This former professional football player was named the best football player in the United States of America several times. If Carli Lloyd had not made the decision to play football one day, she might not have achieved such success. Find out more information on the intriguing journey of an athlete from our region, including her earliest steps in the world’s most popular sport, career development, life today and awards at iphiladelphia.
The beginning and advancement of the career
Carli Anne Lloyd was born on July 16, 1982. She grew up in an average family near the City of Brotherly Love. Carli began playing football when she was five years old. From that moment on, she spent all of her free time with boys in the nearby sports fields. At a young age, Lloyd already played better than adult men, making unpredictable decisions on the field.
The girl first attended a women’s football match at the end of the 20th century, during the 1999 World Cup in the United States of America. After seeing the Women’s World Cup, Lloyd was inspired to play for the national team one day. Her parents, on the other hand, planned a very different future for their daughter. They wanted Carli to pursue a career in dancing, specifically ballet. However, the girl was thinking about how to enhance her all-around ability for a successful game in central midfield, not ballet stretches. These abilities in the future outstanding playmaker were developed by a school coach named Rudy.
Interestingly, already during her studies at the University, Lloyd played at the level of a professional sportsman. She once had as many as twenty-six goals and eight assists in one season, and after earning the respect of her teammates, she wore the captain’s armband.
Following extremely successful games during her studies at school and university, the athlete received her first professional contract with the Chicago Red Stars soccer club. It was not possible to break into the First Team of the adult women’s team right away. She spent a lengthy time in club football, playing for various teams before joining Sky Blue FC. There, talented experts noticed that the player performed more efficiently on the attack, therefore they began placing her as a central forward in their tactical strategies.
At this point, our fellow countrywoman has moved a step closer to realizing her dream of playing for the US youth team. In her first match, she took the pitch against the Ukrainian women’s team and scored her first goal for the national team against players from Taiwan. In fact, as a result of these accomplishments, she was selected to the All-State First Team on the eve of the 2015 World Cup.
Lloyd got to the World Cup and immediately demonstrated her leadership qualities in the team, therefore she led her teammates to the next matches as captain. Then, the player received the most credit for scoring a hat-trick (three goals) in the opening sixteen minutes against the Japanese women. This contributed to a 5-2 victory over the defending champions.
As a result of such success, she was awarded the Ballon d’Or, which cemented her place in sports history.
Present-day life and awards
Our countrywoman has proved to her family that she would become an outstanding football player. Throughout her club career, she has represented the following clubs: Central Jersey Splash, New Brunswick Power, South Jersey Banshees, New Jersey Wildcats, Chicago Red Stars, Sky Blue FC, Atlanta Beat, Western New York Flash, Houston Dash, Manchester City and NJ/NY Gotham FC.
For her passion for and commitment to football, she was able to collect numerous awards. Among the team events, we will highlight Carli Lloyd’s two gold medals at the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament championship match as the major honor of her career. In terms of individual awards, she received Algarve Cup Most Valuable Player in 2007, U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year (both among men and women), FIFA Puskás Award Nominee, FIFA Women’s World Cup Goal of the Tournament, IFFHS World’s Best Woman Playmaker in 2015, FIFA World Player of the Year, etc.
In 2021, Carli announced that she was finishing her football career since she had accomplished everything she could and wanted to focus on something else. A year later, Lloyd was successful in getting attention to the unfair and discriminational compensation of male and female football players in the United States. American football officials had to pay notice of this incident and take action.