(Photo credit score: Jenna Watson-USA TODAY Sports)
Julie Ertz, a longtime defender for the United States girls’s nationwide crew, instructed that she may need performed her closing worldwide recreation Sunday following the Americans’ devastating loss to Sweden within the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
“I think for me it’s just emotional because it’s probably my last game ever being able to have the honor to wear this crest,” Ertz, 31, mentioned as she fought again tears throughout a postgame interview on the FOX broadcast. “… It’s simply powerful. I really feel prefer it’s simply an emotional time.
“It’s been an absolute ride. I learned so much about myself as a player but even as a person.”
Sweden received 5-4 on penalty kicks within the Round of 16 to advance to the quarterfinals, leaving the U.S. shut out of the medal spherical for the primary time in Women’s World Cup competitors.
Ertz was a part of the U.S. crew that received the World Cup in 2015 and 2019, and he or she additionally performed within the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She received a bronze medal in Tokyo.
Ertz has scored 10 objectives over 122 worldwide appearances.
It wasn’t clear that Ertz can be half of the present crew after giving delivery to her first youngster, son Madden, final August.
But she labored out in Phoenix, the place her husband, Zach Ertz, performs for the Arizona Cardinals, with the academy crew of the second-tier USL Championship facet Phoenix Rising to organize. USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski despatched coaches to look at her play.
“You’re never guaranteed anything. And I knew that I needed games and to perform,” she mentioned. “I just felt I was in a good place if Vlatko felt like I could help the team.”
She was chosen for the crew and mentored the younger U.S. gamers.
“The future is in absolutely great hands,” Ertz mentioned, including, “I’m so excited for (the USWNT) in the future.”
The subsequent main match for the USWNT will happen on the Paris Olympics subsequent 12 months.
Ertz stays on the roster of Angel City FC, the Los Angeles entry within the National Women’s Soccer League.
Veteran Megan Rapinoe, 38, earlier introduced she would retire from USWNT play after the World Cup. She additionally plans to retire from the OL Reign of the NWSL after the season.
–Field Level Media