By Dave Lange, Senior Associate

Here is Part 2 of Dave Lange’s interview with international soccer star Abby Wambach. The 32-year-old Wambach has appeared 198 times for the U.S. Women’s National Team. Her 152 goals put her second, just six shy of the women’s international goal-scoring record held by the legendary Mia Hamm. Wambach helped the United States finish second in the 2011 World Cup and win the Olympic gold medal in 2004 and 2012.

Q: You’re very close to the goal-scoring record. Is that an important thing to you?

I don’t really think about it. I’d be lying if I said I never think about it. I’m honored to be in a position where I’m compared to great players (such as) Michelle Akers and Mia Hamm. These are the players I looked up to. I define my career based on championships, not on goals. But I do know that scoring a lot of goals helps my team win games and championships, so hopefully I continue to do it if given the chance. You never know with the new coach coming in (to replace USWNT coach Pia Sundhage, who recently stepped down), what they’re going to want to do, if they want to clean house or pick and choose different players they want to keep on. I’m not naïve to that fact. Moving forward, we’ll take it one game and one goal at a time.

Q: Getting back to the new league, you had mentioned that there are talks going on with the national team players. On the record, what can you talk about regarding what’s being discussed?

Sunil is trying to find a solution to the lack of there being a league. It’s mind-boggling that the team that spends most of its time on the top podium in most tournaments that it enters can’t secure a professional league. Now, do we want to get involved, as a national team, in a league that the women also have to have other jobs? Or, have we done enough work in our opinion to have a league that the women don’t have to have other jobs?

Now, I’m not sitting here saying that U.S. Soccer needs to pay those players, but we need to find a solution that has strong enough investors, otherwise the same thing is going to happen. U.S. Soccer isn’t going to be throwing in that much money, in my opinion, that’s going to be life-changing for this league that will keep this league afloat. We just have to be very careful and very picky on what we decide to do because if we’re involved, our names are attached to it and if it fails again, then that’s on us. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me — it’s one of those situations.

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