In The Journey to the Cup, The Athletic follows six players as they work towards a place in the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Follow along as we check in with them each month in the build-up to the tournament, tracking their progress as they prepare both mentally and physically for a chance to shine on the game’s biggest stage.
It was a long, long 10 months for Lynn Williams.
Technically, it was 329 days between appearances for the U.S. women’s national team.
Williams picked up a late substitution in the team’s final match of the 2022 SheBelieves Cup in Frisco, Texas on Feb. 23. On Mar. 18, while on the field with the Kansas City Current, she tore her hamstring completely off the bone, requiring surgery. Earlier this month, she finally made her return to the pitch in New Zealand for the U.S.’s first match of 2023, a friendly against the Football Ferns. She took the field at Sky Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand in the 67th minute. In the 74th, she scored the team’s fourth and final goal.
She didn’t expect her first match back to be with the national team, but instead at the NWSL level.
“Training, it was really tough,” she said on Tuesday in her first Zoom call as a NJ/NY Gotham FC player. “You’re going from 10 months of rehabbing and stuff, but there’s…
