(Feb. 27, 2008) – Sure the weather in Southern Portugal is sunny and warm and there are plenty of crepes filled with fruit and topped with ice cream and whipped cream to devour. But what U.S. midfielder Carli Lloyd relishes most about returning to the Algarve Cup is that it was the site of her breakthrough with the National Team.
Starting three of the four matches at last year’s event, Lloyd tallied a goal in each game as the U.S. won the tournament and she earned Most Valuable Player honors.
“The experience was great, not only scoring all those goals and getting the award, but I felt that I played to a potential that no one had seen yet since I had been with the team,” she said.
(Brad Smith/isiphotos.com)
Carli Lloyd returns to the Algarve Cup as the tournament's reigning MVP.
Entering the 2007 Algarve Cup, Lloyd had 24 caps, 14 starts and just one career goal credited to her name since her National Team debut in the summer of 2005. Then she rattled off a goal in four straight Algarve Cup matches – two blasts from inside the penalty area sandwiched by a pair of rockets from outside the 18-yard box. Lloyd was officially in the zone.
“It was a weird feeling because sometimes you put pressure on yourself because I had only scored one goal prior to that, but there was no pressure,” she said. “There was no sense of ‘All right, now I’ve got to score another one.’ It just kind of happened. I didn’t think about it. I just played.”
One thing the 5’5” Delran, N.J. native did contemplate was her first World Cup, which followed six months later in September of 2007. In her visions, she made an impact in the midfield as the U.S. hoisted the trophy. In actuality, her role lessened from logging every minute of the opening match to not seeing a moment of action in the consolation game, which the U.S. won to finish third.
“Sometimes you paint a picture in your head of how something is going to happen and it unfortunately didn’t go that way,” Lloyd said of her World Cup experience. “It really didn’t have anything to do with starting. I just feel like our team could have played better. It’s unfortunate that we walked away with third place. I think we’ve all learned a lot – both individual stuff and from the team stuff that went on. For me, I wasn’t happy with my performance, so this next go around I really want to be the playmaker and just try to help the team win.”
With her eyes now turned towards achieving Olympic glory in Beijing, China this August, Lloyd is seeking to hone her game. Five years ago she began working with a personal trainer, James Galanis, to sharpen her physical and technical capabilities. Now with Pia Sundhage at the helm of the U.S. Women’s National Team, Lloyd is addressing the mental side of soccer.
“I can’t speak more highly of Pia,” said Lloyd. “She’s a perfect coach for me in the sense of wanting me to playmake in the midfield. It’s probably the first time I’ve been learning on the field stuff – the tactics as far as the runs I should be making out of the midfield, how I can do a better job of getting the ball and being that playmaker.”
Sundhage exhibited her confidence in Lloyd by including the Rutgers grad in the veterans group during the National Team’s mega-camp earlier this month. After three years of scraping to reach the National Team while playing with the U.S. U-21s followed by another three years carving out her place on the full team, Lloyd isn’t letting her new status inflate her ego.
“For me, yesterday wasn’t good enough,” she said. “I’m just trying to keep elevating my game and keep getting better as if I’m not on the team or I don’t have a solidified spot. I still have that passion and dedication to keep pushing myself so I don’t get complacent.”
Still hungry and still learning, Lloyd returns to Portugal, the locale of her greatest past success, for the 2008 Algarve Cup from March 5-12. The U.S. will face China, Italy and Norway in group play, and Lloyd could earn her 50th cap at the tournament.
With so much of her international career still in front of her, she is bound to turn her dreams of being the USA’s creative force in the midfield into reality.
Karyn Lush is a freelance writer and can be reached at karyn.wps@gmail.com . The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author's, and not necessarily those of Women’s Professional Soccer or womensprosoccer.com.