CLEVELAND -- Her veteran teammate, Kate Markgraf, says an angry Abby Wambach is like a raging bull.
Greg Ryan, her U.S. women's national soccer team coach, likens how Wambach frequently used to act, both in style of play and interactions with teammates, to a bull in a china shop.
Wambach agrees those descriptions are no bull.
"I'm a very straightforward, direct person. When I have a goal, I see the end line, and there's no stopping me getting there," Wambach said.
The good thing for the U.S. women's soccer team, which plays its penultimate tuneup match for September's World Cup against New Zealand on Sunday at Chicago's Soldier Field, is Wambach now mainly limits her running roughshod to opposing defenses. She overpowers them with her size and strength and, lately, also befuddles them with touch and tactics. It all helps make Wambach the team's best goal scorer.
"She almost disregards pressure -- in a healthy way. She thrives on being the person to make a difference in a game. Like all truly great athletes, this mentality is what separates her from the pack," said Julie Foudy, the team's retired captain, who knew Wambach when she was only 5 feet 11 inches and 170 pounds of rough edges.
Once balls leave Wambach's head and feet, they reach the net at a faster rate than any other player in the distinguished history of this team.
In 94 games since her debut in 2001, Wambach has scored 75 goals -- 34 on headers. Former U.S. star Mia Hamm, the leading scorer in women's soccer history, had 158 goals in 275 games.
With Hamm still on the team, Wambach was its leading scorer in both the 2003 World Cup and the 2004 Olympics. She helped Hamm, Foudy, Brandi Chastain and Joy Fawcett -- the so-called "91ers," members of the team that won the first women's World Cup in 1991 -- go out on top by scoring the winning goal in overtime of the Olympic gold medal match against Brazil.
In a sense, that goal was her gift to Hamm, a thank-you for what Hamm had given her during the years they played on the national team and the since-defunct women's pro league.
Sitting in a Cleveland hotel restaurant, nearly three years after Hamm's retirement, the boisterous Wambach becomes quietly reverential when discussing her gratitude. "She definitely opened my mind to beating players with your brain more than your feet and your muscle," Wambach said. "Father Time will eventually take its toll. Either your career will end, or it can blossom into something new."
