United States defender Naomi Girma completes her meteoric rise from nationwide crew debutant to the Women’s World Cup stage subsequent month and lots of are predicting she shall be a key participant for the four-times champions for a few years.
The 23-year-old centre again first performed for the senior US crew final yr and rapidly settled in to earn a spot in Vlatko Andonovski’s World Cup squad.
“She’s threading balls down the middle of the field, skipping, bypassing the midfielders, playing it into the forwards’ feet,” retired two-time World Cup winner Carli Lloyd instructed Reuters.
“She’s playing well ahead of her time for the little experience she’s had. It’s really impressive,” added Lloyd who’s now a Fox Sports analyst.
Girma has overcome issues on her journey to soccer’s greatest stage, pressured to withdraw attributable to damage from her first senior call-up in 2019 and struggling a severe knee drawback in 2020.
“For me it feels like a lot of hard work coming together,” she instructed Reuters.
“There was like a lot of work that went behind the scenes, because I went out injured and not playing… it was really gratifying and rewarding to feel like it was paying off and putting me in a better position.”
Girma shall be notably essential for the US after veteran Becky Sauerbrunn, long-time bedrock of the defence, introduced final week she would miss the World Cup attributable to damage.
“Her potential is one of the highest bars of potential I’ve seen in a person in a long time,” mentioned Briana Scurry, the goalkeeper within the United States’ 1999 World Cup-winning crew.
Scurry, the host of the “Counterattack” podcast, instructed Reuters it’s “almost blinding how quickly” Girma has improved and believes the Stanford graduate is a future crew captain.
“She can read the play really well so she knows where to be in advance. And that’s not something that a younger player normally possesses,” mentioned the twice Olympic gold medallist.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if she were a captain at one point in time.”
Girma can be keenly conscious of her potential to encourage the following era, because the daughter of Ethiopian immigrants whose father instilled in her a ardour for the sport and began an area soccer programme the place she and her brother may play.
“When I was younger, seeing someone who had a similar background as me, looked like me in any high position – it didn’t even have to be soccer-specific – competing at a high level was always so inspiring,” she mentioned.
“I’m hoping that kids can see me and get that similar feeling and that same excitement.”
Source: sportstar.thehindu.com