TEARS OF A CHAMPION Rift with family tarnishes two-time gold medalist
U.S. soccer star’s off-field heartbreak
CARLI LLOYD is a Jersey girl who’d love to come home for dinner — though an invitation is unlikely.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA World Cup player of the year, a global soccer icon and a role model for young athletes, remains painfully estranged from her family.
In her new memoir, “When Nobody Was Watching,” written with Wayne Coffey, the 34-year-old Lloyd agonizes over the deep rift separating her from the rest of the clan.
“When my father had open-heart surgery, nobody told me until well afterwards,” she writes. “When my sister got married, I was not invited.”
The failure of her family ties stands in contrast to her success on the soccer field, where the underdog athlete overcame the odds to shine brightest as the Lloyd-led U.S. team captured the World Cup.
In 2008, her father tossed Lloyd out of the family home in Delran, N.J., even though she was in the home stretch of prepping for her first Olympic games.
Dad Steve and mom Pam, a machine shop manager and legal secretary, were infuriated when she seemed to value coach James Galanis’ advice over their words of wisdom.
“Why don’t you get over here and get your stuff out of the house, or I will throw it out the window,” her father announced in a phone call.
The irony is that her once supportive father tracked Galanis down in a parking lot in 2003 to see if he’d consider working with his daughter.
In her third year of college at Rutgers, Lloyd was discouraged almost to the point of quitting. As later happened with her family, Lloyd found herself on the outside looking in.
“I was never among the chosen ones when U.S. soccer coaches talked about the next generation of impact players,” she writes.
Lloyd has faced down a few critics during her stellar rise to elite status — with few harsher than herself.
“I have a stubborn, lifelong penchant for demanding perfection of myself and for beating up on myself when I fall short,” she said.
And there’s her slender frame. Lloyd says her physiology is less than optimal for a high level of fitness. As a result, her daily exercise routine is so intense that other players see it as punishing.
With Galanis in her corner, Lloyd fought her way onto the U.S. National Women’s Team.
But it seemed as if head coach Greg Ryan had usurped Lloyd as her No. 1 faultfinder. She also started feeling pressure from her parents, who were still very hands-on in her game.
The Lloyds urged their daughter repeatedly to kick back and befriend her teammates. Not only did Lloyd ignore the advice, she made herself a team pariah during the 2007 World Cup.
In the most anticipated match of the global tournament, Brazil demolished the U.S. 4-0 in a semifinal.
Immediately afterward, goalkeeper Hope Solo sparked outrage by telling reporters the U.S. lost only because she was benched.
Lloyd refused to join her teammates in what she saw as a “calculated crusade to crush” Solo. The goalie was very obviously shunned by everyone but Lloyd.
There was a price to be paid. Lloyd already felt targeted by the coach — but after standing up for Solo, she was benched for a number of games, some of them significant. She had become “radioactive” to Ryan.
Time hasn’t mellowed Solo, who was suspended for calling the Swedish team “a bunch of cowards” following an unexpected U.S. loss to Sweden in this year’s Olympics.
Lloyd was unaware of how bad things actually were until she talked to teammate Abby Wambach. Coincidentally, Wambach just released her memoir, “Forward,” where she admits to a long-standing drug and alcohol problem.
Wambach told Lloyd her spot on the team was in jeopardy, though not because of the Solo situation.
“People don’t see you fitting in,” Wambach said. “They see you not wanting to join in things, and just sitting in a corner texting all the time. They feel you don’t trust them, and they don’t want you on the field because of that.”
Though Lloyd was stunned, she never realized this was precisely the kind of situation her parents advised her to avoid.
Today she feels Wambach’s comments were more part of her personality than “mean-spirited.”
“She loves to inject herself into the middle of things,” writes Lloyd.
In the end, her family cut her loose and the team kept her around. Her parents felt she'd been needlessly risky and blamed Galanis’ influence. The lingering resentment led to her expulsion from home the following year.
She still hopes for a reconciliation, but at the moment she considers herself an “ex-Lloyd.”
The team headed into the 2008 Beijing Olympics with a new coach, Pia Sundhage. Lloyd believed the two shared an excellent rapport until Sundhage — after moving on — told reporters that coaching Lloyd was a “challenge.”
“I feel completely betrayed,” Lloyd writes. “I played my heart out for her . . . I helped her build an international reputation . . . I was completely loyal to her. “This is my thanks?” The U.S. team was missing the injured Wambach for the 2008 gold medal game Olympics, denying the team their most clutch scorer.
Incredibly, the women played a nearly flawless game, holding Brazil scoreless for 120 minutes. Six minutes into overtime, Lloyd scored the winning goal.
It was a moment to savor for a lifetime.
Lloyd, basking in the glow of her celebrated goal, became complacent. She lost her contract with the national team and had to fight her way back on the roster.
In the years running up to the 2012 London Olympics, Lloyd reveled in the faith that she felt Sundhage showed in her. Almost predictably, though, her playing deteriorated as the Summer Games loomed.
A missed penalty kick against Japan in the 2011 World Cup finals, along with some other lackluster plays, left Lloyd’s confidence deeply shaken.
Her game collapsed to the point where she was benched going into the Olympics. Once again, Lloyd was the underdog.
As always, that worked for her. In an intense encounter, she let Sundhage know she was determined to come back: “I tell her, ‘I won’t let you or the team down. I will fight and keep fighting, and I will win this battle.’”
The coach’s reaction was priceless. Lloyd said her jaw dropped in an “almost cartoonish” way.
Lloyd played brilliantly throughout but it was in the final match before more than 80,000 fans in Wembley Stadium that Lloyd made sports history.
No. 10 scored both American goals in a 2-1 victory against Japan to become the only player (of either gender) to score the winning goal at two Olympics — 2008 and 2012.
Incredibly, she then surpassed herself in 2015 with a historic hat trick to lead the U.S. to its first World Cup victory since 1999, beating Japan 5-2.
In what many consider to be the greatest performance in the World Cup finals, Lloyd scored three goals in a mere 16 minutes.
She took one of the shots from half a field away. It was a play she’d been practicing with Galanis for 13 years. Still, even she found it surreal when the literal longshot scored.
Lloyd, who won the Golden Ball as the women’s Player of the Year, fell to her knees on the field as the whistle blew ending the game.
From there she watched other players race to the stands and feel the love from their families. A few weeks later, Lloyd received a card from her mother.
Her engagement to Brian Hollin, a hometown boy and golf pro, is a source of continuing joy. Professionally she plays for the Houston Dash. As a midfielder for the national team, the two-time gold medalist could well collect more trophies.
But the prize she covets beyond all others is still out of reach: Breaking bread at a family reunion.
When my father had open-heart surgery, nobody told me until well afterwards. When my sister got married, I was not invited. CaRlI lloyd