There are plenty of reasons Shannon Boxx shouldn’t have been able to win her spot on the U.S. women’s national soccer team this year. Even for the midfielder with 190 appearances to date, 27 goals, three Olympic gold medals and a runner-up finish at the 2011 World Cup, the odds seemed stacked against her at 37 years old and following both the birth of her first child and knee surgery.
Boxx, though, knows how to fight against the odds; she’s been doing that for more than a decade. And so when head coach Jill Ellis announced the roster for the Women’s World Cup on April 14, Boxx’s name was there for fourth straight time.
“She’s been remarkable,” Ellis said when selecting Boxx for the 23-player squad, “from where we were in last October when she came for qualifying to now. Physically she’s been tremendous and she’s turned it around.”