Carli Lloyd on Rio, Rapinoe and Equal Pay

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Carli Lloyd has been a member of the United States women’s national soccer team since 2005, and there has been a certain symmetry to the biggest moments of her career. She scored the game-winning goals that gave the Americans the gold medal at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and she scored a hat trick in the 2015 Women’s World Cup final as the United States won the sport’s showpiece for a third time.

Now, at 34 and with her public profile at its peak, Lloyd is at the heart of the national team during a period that has featured success (at the World Cup) and disappointment (at the Rio Olympics), as well as controversy surrounding her teammates on issues including player discipline, patriotism and pay equality. Amid it all, Lloyd has also released a memoir, and in a recent interview she discussed the book, her relationships with her teammates, and what she might do if the national team went on strike over pay.

How did you go about the process of writing a book?

It’s kind of funny — when I first started this journey in 2005 with the national team, my trainer, James Galanis, said, “Make sure you keep a journal of everything that happens to you in the national team, because one day we’re going to write a book.” And so I kept this journal from the start. I have six or seven thick notebooks and I just kept writing throughout. I’ve actually continued the journal now, and I’ve started to type it. So I’m getting a little bit with the times.

With so much success at the Olympics earlier in your career, what was it like to lose in the quarterfinals in Rio?

Sometimes, no matter how much you prepare, no matter how much you get ready for something, you just never know. It’s sport. It happens. It was hard. It was disappointing. Coming back from Rio the next morning, and turning on the television and watching the Olympics — it was really hard to swallow, really hard to watch.

But I said to myself: If we won the Olympics, how much motivation would this team have had for the next cycle? Not saying that people were casually going through the motions, because we weren’t. But this is really going to motivate every single player even more. It certainly has for me.

Hope Solo made controversial comments after the loss to Sweden that eliminated you from the Games, calling the Swedes cowards for their team’s defensive strategy in the game. She was ultimately suspended from the national team, in part for that and in part for previous disciplinary incidents. What was your reaction?

Hope’s competitive. She’s as competitive as they come. If she wasn’t like that, she wouldn’t be one of the all-time greatest goalkeepers to play the sport. She’s in the spotlight. There have been a lot of things that have happened to her in recent years in her career. I think she was just on a short leash. I think this was the last straw for U.S. Soccer.

Do you think the suspension was fair?

I look at her comments, and I think you can take it in two different contexts. Obviously, she has respect for Sweden and their team. It wasn’t a jab at their players; it was their style of play. I think it was heat of the moment.

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Would it have been portrayed differently if she were a male figure? It probably would have, to be honest. People aren’t used to females speaking their minds. But it’s unfortunate for her. I’m saddened over the situation.

More recently, there has been a lot of focus on Megan Rapinoe and her decision to kneel during the national anthem as a way to protest racial injustice in the United States. You have said previously you felt the demonstration became a distraction to the team. What makes you feel that way?

I’ve had several conversations with Megan about it and we’re fine, but when the question came up to me, “Is it a distraction?” It is a distraction. It is. Is it taking Jill [Ellis, the coach] away from focusing on training and focusing on the players? Yeah. She’s having to be prepped and doing interviews about this.

It consumed all nine days that we were together. It consumed our staff and the players and all of us. At the end of the day, we want to play soccer. I think we all feel passionate and strongly about something. But it’s a question of, how do you bring awareness to it without making it a big distraction? If I feel passionate about something, there are other avenues I can go through, just by using my name. There are so many other avenues where you could project that.

Did it affect your relationship with Megan at all?

Megan and I are fine. I was texting with her last night and making sure that one line wasn’t misleading to her. At the end of the day, we’re pros. We have to be able to perform no matter what is going on in our personal lives.

It’s just distracting because we’re focusing on, is she going to kneel or is she not going to kneel? There’s not a lot of people in the soccer world who are talking about the actual cause. So I think it’s finding that balance of how to get your word out but not let it inject itself into the team.

With three years until the 2019 Women’s World Cup, the biggest public focus on the team now may be its equal pay fight and its negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer. Do you think a player strike is a possibility?

We had a meeting with our union attorney, and we’re trying to set up a new round of negotiations. As for a strike, we haven’t really gotten into that yet. These things tend to be very last-minute. You would think that they would want to start the negotiations earlier and really make progress, but the federation hasn’t seemed to want to do that. I don’t know what will happen. Anything is possible.

Would you consider playing in Europe if a strike was called?

I haven’t really given it much thought. I wouldn’t close any doors. I have a really good training environment in New Jersey, and a lot of things going on with endorsements and shoots and camps and all of that, so it would have to be the right fit.

This interview was edited and condensed.