Menlo Park’s Dahlkemper a leader on U.S. soccer team.
Her journey took some twists and turns, but Abby Dahlkemper has moved from the pristine little soccer field at Atherton’s Sacred Heart to the spine of the U.S. women’s national team.
If, as expected, she makes the final roster for the team that will travel to the Women’s World Cup in France in June, Dahlkemper will play a major role in the Americans’ attempt to defend their world championship.
Defense is critical: A largely remade back line and a relatively untested goalkeeper will face the best strikers in the women’s game. Dahlkemper, 25, has become a mainstay at center back and will be a defensive anchor.
“Everyone’s journey is different,” Dahlkemper said, sitting at the Sacred Heart field, just a few minutes from where she grew up in Menlo Park. “Mine just took a little bit longer. Everyone has their own path.”
After playing for Sacred Heart and the Mountain View Los Altos soccer club, Dahlkemper was recruited to UCLA by current national-team coach Jill Ellis. Though Ellis was gone by the time Dahlkemper landed in Westwood, the original contact proved fruitful.
Unlike some of the other fresh faces who were tapped for the national team while in college or even earlier, Dahlkemper played four years in college without getting a call-up. She developed her skills on U.S. Soccer youth teams, was drafted by the National Women’s Soccer League and even played in Adelaide, Australia, for a short time.
In the NWSL, Dahlkemper helped the North Carolina Courage to three consecutive finals and two titles. In 2017, she was named the league’s Defender of the Year.
“I’m so thankful for the league because it gives so many players opportunities to keep playing,” she said. “The experiences that I had helped me continue to develop. I was ready to go in when I did.”
When Ellis was remaking the national-team roster after the 2016 Olympics and the ensuing end-of-cycle personnel changes, she called on Dahlkemper.
“She’s got tremendous poise,” Ellis said last year. “Her distribution, her quality of delivery. I think she’s a natural playmaker in the back.
“She has a ruggedness about her, a physical dimension to her. I think you have to be brave to be in the back, and she’s brave.”
Dahlkemper had to be really brave two years ago.
She finally got her chance, making her first national-team appearance in October 2016. But a few weeks later, Dahlkemper injured her toe and contracted a serious sepsis infection, which traveled up her leg. The injury developed when the team was training at Avaya Stadium. Dahlkemper’s mother came down to San Jose to check on her and ended up driving her to the hospital.
Suddenly, everything was in doubt.
“Anytime there’s an injury, you wonder, ‘Am I going to be the same player?’ or ‘Was that it?’ ” Dahlkemper said. “But this injury was different. I was just thankful to still have my leg. To be alive, and all that. It was a really humbling experience.”
Dahlkemper underwent surgery to clean out the infection. She was bed-ridden for 1½ months and on intravenous antibiotics. When she finally was able to move around, her dominant right foot was in constant pain and her right leg was severely atrophied.
“I was starting from scratch,” she said.
Yet she fought back. She started the NWSL season in April and Ellis called her back to the national team in June 2017. That summer, she started being paired with Becky Sauerbrunn, one of the only back-line holdovers from 2015.
“I learn so much from her,” Dahlkemper said. “I’m eager to learn. It helps playing alongside one of the best defenders in the world, if not the very best.”
In the past two years, despite the frightening injury, Dahlkemper has played every minute of every NWSL game and has earned 30 caps with the national team.
“Looking at my development, it’s night and day since I was called in,” she said. “My confidence, my mentality, my decision-making.”
America’s rugged, brave defender cuddles her 9-weekold Cockapoo puppy, Bobbi Brown, as she speaks. While Bobbi is growing into a dog, her caretaker will be playing a grueling 10-game World Cup preparation schedule. The team will hold a camp in Portugal and then play twice in Europe before embarking on eight stateside games, including one against South Africa at Levi’s Stadium on May 12.
“It’s going to test us as a team,” she said. “It’s go-time right now for everyone.”
Including Dahlkemper. A new backbone of America’s greatest soccer team.