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At the end of the day in our sport, you just have to sacrifice yourself completely to put the team first. That's not easy for us because we're so competitive, but that's the most important thing when it comes to World Championships.
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There's a lot that's out of your control. But the one thing that you can control is your work ethic.
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The tremendous honor of playing on the world stage is even more rewarding when I am able to use my accomplishments to help others.
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My family is a little ridiculous. They're wild - really colorful and animated and big personalities.
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I love to be outside.
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I have butt muscles, thigh muscles, and then my upper body is super skinny - except for in my shoulders, which you need for a little bit of strength to hold other players off the ball. So I think I've developed muscles 100 per cent from just shooting the ball and running. Every single thing about my body looks like soccer.
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I kind of felt like I was never good enough. I always wanted more.
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The European leagues have been there a long time, the coaches have been there, the clubs have been there, there's history to the teams. There's already that football support culture.
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For a long time growing up, I thought that everything happens for a reason and it's kind of already written. But as I've grown and learned various things, I think that the most important moment is the one that you're in, and that's the only moment that matters, that you can really control. The future is unknown, and the past is history.
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My mom is just authentically herself all the time. She loves herself. She loves her sense of humor. She brings people in when she talks. She brings people in when she laughs. Watching her, I think that that's when I first learned and was encouraged to be myself and to sort of love and live in that way.
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I think my most happy and carefree state was 2012 because I really did say, 'Forget everything. I'm going to play for myself.'
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When you've learned to love yourself, you get all the things that come with that. Friends, passion, success.
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I was in front of the goal so much at Stanford. I still amassed a lot of goals, but there were so many opportunities that I wasn't scoring.
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The hardest thing to do is to fail and keep pushing at the same time.
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In my time abroad, I learned to become a more complete player.
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I've always felt like my job is to protect my sister. Even growing up, on the playground, when my sister was too shy, I would speak for her... I even had dreams where I had to save her, growing up, all the time - like, she was falling, and I had to save her.
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I find the ball, and I think, 'Where's the ball going, and where do I need to go?' It just puts me back in the game, and it's the simplest thing, but it's become sort of like my soccer mantra. I simply use the ball as my focus point and move back into position, and the distracting thoughts disappear, and I'm right back in the game.
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I remember playing games and having tears roll down my face because it felt like it was never going to be good enough.
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I would like to fight as hard as I possibly can in each and every game and win or lose, leave it at that, and move forward. I know in my heart that that is the mindset I need to be a successful and happy athlete.
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I think, in the U.S., we have such a focus on the physicality, on being the best athlete, that it sort of overshadows the football aspect of it.
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We stress out over things we can't control. So if something is a stressor, you can just simply take the power away from it by focusing on something else.
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I think I approach pressure by having discipline and learning to be calm in everyday life. I do this with a daily mindfulness practice and commitment.
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I gave up on the national team - I thought to myself, 'Well, that's just not something that's going to happen for me.' The national team was in residency camp; I was 6,000 miles away. Nobody was watching, nobody cared... I'm just going to go play for myself and my team and try to be great... and I had more fun than I'd have ever had.
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No Tinder, no Match, nothing. I don't mind going up to people when I'm out. I have a better chance of getting a read on them that way.
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