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On the Pitch
The Spiritual Side of Soccer: Christen Press Reflects on a Career of Important Goals and Lifting Moments
Forward Christen Press was honored in a retirement ceremony before the USWNT match against Paraguay on Jan. 24 at Dignity Health Sports Park; The Los Angeles native appeared as a featured guest on the U.S. Soccer Podcast with former teammate and World Cup winner Meghan Klingenberg
Retirement can mean different things to different people – more time with family, the flexibility to pursue a new passion or simply a chance to breathe and take a rest.
For Christen Press, it means someplace on the other side of the globe.
“Japan,” she said assuredly. “I've had that feeling that Japan's calling me, the culture is calling me, and that there's something for me to learn over there.”
After spending 33 years of her life devoted to the sport, Press is embracing a newfound freedom. For the first time in her life, Press says, her schedule is her own, and she decides what comes first. That includes preparing for a trip that she’s left partly unplanned so she can wind her way through an unknown country, experience a fine culture, and develop a trip organically to make it feel special and memorable.
“To retire in your 30s gives you this second half of life, a second chance to really decide, with time, intention and integrity what you want to do with your life,” she said. “I am looking forward to that.”
‘Soccer Is Spiritual’
The nine years Press spent with the U.S. Women’s National Team were filled with overwhelmingly joyful moments and unimaginable loss. After a storied career at Stanford University, where she remains the all-time leading goal scorer in program history, Press broke onto the international scene in 2013. She earned her first cap on Feb. 9 in an international friendly against Scotland. In that game, she scored twice, becoming one of just 25 players to record a goal in her debut, forecasting beautifully both the commitment to excellence and goal-scoring ability she’d become known for as a U.S. Women’s National Team mainstay.
From there, Press would go on to be a part of several winning teams, including the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cups, and add her name to the record books as one of the all-time great goal scorers. She concluded her career with the U.S. Women’s National Team with 155 caps and 64 goals, which ranks ninth in program history.
Christen Press celebrates after winning the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in Lyon, France. (Photo by Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)
Though, Press’ choice of a standout moment wasn’t in a major tournament – it’s from a friendly in Spain during the lead-up to the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup. With the support of head coach Jill Ellis, Press was invited to the January trip to Europe, which, Press recalls, was not exactly common for a player who had missed a few of the previous camps.
At first, Press didn’t want to go. Her mother, Stacy, had been diagnosed with stage IV glioblastoma and suffered a stroke that left her partially paralyzed. Press wanted to stay home and be near her family. But soccer meant a lot to them – Press and her two sisters played, and Stacy even coached them as youth players – so Stacy encouraged her daughter to go abroad with the team.
From a blurry stream on their iPad, Press’ parents watched as their daughter scored what Press refers to as a “God goal,” because of the way it unfolded – the goal wasn’t presented to her but had to be the way, she says. Press dribbled the ball from midfield on her own, and in a transcendent flash, found a new gear to sprint past the Spanish defense and slot home a left-footed shot. It was the only goal of the night as the USA won the game, 1-0.
But Press’ finish meant much more than a win – it was a goal that she and her family would deeply treasure for a different reason.
“Soccer can be very spiritual,” Press said. “Those out-of-body experiences that you have where you know the game means more than a game. It was the last goal that my mom got to see me score. She never saw us win that 2019 World Cup. She wasn't in the stands when I scored that header against England. That was the last goal that she saw me score.”
“It's the moment that symbolizes, to me, all that my career was,” Press said. “It wasn’t just me. It was my whole family, my whole community lifting me up in moments. That experience of going to that camp, being there and doing it for someone else, then losing that person really shows the power of what integrating football into a life really means.”
Part of a Defining Generation
Press is part of a special group of Women’s National Team players who have retired in the past several years including Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, Alex Morgan and Klingenberg, among others.
“I'm really, really proud of that,” Press said. “I feel like I was a part of a generation that pushed things forward, that prioritized our value and the value of future athletes.”
Reflecting on the beginnings of her own professional career when she played club soccer in Sweden and at Benedictine College outside of Chicago with the Chicago Red Stars, Press notes the amount of progress between then and now is “incomprehensible.” Even then, there weren’t many opportunities for women to play soccer at a livable wage apart from making it through the pathway to the senior Women’s National Team.
“The game's better, faster, more evolved,” she said. “The quality of life for athletes is sky high. The respect, the pay and the visibility is astronomically different.”
Those types of conversations continue to this day, but it’s clear that things have improved from where they were as recently as 10-20 years ago. More women have platforms, soccer players like current USWNT forward Trinity Rodman are signing multi-million-dollar deals, women’s sports are more visible on television and breaking records for viewership.
People are also talking and learning more about how to treat female athletes. Press explained it’s about the value of seeing women not as small versions of men, but as women who deserve their own considerations. This reimagining of culture and focus on the female athlete is on theme with leaders in the sport including current USWNT head coach Emma Hayes and U.S. Soccer investor and Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang.
“Women's sports is not a lesser version of men's,” Press said. “It's unique and it's different. Once we can start to look at what makes a woman's body, women's sports, and the women's sports community unique, and start to design and build systems and processes for that uniqueness, everybody's going to win.”
RE-imagining the Future
The pair founded the company in 2019. Their mission statement based on what they call “Gal Culture” and the idea of challenging the status quo to give women’s sports a brighter spotlight.
“I really see it as a vessel where Tobin and I get to do whatever we want with it,” Press said. “We're doing our podcast, designing clothes, we’ve built a community. Those things are really meaningful to me. They keep me connected to the game in a new way.”
For someone as thoughtful, wise and devoted as Press is, it’s clear that she has set up a platform that will allow her to use her voice, inspire excellence and build community for years to come.
“I believe that we channel and vessel that energy from a larger group of people, and that's what allows us to be excellent,” she said. “I don't know what my next vessel will be exactly, but I do know that soccer has given me so many lessons on how to work together, how to achieve, how to love and how to lose, and those are all things that I want to take into the next chapter.”
Retired USWNT player Christen Press (right) is honored with her father Cody Press, her sister Tyler Press, and wife Tobin Heath prior to the USWNT match against Pararguay in Carson, California. (Photo by Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images)
