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With two more appearances to start 2021, Carli Lloyd reached 296 caps for the U.S. women’s national team, becoming the most-capped active player. Looking spry as ever, the 2015 Women’s World Cup Golden Ball winner is showing no signs of slowing down. The question is, how much longer will she keep playing? And could she possibly challenge Kristine Lilly’s record for most international appearances in soccer history?
Kristine Lilly is a legend. Soccer’s iron woman, she made 354 appearances for the USWNT, more caps than any man or woman in the history of international football.
One of the few active players who could actually challenge that record is Lloyd.
With her two appearances in friendlies against Colombia this month, Lloyd is now 58 games behind Lilly. While that’s a huge amount, the USWNT played 24 games in 2019, the last full season of play before the pandemic struck, meaning Lloyd is potentially two years away.
Of course, Lloyd will turn 39 in July. Does she have it in her to play two more full years with the national team? Could she even keep her spot?
The first question to answer is whether or not Lloyd wants to keep playing long enough to break Lilly’s record. Lloyd had suggested she would retire after the 2020 Olympics, but decided to keep playing when Covid-19 forced the tournament to be postponed a year. Last fall, the U.S. No. 10 all but confirmed she’s thinking about retiring after the 2021 Olympics. So it would seem Lloyd does not have enough time to catch Lilly or possibly even Christie Pearce (formerly Rampone), who is second all time with 311 caps.
But then again, Lloyd is seemingly ageless on the pitch. Vlatko Andonovski said the 38-year-old was the fittest player to come into the January USWNT camp. Lloyd could decide she wants to keep playing after the Olympics, especially if the 2021 edition ends as it did in 2016, without a medal — or if the Olympics are postponed again.
The question then becomes: Would she be able to prove she’s one of the 18 best U.S. players over the next couple of years?
This is where I think Lloyd would struggle most to obtain 58 more caps. While she played a large role in the January friendlies against Colombia, that wasn’t a USWNT at full strength. There was no Alex Morgan, no Tobin Heath, no Christen Press, all players younger than Lloyd.
And then there’s Catarina Macario to worry about. The Brazilian-born 21-year-old made her USWNT debut with a pair of appearances against Colombia. In the second match, she basically played the same role as Lloyd did in the first, starting in her stead (Lloyd replaced Macario as a substitute). Macario was stellar in both appearances, scoring minutes into her first start on Friday.
With Macario likely to become a USWNT regular sooner rather than later, Lloyd will find a place in the U.S. lineup harder to come by.
Alas, it might all be moot. Lloyd has talked about starting a family with her husband, which could trump any chance of Lloyd chasing one of the most impressive records in sport.
But there is one more person who could conceivably catch Lilly in the coming years: Christine Sinclair.
The Canadian dynamo set the record for most international goals almost a year ago to the day and also has 296 caps. At 37, Sinclair has a little more time to catch Lilly, though the Canadian national team plays fewer games than the USWNT (Canada hasn’t played more than 15 games in a calendar year since 2016).
Sinclair, a great ambassador for the game, is already the all-time leader in goals, so why not go for the all-time appearance record while she’s at it?
