Wambach, Abby

Abby Wambach, in full Mary Abigail Wambach, (born June 2, 1980, Rochester, New York, U.S.), American association football (soccer) player who was one of the sport’s leading forwards. She helped the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) win two Olympic gold medals (2004 and 2012) and a World Cup (2015). In 2012 she was named Women’s Player of the Year by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).

Wambach took up sports as a child, often playing soccer with boys’ teams. She attended the University of Florida, where she was named All-Southeastern Conference in all four seasons and was the conference Player of the Year twice. She set school career records with 96 goals, 49 assists, 241 points, 24 game-winning goals, and 10 hat tricks.

Wambach made her first appearance for the USWNT in 2001. The following year she became Mia Hamm’s teammate when the Washington Freedom selected her as the second overall pick in the Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) draft. She and Hamm combined for 66 points in 2003 as the Freedom won the WUSA title. Wambach started nine times for the USWNT that year, including all five U.S. matches in the FIFA Women’s World Cup, where the United States finished third. She was named U.S. Soccer’s Female Athlete of the Year, a feat she achieved again in 2004, 2007, 2010, 2011, and 2013.

Wambach scored 31 goals and 13 assists in 30 matches in 2004, becoming only the fourth U.S. player with double figures in both in the same year. She also made four goals at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, including one in extra time against Brazil that earned the United States the gold medal. In the following years she continued to rack up points, reaching her 50th international career goal in 2006. At the 2007 World Cup, Wambach scored six goals in six matches to help the U.S. secure a third-place finish. She was poised to score her 100th career international goal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, but she fractured her leg in the U.S. team’s final match prior to the Games. Almost exactly a year after the injury, Wambach scored her 100th goal on July 19, 2009, against Canada. She became the all-time leading U.S. scorer in Women’s World Cup action in 2011, notching her 13th World Cup goal as the United States narrowly lost to Japan in the final on a penalty shoot-out. At the 2012 London Olympics, Wambach helped the USWNT win its second Olympic gold, scoring five goals in six matches. The following year she broke Hamm’s all-time record for international career goals (158). In 2015 Wambach was a member of the USWNT that defeated Japan in the final to win the World Cup. The following year she retired after the United States played China in an exhibition game.

In 2013 Wambach married Sarah Huffman, her longtime partner and teammate on the Western New York Flash in the newly formed National Women’s Soccer League. In 2016, however, the couple divorced. Later that year Wambach released the memoir Forward, in which she discussed her struggles with alcohol and prescription drugs. In 2017 she married author and blogger Glennon Doyle. Wambach subsequently wrote Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game (2019), which was based on her 2018 commencement speech at Barnard College.