Crystal Dunn

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. ”

Being a player that plays multiple positions, that's my mindset every single day because I don't have the luxury of just being really good at one thing. ”

It's a lot for me, as well, to feel like I'm at my best, because if I am playing multiple positions, I can't develop. I personally feel like I don't ever achieve what I want to achieve being thrown around. ”

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. ”

For me, it's about controlling what I can control. I can't control where I'm going to be put on the pitch. I can only control my effort and my ability to embrace anything thrown at me. ”

People are so surprised about how small I am compared to other players. ”

The thing that made it so hard to get that call from Jill Ellis in 2015, letting me know I wouldn't be at the World Cup, was that I felt like I'd lost what I love most about putting on the U.S. kit: representation. ”

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. ”

In training when I'm receiving the ball I always know where I want to go. At the end of the day it's just soccer. ”

Especially going from an attacking player to a defensive player, your whole mindset has to change. You have to work on one-v-one defending versus one-v-one attacking. ”