at Shanghai Hongkou Football Stadium in Shanghai, China after the WWC final Sept. 30.
While U.S. coach Greg Ryan stresses a team concept, no player is more valuable to the team than Wambach. No Wambach, no championship. It's that simple.
She has scored at an amazing 81.6 percent rate (80 international goals in 98 games), the best strike rate ever for a women's player in the world. Yes, even more than Mia (57.4 percent), who has a world-record 158 goals in 275 games.
"I'm glad she's playing for us," Ryan said with a laugh, "because she's a handful. She's strong, physical, athletic, dynamic striker, just a pure goal-scorer who will find a way. If it's not working one way she'll find another way. She's great in the air, great on the ground. Which is very fortunate to have her up front for us."
Hamm thinks that Wambach can become the best women's soccer player ever, which is high praise from someone of her stature.
"She's phenomenal," she recently said. "She loves to play and she loves to be the person who scores those goals. She has the potential to be as great as, with regards to that type of physical personality, as Michelle Akers. And to me, Michelle Akers is the best player who ever played. There's nothing Michelle couldn't do. Abby has that potential. She can score goals. She's a physical presence. She's a leader out there and teams are afraid of her."
Hamm, recently inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame felt that either Wambach or Lilly could be in a position someday to break her record.
"Absolutely and I hope they do," she said. "First and foremost, Abby's a friend and I want her to be successful, her, Kristine, or whoever it is."
Wambach has other things on her mind. She is more concerned about winning the World Cup.
"That is so far in the distance for me I don't even think I can answer that question," Wambach said. "Who knows how long I'll play? Who knows if my legs will keep up with the pace that Mia scored goals? Right now, my focus is on the World Cup and allowing Kristine to leave this game, if she so chooses, on top and as a World Cup champ."
It is possible that a healthy Wambach could play in as many as four major competitions, which would give plenty of time and opportunities to surpass Mia. That includes the 2007 WWC, the 2008 Summer Olympics, the 2011 WWC and the 2012 Olympic Games.
Here's more bad news for the teams in China: Since scoring the game-winner in the 2004 Olympic final in Athens, Wambach feels her game has improved.
"I've become a more complete player," she said. "I now kind of pick and choose my battles in terms of being physical. I'm not necessarily going in reckless like I feel that I used to. I get a lot fewer yellow cards. I had to sit out a game for a yellow card suspension in the Olympics and we ended up tying that game. After that I've tried to make it a point to be a little bit more of a responsible player for my team because I think that my team needs me on the field to win games."
She has gone from being a role player to a vocal leader. Now, she has become the teacher, rather than the student.
"It's a perspective change," Wambach said. "You're not a role player. You're not there to allow Mia or Kristine to be successful, you kind of have to take the responsibility on your shoulders. I still feel the same. I look the same, kind of. I have a few more wrinkles. But the fact is, when a job needs to get done, whatever that may be, there are people on this team who will step up and do it. Scoring goals is my job. That's what I love to do. ... Now being a leader on this team and being a person that can, hopefully, help the younger and inexperienced players in world championships out, that's my job. I think that's what Mia did for me and hopefully I can do it for some of the younger players."
Wambach keeps herself humble by remembering she is just another in a long line of exceptional U.S. women soccer players. She knows she has a legacy of Julie Foudy, Brandi Chastain, Joy Fawcett and Lilly to uphold.
"I live in the house that I live in and I drive the car that I drive in every single day because these women afforded me that opportunity," she said. "They paved the way, they are the pioneers. They'll probably be the first to say that there were many women that came before them, but really, for me in my life, they were very instrumental and inspirational. They gave me this opportunity to have the opportunity to play for this team and to be able to play just this as my source of income.
"It is the most motivating thing in my life to prove and say to them, whether it's directly or indirectly, you guys did good. What you see from here on out, the result, is championships and winning games. I think it's nice to see Kristine still playing because every time I question that or anytime I'm getting down on myself or on the team, I'll look right at Kristine and say, man, she is a big reason I'm sitting here right now and living the life that I'm living."
Wambach's driving force in China is her memories of 2003. The U.S. was bounced in the semifinals by eventual world champion Germany and she takes part of the blame for that bitter 3-0 defeat.
"My mark scored the first goal that day and I've been almost training with that in mind ever since so I have a little bit of a revenge factor," she said. "We got a little in the Olympics but I've never won a World Cup."
The scariest thing about Wambach?
Let's leave that to former U.S. women's national coach Tony DiCicco, who guided the team to a world championship and a gold medal.
"I don't think we've seen her best soccer yet," he said.
That's probably the last thing the rest of the women's soccer world wants to hear.
Michael Lewis covers soccer for the New York Daily News and is editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He can be reached at SoccerWriter516@aol.com. Views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
