Monday, July 17, 2023

[Dave]

My daughter begins her long vacation to attend the Women's World Cup today, departing LAX at 10:00 PM local time for Auckland. It's a flight of just over 14 hours - too brutal for me to endure. She'll meet up with her husband who is already there in his role of Director of Communications for the US Women's National Team.

Daughter is also very much into what most of the world calls football but Americans call soccer. She started playing AYSO soccer at around age 7 and continued that until her high school years when she played on various club teams. After that she was a 4 year started in college, culminating in her being named Caption and MVP. Then she played in various adult women's leagues and at least 1 co-ed league for almost 10 years. And her job is also soccer-related: she has worked for 25 years for the company that owns the LA Galaxy of MSL, and is now Senior Director, Analytics & Research.

While cleaning out my photo archives yesterday I came across this series of photos (previously posted on WetCanvas!) of her in action many years ago.

1) closing in...

   

2) the slide tackle...

   

3) contact...

   

4) result was a foiled opponent's scoring chance and a turnover for her team...

   

I've made my World Cup predictions, but I doubt few here are interested them so I'll not detail them now.