Ammon News - NEW JERSEY (The Guardian) - The USA beat South Korea 5-0 in a friendly in New Jersey, but the night was all about one particularly striking talent
When the ball was eventually retrieved from a reluctant Korean defender – one of the few people in the stadium not experiencing the joy of witnessing history – it was lobbed carefully to a US soccer official on the sidelines, for safekeeping. Abby Wambach's team-mates, who had erupted from the bench, settled back into their seats as the game resumed. Wambach was still grinning widely, though – in just 29 minutes she had scored the hat-trick that took her past Mia Hamm as sole holder of the world record for international goals.
Fittingly, the record-breaking goal came from her head. For all that Wambach has more finesse with her feet than she is sometimes credited for (witness her turn and neat finish to open the scoring here, after 10 minutes), she has the physical presence of a classic center forward and the highlight reel to match – few who saw it will forget her stoppage-time World Cup equalizer against Brazil, and few of the 18,961 who were here at Red Bull Arena will forget the sight of her powering to meet a Megan Rapinoe corner for goal No 159, to take her past Hamm's total.
We had been treated to screams 10 minutes earlier, when another diving header greeted Lauren Cheney's chipped cross from the byline to tie the record, but now as the stadium shook again, as her team-mates mobbed her and as her family wept in the VIP zone, Wambach was jogging back to the center circle, beaming to a reprise of the game announcer's boast: "Ladies and gentlemen, you have just witnessed soccer history."
Wambach wasn't done yet, either. With the clock ticking into stoppage time at the end of the first half she could not miss from point-blank range after Alex Morgan skipped clear down the right and unselfishly cut the ball across goal for her strike partner to bundle it home. Cue another round of mayhem from the crowd, exceeded only when Wambach was subbed out just before the hour, as the stadium reverberated with chants of her name.
Afterwards, Wambach laughed at the emphatic way in which the record was shattered:
"My team-mates know me super well and at half-time they were all like, 'You are such an extremist! You're all or nothing – when you want to do something you just go ahead and do it.' Second half I was telling them, "Please just shoot the ball yourself – take it yourself. Be selfish.
Lauren Cheney did add a fifth goal as a multitude of substitutions robbed the game of its shape, but the 5-0 final scoreline was not the story. And certainly the first-half display was entirely about a team focused on helping Wambach past the milestone, as ball after ball came her way. Morgan's assist on the fourth goal might have been a presentable chance for the young striker, who has set record-breaking pace herself in what will now become #chasingabby.
Wambach was nothing if not grateful for the assistance, including that which came from the young woman who may eventually surpass her. She was also grateful to the woman who had set the mark she has been pursuing of late:
"I can't say enough about how much I look up to Mia and how amazing the record that she set was. My team-mates have put me in all different types of positions to score goals, and I can't say it enough and I really and truly believe it in my heart – I'm only as good as my team-mates allow me to be … my team-mates were relentless in putting me in those positions … If I were to end my career right now I would have done it before breaking it [the record]. That's how much respect I have for Mia. How much she's done for me personally. How much she's doing for Alex Morgan still. This isn't a personal thing – Mia wants players to break her records. I now want Alex to break mine and I just told Alex, 'You better do it in much less time than I did!'
Hamm tweeted her congratulations during the game and by full-time she had sent a generous congratulatory note:
"I'm just so proud of her. Just watching those four goals, that's what she is all about. She fights for the ball, she's courageous and she never gives up. Her strength and perseverance is what makes her great and it's what defenders and opposing teams fear. From being her team-mate early in her career, I know all she ever wanted to do was win and she continues to do that. I'm just glad I got to share 158 with her. It was short, but it was fun.
Back at the Arena, as the crowd lingered long after the final whistle to applaud Wambach, the striker was already reflecting on a future support role, as attention now shifts to qualification for the World Cup in 2015 and her desire to extend her career at least that far:
"Alex is going to score tons of goals in the next few years. I think we have such a different kind of strength. When I'm having a great game, she's probably going to be on the assisting end of things. But I want to be putting her in positions to score goals, because you know, my legs can't move like hers. And she can score goals from such random positions … she's going to be a threat for us. She's going to be scoring the lion's share of goals for us in the next couple of years. So if I become the assister, great. If I become the set-piece threat, fine. Whatever my role is to help win this team win a World Cup title, that's all I care about.
For this night though, the future could wait. The world record stands at 160 international goals and it belongs to Abby Wambach.
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