CHESTER, Pa. – To his credit, Costa Rica women’s national team coach Garabet Avedissian devised a game plan to stop US star Abby Wambach in Sunday’s title game of the 2014 CONCACAF Women’s Championship at PPL Park.
He prayed. A lot.
“All you can do when Abby Wambach is playing that way is pray – pray that the ball doesn’t get to her,” Avedissian said through a translator. “The way she manages to head the ball and jump is really something that’s very difficult to deal with when the ball is coming her way.”
- RECAP: USA 6, Costa Rica 0
Unfortunately for Costa Rica, the ball did get to Wambach, and the world's all-time leading scorer delivered in a big way, scoring four goals – three off her head – to lead the United States to their fifth CONCACAF title with a thoroughly convincing 6-0 victory.
Now here’s the scary part: Wambach doesn’t even think she’s been playing her best soccer.
“We did some extra heading with her because she thought her timing was slightly off,” US head coach Jill Ellis said with a smile. “I think she did alright tonight.”
She certainly did, completing a hat trick in the first half with three perfectly placed headers over a collection of overwhelmed – and smaller – Costa Rica defenders.
Two of those headers came on crosses from Carli Lloyd, who won the Golden Ball after finishing the tournament with five goals and four assists. Afterwards, Wambach credited Lloyd for helping her get her timing back so she could nab the second four-goal game of her remarkable international career.
“Opportunities I’ve had over the last five to ten games with my head, I’m whiffing, I’m thinking too hard about it,” she said. “Thankfully today, my teammates put me in positions where I really couldn’t think. I was set up to be successful.”
Ellis gave Wambach slightly more credit than that, saying the star forward’s focus is “crazy good” and that “she’s really locked in and working on every facet of her game.” The US coach also said her plan was always to play Wambach 90 minutes Sunday after bringing her off the bench in Friday’s World Cup-clinching semifinal win over Mexico.
For her part, Wambach was fine with the omission from the starting lineup Friday, saying that “the strength of this team is in our depth, and the way you actually use the depth is in tournaments like this.” The 34-year-old believes that if she and her teammates can effectively share playing time duties “without our egos involved,” they’ll be leaving Canada with some hardware next summer.
“If we’re not comparing ourselves to each other and we’re just comparing ourselves to ourselves,” Wambach said, “this team is going to win a World Cup.”
