US Women's Soccer Honors Serena Williams, Beyonce, More with Jerseys vs. England
When the United States women's national soccer team squares off against England in the 2019 SheBelieves Cup in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday, the likes of Alex Morgan, Julie Ertz and Megan Rapinoe will take the field—but they will do so without their own names on the backs of their jerseys.
Instead, they will celebrate the spirit of the tournament by sporting the names of some of the most influential women in history.
From Mother Teresa to Beyonce to Jennifer Lawrence to Mia Hamm, there was a wide range of individuals selected. But regardless of who each player chose to honor, there was special reasoning behind the decision.
Here's a look at some of the choices, per the team's official website:
- Crystal Dunn on Serena Williams: "I love her. Serena Williams has been my idol for a very long time. I actually watched her play before I was even watching women's soccer. She inspired me to be an athlete and inspired me to want to be at my best. She's someone that has broken down so many barriers, and that's hard to even put into words."
- Mallory Pugh on Beyonce: "She's a badass. She's confident and is just a good role model for women in general because she represents something that is so much bigger than herself. She's inspiring in her industry and all over the world. She is a person who allows and shows women that they can be who they are and flaunt it."
- McCall Zerboni on Mother Teresa: "I picked Mother Teresa because she is the ultimate definition of selfless love and serving for others without getting anything in return."
As for Morgan, the reigning U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year used the opportunity to pay tribute to someone who helped her evolve into the player she is today—former teammate and USWNT all-time leading scorer Abby Wambach:
"I kept trying to think of who I wanted on the back of my jersey and who has been the biggest inspiration to me both in my career and in my life. It's difficult to pick someone that I haven't met, but you obviously think of people like Michelle Obama or Billie Jean King. These are people I definitely look up to, but when I think about who has had the greatest effect on my career and my life, I think of my family and my teammates.
"And when I think of my teammates, there's no one who has helped guide me or give me advice and confidence more than Abby. I've never had that sort of partnership with someone like I had with Abby. She made me believe in myself at times when I didn't. She instilled this confidence in me. She was always there for me, and as teammates sometimes fighting for the same position, you can sometimes be selfish, but she was completely opposite of that. She wanted to have success, but she also outwardly told me that she wanted me to have more success than she ever had. She wanted me to break whatever records she set. Having someone that really fought and believed in me and told me about her belief in me was pretty incredible. I've never come across someone like that."
Wambach was honored by Morgan's gesture:
A special tournament just added a little more meaning.
