final penalty kick. And then, great teammate.

Q: What did you think when she ripped off her shirt after winning the 1999 World Cup?

A: (Laugh) Thank God it was her abs and not mine.

Q: Carla Overbeck?

A: Amazing leader, our captain, a phenomenal human being that would do anything for the team, the team would do anything for her. Learned so much about leadership from her, and how you treat people, and how you train and how you manage a team.

Q: You were described as the team comedian.

A: (Laugh) I don’t know … I liked to pull pranks, pull jokes, I keep it pretty light even though I am intense on the field (laugh). I have a good balance. I think the thing that our team back in the day did really well is we just found a lot of joy in everything we did. We hunted joy as we say. We didn’t take ourselves too seriously. Obviously, we wanted to win and be successful, but there was great balance with the group, and that’s what I want to see with this group, is just the enjoyment of you’re playing on the global stage, and it’s a dream, and to wrap your arms around it rather than be worried about it.

Q: How would you describe your on-field mentality?

A: I was a fighter, but I was also a leader. You can’t be all fighter and not keep your head on in a sense. I was so driven to win, I would do anything to win, so that was kind of the foundation of everything I did. I think my mentality was, “How can I just help the team win?” That’s something I actually talk about now [with] my kids.

Q: The legacy of the 1999ers and the 2019ers?

A: Two decades removed, we were fighting for what the standard should be with women’s soccer. Globally, with what we did in ’99, this is what it should look like, this is what it should feel like, these are the type of stadiums you should be playing in, this is how it should be if you’re hosting a women’s sporting event. It was really what we wanted to show people, and I think 2019 did a similar job when they were suing their own federation for equal pay, and [an] equal-pay chant started out on the field as they collected their World Cup. And to do that, while they were suing their federation, while they’re fighting for equal pay and then to be the World Cup champions on top of that, be able to compartmentalize and play and perform the way they did, was an inspiration in itself as well.

Q: When was it that you almost quit to go to med school?

A: That was before the ’96 Olympics, right after I graduated from Stanford. I was gonna go to med school after we won the gold medal in ’96.

Q: What stopped you from quitting?

A: No one would trust me as a doctor, I felt (laugh). … No, it wasn’t actually a soccer thing, it was more that I wasn’t convinced I wanted to be a doctor. I felt like I was going down a path that was very singular, and I liked to bounce around and have fun, and I would be in a lab or hospital all day and that maybe wasn’t what my personality called for (laugh). Stanford Medical School let me defer for two years, and then I finally said, “I’m not gonna go, sorry.”

Q: You liked Howard Cosell?

A: I loved Howard Cosell. Used to imitate him all the time (laugh). He was one of the ones that made me think, “Gosh, I should do broadcasting and be an announcer” when I was younger. And yet I didn’t see any women doing it. I kick myself cause I said, “Naaah, I probably should do something a little more secure.” I wish I had done journalism in college and studied that a little more and learned a little bit more about that, but I found it eventually. Now, you don’t think twice about women going into journalism or sports broadcasting as you did back then.

Q: Favorite Mission Viejo Soccerettes memory?

A: (Laugh). Just the cheer — The Green Machine.

Q: You were how old when you started playing for them?

A: 7.

Q: Until when?

A: 17.

Q: Favorite athletes growing up?

A: Shaquille O’Neal, Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Steve Sax.

Q: Three dinner guests?

A: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Michelle Obama, Nelson Mandela.

Q: Favorite movie?

A: “Tommy Boy” or “Pretty Woman.”

Q: Favorite actor?

A: George Clooney.

Q: Favorite actress?

A: Natalie Portman.

Q: Favorite singer/entertainer?

A: Pink.

Q: Favorite meal?

A: Donuts.

Q: Where is women’s soccer as far as the injustices that remain?

A: I think the injustices that remain are global. We have been the standard-bearers in this country with the new equal-pay agreement. You have a lot of countries who look at what we’ve done on the woman soccer front and go, “Wow. We can’t even get equal treatment , never mind equal pay. So when you look across the world, and you look at Africa, and you look at even our own confederation CONCACAF, you’ve got Jamaica threatening it to play in the World Cup and doing GoFundMe’s ’cause they haven’t been paid. You’ve got Nigeria, who’s threatening to boycott their first game at the World Cup because they haven’t been paid. You have Spain, you had 12 players threaten to walk away from the team because they felt there wasn’t enough for the women’s team. So the battle has been won here in the United States, but what you see globally is there’s still a lot, a lot, a lot of strides that need to be made in terms of support and funding and resources given to girls when they’re playing.

Q: Who are the teams to beat for the U.S. team?

A: I think it’s Germany and England. Europe is really good. Obviously France is in that mix as well, and Spain. But I just think those two, they played in the final of the European Women’s Championship last summer, and they’ve got a ton of talent and depth and speed and goal scorers, and all the elements the U.S. has always had. And now, they’ve got a little to ’em, which in the past, the U.S. mentality was something that caused a lot of fear in the hearts of others around the world. Now you’re hearing countries say, “We don’t fear the U.S. anymore.”

Q: How much does it hearten you that so much of the country will be mesmerized and glued to what the USWNT will be doing this summer?

A: It’s the best, because we’ve always said the market is there, the fans are there, the eyeballs and interest is there, but they can’t find it, they can’t see it, you gotta give it to them, you gotta show them what this team’s about. And now we’re seeing, if you water that garden, it will bloom, in fact. And the attention and support, investment on the women’s side, and of course 2019, the last Women’s World Cup, shattered attendance and viewership records. I suspect this one is going to do the same in a huge way. It’ll be by far the biggest World Cup in terms of numbers and eyeballs watching that we’ve ever seen.

Q: Why is it so compelling now to this country?

A: Well, they win, and that helps. And then, they have a chance to go for something that no one’s ever done, a three-peat. To see them on the global stage and try to go for that back-to-back-to-back is gonna be huge, I also think that people know them — they know the personalities, they follow them, they buy their gear, they buy their merchandise, they watch ’em on television all the time — so there’s an intimacy that in the past when you couldn’t watch it, you couldn’t see it, you couldn’t read about it ’cause it wasn’t covered, it’s hard to be drawn to. So I love that they’re getting the attention they’ve so long deserved.

Q: What advice would you give to the team?

A: The advice I would give to the team is not to overthink it. Sometimes we can way overanalyze and there’s paralysis by analysis. … Now just go feel it, go play, go be instinctive and creative and free and not get bogged down by all the tiny minutiae. Just go have fun and enjoy that moment.

Q: If you were speaking to these players, how would you explain to them what emotions they would feel walking off the field with a championship?

A: I would tell them that the thing you always have, is you have this sisterhood of women around you. And yes, it’s great that you’re standing there, but the real beauty of it is you’re standing there alongside all these teammates who you fought and worked so hard and cried and sweated and rehabbed with, and really have grown up with. And when you do that together with them, and for the Olympics for example you’re standing, and you’re the only one who gets to sing the national anthem. And you’re shouting it together. There’s just nothing like that. In that moment, and that joy of that group and that bond you’ll have for the rest of your life. And it’s something that you can then brag about to your kids, when you’re old and crusty.