Heather OReilly My Perfect Player: There was blood pouring from Wambachs head so they s

We asked US Women’s National Team legend Heather O’Reilly to construct her perfect footballer from those she’s played with and against during her 17-year career…

Heading – Abby Wambach (USA)

Abby is the world’s best goalscorer, and a lot of her goals came from her head (77 of Wambach’s 184 goals were scored with her head). I think the goal everyone will remember is the one she scored in the quarter-final at the 2011 World Cup against Brazil.

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Megan Rapinoe picked the ball out wide on the left, she launched it into the box, and Abby’s timing to meet the cross was spectacular. I remember she always used to tell me that she owes it to playing basketball as a kid because when you grab a rebound, you’re taught to catch the ball at the highest point. With her size and bravery, she could reach a level that nobody else could.

As someone who played wide most of my career, I knew that if I crossed a ball into a relatively decent area, she would just attack it, so it made my job a dream as a wing player.

I remember a World Cup qualifier against Mexico in 2010 where she got a nasty injury following a clash of heads. There was blood pouring from her head and she was screaming to get stitches so that she could carry on with the game but it would have taken too long. So the US staff just got this staple gun out and right there on the field. She just took it, right in the head — a staple gun. I mean, that’s just absurd. I don’t know many men or women that would do that. She was a winner.

Engine – Kristine Lilly (USA)

The Queen of caps, because she has more appearances than anybody in the world. She played at the top level for 20 years and she was the fittest player on the US team for that whole time. A real inspiration to me as a wide player because she would just get up and down the line all day, and was selfless.

Anson Dorrance (head coach of the University of North Carolina) would say that when ‘Lil’ was playing there, she would be super competitive and win most training matches, even when Mia Hamm was involved. She’s a little bit underrated. She’s still recognised as a legend but I would say she didn’t always get the credit she deserved.

My first cap in 2002, I came on to the field, and she could tell I was a little nervous. She was the player that came over to me and said, “take a breath,” and she calmed me down, which was a big moment for me right at the start of my international career.

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I would also like to give an honourable mention to my recent team-mate at Arsenal, Jordan Nobbs. I thought US players were the fittest I’d played with but Jordan can get around the field as well as anyone. She has an unbelievable amount of energy that I hadn’t seen often outside of the US.

Pace – Marta (Brazil)

When I think of Marta, I think of the semi-final match we had against Brazil at the World Cup in China in 2007 — her performance was probably the most dominant I have ever seen against the US — she made us look like cones. We lost that match 4-0 and it ended an almost three-year unbeaten run for us.

She would slice through three or four players and for one of the goals, she popped it over her head, duked left, duked right, and then slotted it home. She was just agile and explosive. She had this ability to take control of games with her speed and skill, she was so hard to catch and when you add her bravery, it just made her the complete player. If you add that skill with her speed, it’s a really deadly combination.

Left foot – Alex Morgan (USA)

I want to talk about people just perceiving her as having this raw talent but for Alex, it was really a matter of putting in the work. She was late to the sport as she didn’t start playing organised soccer until she was 14, and therefore had to make up some ground technically. She says she was just out there for hours and hours with her dad, rep after rep, to develop her game. Alex has had to work for everything that she has achieved, which I don’t think people always appreciate.

She’s a brilliant player and that left foot is lethal. Even when she is at a tight angle, she will still bury the ball into the side of the net. But even when you know it’s coming, you can’t stop it. She has power and precision; a great goalscorer.

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You can also talk about her nickname ‘Baby Horse’ because I made that up, along with Abby Wambach. When she first came on the team, she was kind of gangly. She was still coming into her body because she was still in her early 20s. She was very talented but it looked like everything she was doing was a little laborious.

It was in a five-a-side game, and Abby and I were on the sideline watching Alex do her thing. We were commenting on how her athleticism was so raw at that time, she looked like a baby horse — and it stuck.

Heather O’Reilly in action for the North Carolina Courage (Photo by Howard Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Right foot – Mia Hamm (USA)

Mia is one of the best players ever. One of the best goalscorers for the US, the University of North Carolina, a total legend and one of the players I was thrilled to play with when I was younger.

She could do it all; a complete player and very technical. Her right foot was ridiculous but her left foot and heading wasn’t bad either. She had all the attributes and her goalscoring off the right-hand side was just top.

Playing with her was all the more special because I remember watching her as a kid as a 14-year-old in the stands during the opening match of the 1999 World Cup against Denmark, screaming her name with my friends. It was a packed stadium and seeing her score there and how she made the crowd erupt, was just incredible. She scored an amazing goal, ironically with her left foot, but that’s how good she was with both feet.

I essentially went from being a total fan girl in ’99 to being on the team with her in 2002, so that says it all really on how bizarre my teenage years were and how quickly everything happened for me. The very first time I got called into the national team, Mia was injured, so there was an extra spot available — I was playing as a striker at the time, so my friends at high school had a good time with that, saying that I was Mia’s replacement. It took a while for me to firmly believe I belonged there because I was totally in awe of these women. I had pictures of them in my room but Mia and the team made it easy from the off.

Intelligence – Becky Sauerbrunn (USA)

Becky is a deep thinker, both on and off the field, and a keen reader who always has a book in her hand but I think, on the field, she has always fought this perception that she was not fast enough. In the early days, it affected her and affected her confidence, but it was quickly seen that it didn’t matter, because her reading of the game was so much better than anybody else’s. She would do her homework on players to ensure she was one step ahead.

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I think she has been one of the best defenders in the world for a very long time. In 2015, I think she was the best in the world. And that’s not to say she has dropped off now — I just think that year she totally bossed it.

She’s always ready when called upon, which was evident in 2011 when she stepped into a World Cup semi-final having not played a single minute in the tournament beforehand. Rachel Buhler (now Van Hollebeke) was sent off in the quarter-final against Brazil, and Becky started in her place against France in the next match. She showed her class in helping us reach the final, and she’s just got better and better since then.

Tackler – Leslie Osborne (USA)

This one is so hard, because I think Julie Ertz and Carli Lloyd are great with a tackle too, but I am going to give my mate Leslie Osborne some love. She is the nicest, most bubbly personality off the field, but because she was so good, she had a role that would often be to shut down the best player on the opposition team.

The timing of her tackling was so impressive but I just found it a little hilarious too because she is just so nice. However, on the field, she just loved getting into a good tackle. It was her joy on the field, destroying people and breaking up plays, but she did it clean and rarely got yellow cards. She spent a lot of time on the ground, sweeping the ball from underneath players’ feet.

But she was the same in training, and I remember one time where I ducked out of having to face her. It was a one-v-one drill that we did, and I saw that she was coming up next in line on the opposite side, so I would have been facing her. Let’s just say I let the person behind me go in front so I didn’t have to go up against her.

She played a big part in 2006 and 2007, and she was so important in our win over England at the World Cup in 2007 because she essentially shut down Kelly Smith, who’d had a great tournament up to that point. She followed her around the field and made sure she couldn’t influence the game.

Nicest off the field – Rachel Buehler Van Hollebeke (USA)

She’s just one of my best mates, someone with a huge heart, but she was a nasty player to play against. The Germans used to nickname her ‘the Buehldozer.’ She was like Jekyll and Hyde on the field and off the field. She would destroy people on the field, but was very thoughtful off it — she’s just a gem.

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She was always motherly, taking care of people. Her desire to serve others can be seen by her now being a doctor. She’s now a mum, with a little girl, Leona, and she’s just the nicest person you could meet — but maybe not on the field.

(Photo: Kathleen Hinkel/Icon Sportswire/Corbis via Getty Images)

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