Heather O\u2019Reilly has been there for both the good times and bad.<\/p>\n
Last summer,\u00a0the current Breakers midfielder\u00a0started every World Cup match including the final game, a heartbreaking contest that Japan won on penalty kicks. Four years ago, she helped the Americans capture a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Reilly and the rest of the U.S. national team will be hoping for a repeat of success of 2008 rather than the heartbreak of 2011 when the Olympic Games kickoff later this month. National team head coach Pia Sundhage has called up all but two players from last year\u2019s World Cup team, meaning that the Olympic squad will be remarkably similar to the one seen last summer in Germany.<\/p>\n
The speedy winger has long been a fixture for the U.S. national team. She has 166 caps and 34 goals since beginning her international playing career in 2002. That means that O\u2019Reilly has scored at every echelon of world soccer- from friendlies, to qualifiers, to the World Cup and Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
Few will forget her goal against New Zealand at Beijing 2008 – the fastest goal in Olympic history. Fewer will forget Athens 2004 when less than one year after recovering from breaking her fibula, a 19-year-old O\u2019Reilly scored the game-winning goal in a semi-final against Germany to send the U.S. to finals, where they eventually beat Brazil for gold.<\/p>\n
But what sets O\u2019Reilly apart from the rest of\u00a0her peers\u00a0his her blazing pace and her fierce shot. When the Breakers were able to secure O\u2019Reilly\u2019s contract prior to the start of the WPSL Elite season, they knew that she would miss most of\u00a0the\u00a02012 campaign\u00a0due to Olympic duties.<\/p>\n
But that hasn\u2019t stopped O\u2019Reilly, known by many at Dilboy Stadium as HAO (the initials of her full name Heather Ann O\u2019Reilly), from making an impact. In her two games with the Breakers, O\u2019Reilly has\u00a0been a blur on the flanks. She\u2019s assisted on\u00a0three goals in the same, simple way: beat the defender out wide and play a cross in. And while\u00a0she hasn\u2019t found the back of the net yet, to say that\u00a0O’Reilly isn\u2019t in form would be inaccurate.<\/p>\n
After all, the Breakers – nor the\u00a0Olympic team –\u00a0don\u2019t need O\u2019Reilly to be the goal scorer. Rather, they need her\u00a0to collect the ball in midfield, beat her defender, and\u00a0provide service to\u00a0Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan.\u00a0It’s a duty the former Tar Heel\u00a0has been performing this task since she donned the U.S. uniform in\u00a02002 and hasn\u2019t stopped since.<\/p>\n
But while O\u2019Reilly joins the U.S.\u00a0team as a reliable veteran, she’s a league apart from the majority of her Olympic teammates – literally. As one of only two WPSL Elite players on the Olympic roster – the other being Flash midfielder Tobin Heath – O’Reilly hasn’t been able to enjoy playing with – or against – many of her fellow Olympic teammates, the bulk of whom ply their trade in the\u00a0W-League\u00a0or abroad.<\/p>\n
Ideally, a gold medal would begin to move things in the right direction in regards to creating a new league. And with representatives from Major League Soccer, WPSL Elite, and U.S. Soccer meeting last week in Chicago to discuss the state of women\u2019s soccer, a new women\u2019s league could be on the table soon.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, O\u2019Reilly, who left for London on Tuesday, will be solely focused on the Olympics. In addition to France, the U.S. is in a group with Colombia and North Korea.\u00a0Interestingly, the\u00a0U.S. defeated each of those teams with O\u2019Reilly\u2019s help at the World Cup last summer.\u00a0\u00a0No doubt,\u00a0the Breakers midfielder\u00a0is gunning for another chance to win it all\u00a0and, quite\u00a0possibly, put the ghosts of Germany 2011 in the rearview\u00a0for good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Breakers midfielder Heather O’Reilly is aiming for another gold medal in London later this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[23,44,101],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/oreillyfeature.jpg?fit=490%2C240","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13564"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13604,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564\/revisions\/13604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}