Carli Lloyd took her place among the greats on Saturday, when she was formally inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Frisco, Texas.
The 42-year-old Lloyd, who led the United States women’s national team to two World Cups and two Olympic gold medals and who was twice named by FIFA as the best women’s player on the planet, was elected in a first-ballot landslide.
Lloyd was enshrined on Saturday along with longtime Major Leage Soccer deputy commissioner Mark Abbot, former USMNT standouts Chris Armas and Nick Rimando and former goalkeeper Mary Harvey, who won a World Cup and an Olympic gold with the USWNT in the 1990s. Legendary broadcaster Bob Ley was also inducted but missed the ceremony because of a knee injury.
All of them are fully worthy of the honor. Lloyd, however, was the clear headliner of the class of 2025.
Once famously cut by the U.S. under-20 team, the New Jersey native and Rutgers University alum re-dedicated herself to her sport and turned herself into one of the greatest players of all time.
Despite spending much of her 17-year international career as a midfielder, her 134 goals rank six all-time at the highest level, men’s or women’s. Lloyd scored the winning goal for her country at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and netted an unforgettable hat trick in the 2015 Women’s World Cup final, snapping a 16-year title drought for the most successful program in history. Only two players, men or women, appeared in more international matches than Lloyd’s 316.
“There was no greater honor than wearing the red, white and blue,” Lloyd said on Saturday.
Along the way, Lloyd’s relentless quest for greatness became lore. It had a darker side, though. Her dedication to her craft was all-consuming. Sometimes it rubbed teammates the wrong way. She was estranged from her parents and siblings for more than a decade after letting “a trainer into my life that over time created a wedge between me and my family,” she said.
“I just was constantly grinding away,” Lloyd told FOX Sports last month. “I had this addiction of just knowing that I had to, and could, improve in so many different ways as a player.”
Soccer came before everything — before her husband, Brian Hollins, and before her lifelong dream of becoming a mother. On Saturday, Lloyd called the birth of her daughter, Harper, six months ago her “greatest accomplishment.”
Before giving her speech, Steve Lloyd, Carli’s father, introduced his daughter at the dais and fitted her into the red blazer that all Hall of Fame inductees receive.
“It was important for all of us to be here this weekend,” said Steve, who was joined in suburban Dallas by Carli’s mother Pam, sister Ashley and brother Stephen. “What makes it so much more special is that it was so important for Carli to have us here.”
An emotional Lloyd then took center stage.
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to say today,” she said. “I knew I didn’t need to stand up here and talk about how much I love the game, or how hard I worked. Most of you already know that about me. What I wanted to share wasn’t from a perspective of a competitor, but as a person, a human being.”
“I wish I had let more people understand me over the years,” she continued. “I operated like an emotionless machine. I was intense, and I truly believed that the only way for me to survive in such a cutthroat environment was to be that way. So to my teammates, I want to say this: I’m sorry I wasn’t always able to give you all of me.”
Still, Lloyd insisted that she has no regrets.
“As lonely and difficult as the journey was at times, I would do it all over again,” she said. “Yes, it was extremely hard. There were countless sacrifices along the way, but every bit of it was worth it because I loved the game.
“There was nothing I loved more than winning,” Lloyd added. “But winning comes at a cost, and I paid that price. Yet in return I gained more than I ever could’ve imagined.”
Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports who has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.
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