Kristine Lilly will become the first person to earn 200 caps when she plays in the Nike U.S. Cup in Portland, Ore., May 5-7. She was just 15 when Anson Dorrance discovered her playing for a youth team at a tournament in Minnesota. Dorrance, who would coach Lilly on the U.S. national team and at the University of North Carolina, retraces her remarkable career.
JULY 1987. Lilly bursts on the scene playing for the U.S. national youth team at an international tournament in Minnesota.
“We plucked Kristie off a youth team that was coached by Hank Leung. She and Mia [Hamm], Joy Fawcett, Linda Hamilton, Carla Overbeck were on it. It was an unbelievably talented youth team. This youth team played exceptionally well in a tournament we were also participating in.
“What I remember of Kristine, was just incredible energy. She never stopped running. She also played without complaint. She just worked and worked and worked. You’d never see her get angry with the fact she was working so hard. She never seemed to get upset when someone else hammered her. I was just impressed with this relentlessness that she competed with.
“Back in those early days, she would miss national team tours for softball tournaments. We really hadn’t won her over as her first-choice sport. Softball is still a very important part of her life. Soccer back then was just one of the many things she did. She just tried to squeeze us into her social and athletic calendar.”
AUGUST 1987. Lilly makes her first trip with the U.S. national team, accompanying it to China.
“I do remember that I was shocked how she wasn’t intimidated at all even in one of her first international tours. She scored a critical goal for us in tying China [1-1]. I was thinking back then how extraordinary a goal it was, and I didn’t think she realized what she was doing. I don’t think she realized how extraordinarily she was playing for someone so young in such an important game.
“It was a huge goal for us, and I was really shocked at how she took all this in stride. One of the biggest challenges I have now in developing players for the national team is the genuflection effect. They’re so enamored of the players they’re playing with and against, they don’t really see their true ability until they’ve been on the team for three or four years. Kristine was an exception. Even on this first China tour, she was playing like a veteran psychologically.”
APRIL 1989. Lilly commits to the University of North Carolina.
“I was recruiting that trio – Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly – and Julie was younger than the other two. Mia, bless her heart, committed to us incredibly early. She left high school after her junior year. Even in her junior year, she committed to us early, in August or September. We lost Julie to Stanford. I think it was always her dream to go there.
“And then Kristine: We couldn’t get her to consider really leaving home. I think she really wanted to stay close to home. I remember making an in-house visit as late as April and spent the whole evening with her parents. I got the sense of her parents that they wanted her to come to Chapel Hill. I asked Kristine if she wanted to come, and she still hadn’t made up her mind.
“She obviously ended up coming. The thing about UNC that ultimately attracted her was the balance between everything. It was athletically competitive and academics are good, but there’s also a rich social life on campus. Kristine, even though she’s quiet, is sociable. She enjoyed hanging out with the team. The atmosphere in Chapel Hill was something she really enjoyed off the field.”
NOVEMBER 1989. North Carolina wins the NCAA Division I title in Lilly’s freshman year, beating Colorado College, 2-0.
“This shift from Connecticut to North Carolina was a huge shift for her. It was a challenge. But none of this affected her performance. She was our starting left wing at UNC even though she was a left midfielder for the United States. She tore it up from her first game forward.
“The thing I always loved about watching Kristine play, she seemed to be so free on the soccer field. It was an environment where she felt completely at home. Even though she was adjusting to a new life in Chapel Hill, she was completely at ease between the lines.”
NOVEMBER 1990. North Carolina gains revenge for a rare loss in the regular season, crushing Connecticut, 6-0, in the final.
“I remember we had a wonderful rivalry with UConn throughout her four years at UNC. In her sophomore year, they beat us up there. Obviously, we wanted to meet them in the NCAA tournament. We met them in the final. Kristine had absolutely one of the best goals I’d ever seen. But it paled in comparison with her final assist in the game.
“By the time we cleared our bench, we were winning by five. I subbed in a goalkeeper who had never played, our third-string goalkeeper, Courtney Lehmann, a walk-on player. She was dying to play. We decided to put her on the field as a field player, at center forward.
“A ball came across to Kristine, who was on the left side of the goal. She redirected it across for Courtney. Kristine had a chance to finish it herself, saw this girl Courtney, laid this thing on a platter for her six yards from the goal line. This reserve goalkeeper, a senior player from Connecticut along with Kristine, sprinted into the box and volleyed the ball into the back of the net.
“It was one of those wonderful moments in sport, a girl who rarely has a chance to play scores the final goal of her final game of her senior year. A very magical moment. I remember thinking to myself how incredibly unselfish of Kristine it was. That exemplified to me all the many things I admired about her. Isn’t it shocking how humble she is still? And yet she avoids the spotlight. And yet she is one of the greatest athletes that’s ever represented the United States at any sport.”
