I went to high school in Rockville Center on Long Island. It's this small, soccer-loving town that my parents moved to, from Queens, before my brother and I were born.
The World Cup is a really long tournament, so you have to prepare for whatever.
It's kind of interesting on a team sport because you have young players, you have older players, you have veterans. But ultimately, when you step in between those lines, you're just a player.
In the early stages, when I realized I was going to be probably the shortest player on the teams I was on, it was hard. I felt like girls were getting recruited over me strictly because of their height, and it made me self-conscious.
It's a stereotype that black players are just really fast, but at the end of day I want to be skilled, I want to be technical, I want to have vision and that's what I've always tried to promote in my game: not relying on one thing but just being able to outwork players in so many different ways.
I remember when I was young, before we started lifting and working out, I looked like I was bench-pressing other humans. I looked different than other girls. I had to be OK with the fact that I had a strong physique, no matter if people looked at me in an accepting way or not.
