Eight or so years ago, a 24-year-old Abby Wambach told her idol and mentor Mia Hamm how much she envied her confidence, soccer savvy and experience. And how, most of all, she envied the world-record 158 international goals she had accumulated over her 17-year United States national team career. Nobody would ever catch her, sighed Wambach, who was at 30 goals or thereabouts herself.
“[Mia] looked me straight in the eye,” recalls Wambach, “and said, ‘Abby, you’re going to break my scoring record one day.’” (x)