Abby’s Road

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Abby Wambach sounded amazingly cheerful for an athlete whose Olympic dreams ended so cruelly.

Wambach, a consistent scoring threat for the defending champion U.S. women’s soccer team, fractured her tibia and fibula in a collision with a Brazilian defender last Wednesday in San Diego during the team’s final pre-Beijing Games friendly match. She underwent surgery the next day and already has begun rehab.

‘Life isn’t so serious,’ she told reporters during a conference call earlier today that marked her first interview since the accident.

‘You’ve got to take it one step at a time, no matter what kind of injury you have, no matter what kind of recovery time you’re looking at. I’m proud of who I am and glad to be alive and faced with a circumstance that’s going to challenge me and I’m going to grow from.’

She’s being looked after by her roommate and her mother, Judy, who flew to Southern California from the family’s home in Rochester, N.Y. She admitted to not being the most cooperative of patients, but she hasn’t had much experience at it. The worst injury she had suffered before this was a sprained ankle. She had never ridden in an ambulance before being transported to a San Diego hospital for evaluation.

Wambach also sounded genuinely grateful for the calls, e-mails, text messages and bouquets of flowers and fruit that friends and fans have sent her. ‘Realizing that I don’t have to deal with it alone is really special,’ she said.

She said her teammates shouldn’t have a hard time dealing with her absence on the pitch. Without her, the team can play the ball-possession style that Coach Pia Sundhage favors.

‘That’s the most positive way you can look at the situation. Now they’re faced with a different sort of challenge,’ she said. ‘They have to play possession. Not that the other forwards can’t play the way I play. I possess some skills some of the other ones don’t as forwards.

‘It’s going to be important for the team to stay dedicated to that process. It would be a tragedy if they strayed away and started changing, because one player doesn’t change a team.’

She added that her teammates must play with ‘the U.S. passion, high-pressure defense. That is the thing that can separate this team from winning gold or not, if they’re willing to dedicate themselves to high pressure defensively.’

-- Helene Elliott