OCTOBER 1991. Lilly commits to play the regular season, eventually winning the Hermann Award, but misses the playoffs to go to China for inaugural World Cup.
“That was a wonderful gesture on Kristine’s part. She was really close to a collection of people who were about to graduate that year. The logical thing to do would be to sit out that year. It wasn’t a strong team, because Mia was sitting out the entire year. In those days, it was impossible for us to recruit top frontrunners, with Mia and Kristine and throw in Rita Tower. When Mia sat out, we were weakened incredibly. If Kristine sat out, the team would have struggled.
“We took the previous year’s center midfielder and made her a center forward. We took the previous year’s reserve right midfielder and made her our left wing. We moved our left back to right wing. Basically, it was a forward line that didn’t have any real experience. Kristine played with this team all season and built up experience for them. By time she left the team, it was an incredibly confident team. She propelled them into the tournament and enabled them to win.
“When all of us were in China, competing in the World Cup, the UNC girls were back here. We waited with baited breath to see if they won the NCAA championship. I genuinely feel the person the most relieved we had won was Kristine because of some of her close friends. She didn’t want to have deserted them for her own ambitions. She had this incredibly unselfish attitude about their success the whole season. She wanted to make sure her friends at UNC, like Pam Kalinoski, went out winners.”
NOVEMBER 1991. Lilly starts five of six games as the United States wins the World Cup title in China.
“That tournament was obviously dominated by the three-edged sword, April Heinrichs, Carin Gabarra and Michelle Akers. What I remember about Kristine was her amazing relentless consistency. She ran herself to death and dominated every duel she had. I’ve yet to see her ever be dominated. Even as a young player, she dominated the left side. She and Carin Gabarra were great friends. Carin was the left wing, and Kristine the left midfielder.
“Kristine killed herself to help Carin in that World Cup. As a forward, the most critical person in the world for you is the midfielder supporting you. Carin won the Gold Ball emblematic of being the best player in the World Championship. Carin would be the best to share with you it’s a lot easier to play forward with Kristine Lilly as the left half right beneath you.”
NOVEMBER 1992. Lilly and Hamm return to lead North Carolina to its seventh straight national title, crushing archrival Duke, 9-1, in the final.
“I would venture to speculate that was the greatest collegiate soccer team of all time. I remember [the final] very well. Duke went up in that game, which was played in the mud. I remember obviously playing out our seniors. Late in the game, we had Mia on the bench. We certainly didn’t want to embarrass Duke by playing starters the whole way. With five minutes left, Mia’s pestering me on the bench to get on field for the last five minutes of Kristine’s career. As a favor to Mia I put her in, and there it was. That was just a remarkable team.”
JUNE 1995. Lilly is back with the United States for the second World Cup, this time in Sweden. The Americans finish third, losing to Norway in the semifinals.
“I was stuck in Karlstad [Sweden, as part of the FIFA Technical Committee]. I wasn’t permitted to see any of the U.S. games until the consolation game. I’ll never put myself in a position to not watch the team again.”
AUGUST 1996. Lilly wins the gold medal as the United States takes the first Olympic women’s soccer tournament.
“My memories of Kristine are of her obviously carving up opponents. There are so few lineups in U.S. history in any event in which Kristine isn’t a starter, a fixture. I remember this, there’s a great video clip, a hand-held camera, Kristine carving up someone from left side and serving a great ball across. She just completely dominated her flank, just consistently getting in and wreaking havoc for the U.S.”
MAY 1998. Lilly breaks the world record for caps, playing in her 152nd international match, in Kobe, Japan.
“We knew she’d be setting a record every time she played for a long time. The U.S. scheduling now is wonderful, relative to the old days. We’d have one tour a year, maybe play three games. Now our schedule is full.
“I think she’s going to set a caps record that’ll never be broken. Given how young she was when she joined us and how much she has left in her. After this Olympics, she has a minimum of another World Cup and an Olympics, maybe two if she’s interested. We used to say chasing records was Babe Ruthian, then his records were eclipsed. I can’t envision someone starting as young as Kristine, be injury free and come close to her records.”
JULY 1999. Lilly wins her second world title, helping the United States to the World Cup title before record crowds.
“What I remember again was the totality of her game. She can do many things for the team. She can finish chances, can playmake and can dominate defensively if that’s what you needed her to do. That’s what she did for me at UNC.
“The U.S. challenge in the World Cup was dealing with an incredibly talented Chinese midfield. That’s what Kristine did for us. She did everything she could do to make us win.
“There was no better example when she headed that ball off the line, that would’ve lost us the game. It was not the first time she’s done that. She had done that for me collegiately. Those are just pieces of why she has always been extraordinary.”
by Soccer America associate editor Dean Caparaz