Savannah DeMelo said the reality that she was playing for the United States in the Women’s World Cup finally hit her as the fans in the stadium counted down the final 10 seconds before her first match. She only started to get truly comfortable, though, once people starting kicking her.
The hair pulls and the shoves and the elbows? Those were just a bit of welcome familiarity for DeMelo, one of the most fouled players in the National Women’s Soccer League. “I’m used to getting kicked,” DeMelo said.
It is all the rest that is still new: the global stage; the sky-high expectations inside and outside the U.S. team; the constant pressure to not let down a squad that has won the last two World Cups. DeMelo, after all, had never played a game for the United States before she was named to the World Cup roster last month.
Her inclusion, as the least experienced of the 14 World Cup rookies on the U.S. roster, was one of the biggest surprises of the Americans’ run-up to the tournament. But it has been her presence in Coach Vlatko Andonovski’s starting lineup, and the role she has been asked to play as a midfield orchestrator and instigator, that could prove pivotal as the United States tries to navigate its way through the knockout rounds of the tournament.
Named as a starter…
