Abby Wambach

During events like the World Cup and the Olympics, I tend to get really wrapped up in my own experience to stay focused, but it's like a bubble. I don't see much outside my own perspective.

Any little touch a defender can make on me when I'm in the air literally moves me. On the ground, I can use my muscle, but in the air, it's harder to fight that off.

I have a unique ability to predict the flight of the ball, and my teammates have a unique ability to find me.

Any good attacker will always beat a defender who's face-marking you.

I'm not sure if I'm going to get into coaching. I'm sure I'll stay in soccer somehow.

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

People don't understand that the feel of the surface is so important for a footballer. The ball travels on the surface; our feet move on the surface - all of that goes into how the game is actually played.

As a competitor, I want to continue to keep turning the chapters and keep challenging myself.

The minute you step off that podium is the minute you start preparing for the next world championship. That's kind of how I work. You celebrate for a brief moment, then you move on.

Whenever you get to win, you feel the satisfaction of all of your hard work, all the sacrifices, all the blood, sweat and tears. It feels right and makes you realise that you are really doing the right thing.

My teammates have put me in all different kinds of positions to score goals, and I can't say it enough, and I really through and through believe it in my heart that I'm only as good as my teammates allow me to be.

One thing I love to do when I'm working out is take my watch off, take my heart strap off, and just run - not for time, not for exertion, but just to get the blood flowing.

I have never once dribbled the whole field and scored a goal by myself.

Nobody is offered a World Cup.

I think there's so much emphasis on body image and results and outcome, but really what you should be after is to be healthy and to feel good about yourself.

I think that in order to get better as an athlete and to see whatever kind of results you're after, you have to make goals. Whether you write them down or tell someone about them, it's important to set goals for yourself in order to achieve any kind of success.

I really enjoy helping people out, and I enjoy time spent with kids.

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

To win a championship, you have to have a little bit of luck on your side.

2014 was physically a tough year because I injured my knee, and you know how that goes with your emotions and the mentality.

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

The most important thing is that sometimes you have to go through hard times to get to the good stuff.

The truth is, I've been on a team my whole life. I'm the youngest of 7, so I've been training to be an athlete my whole life.

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'll be honest. After I got married, I definitely had a shift in emotional devotion.

International friendlies, they mean something, but what you want is to play on the biggest stage, play under the lights.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

We need to have women in more powerful positions that are making decisions, so when that 10-year-old girl is looking up and wondering, 'What can I do and what do I want to be when I get older?' She has the opportunity to do and be whatever she wants.

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.

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.

My sole focus is to help bring a World Cup back to the U.S.

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.

As professional soccer players, we take our bodies to the extreme. We're the people at the gym that look like we're breaking the machines. Pushing our bodies to the limits is what makes us so strong and capable and Olympians. It's not an easy thing to consistently do over and over again to your body.

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 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.

I would love to be a mum if I'm blessed to have children. My wife and I have those plans.

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.

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

If you break an individual record, it's because of the greatness that comes before you.

I'm not spending every second thinking about the World Cup, but it's always in my mind when I make choices and decisions.

When I look in the mirror, I don't see a person who's made the kind of impact that Mia Hamm made on the game. She's still my idol, the greatest player and the greatest teammate. She achieved so much in so many different ways. What she did for women's soccer can't be measured.

People don't think an athlete nowadays can have a team-first mentality and I do.

When you can score three goals without the most prolific scorer in the world, you know you have a lot of depth, and it gives you confidence.

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

Winning, you can overlook so many things.