fbpx

KidsKonnect

Abby Wambach Facts & Worksheets

Olympic gold medalist and FIFA winner, Abby Wambach is a retired soccer legend, speaker, author, and equality and inclusion campaigner.

Search for Worksheets

Worksheets /Sports /Abby Wambach Facts & Worksheets
Premium
Not ready to purchase a subscription? Click to download the free sample version   Download sample

Abby Wambach is a retired soccer legend, speaker, New York Times Best Seller, and equality and inclusion crusader. Abby is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a FIFA World Cup winner. Abby retired as one of the most dominant players in women’s soccer history after winning the Women’s World Cup in 2015. Wambach has the most goals (184) scored in international games of any professional soccer player.

See the fact file below for more information on Abby Wambach, or you can download our 25-page Abby Wambach worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE

  • Wambach was born June 2, 1980, in Rochester, New York, and grew up in the Rochester neighbourhood of Pittsford. She is the youngest of seven siblings (two sisters and four brothers) born to Pete and Judy Wambach. 
  • She began playing soccer at four when her sister expressed an interest in the sport. Soccer quickly became a family ritual.
  • Wambach recalls her elder brothers hitting her with hockey pucks when she was five for target practice. 
  • She was switched from the girls’ squad to the boys’ team after scoring 27 goals in only three games. She began avoiding defenders as a pre-teen by heading the ball over them and racing around them. 
  • Wambach attended Our Lady of Mercy High School in Rochester from 1994 to 1998, where she lettered in soccer and basketball.
  • She scored 142 goals throughout high school, including 34 in 1997 alone. 
  • Kathy Boughton, Mercy’s soccer coach, recalled Wambach frequently staying after practice to practice diving headers, a skill that later became her trademark as an international player.
  • Following her senior season, Wambach was named Parade magazine’s High School All-America Team. Umbro and the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) named her national high school player of the year.
  • Wambach captained the Rochester Spirit club squad for three years and was selected All-Greater Rochester Player of the Year in 1995 and 1997. 
  • Wambach was the top college recruit in 1997. She was sought after by multiple institutions, including elite soccer programs such as the University of North Carolina, UCLA, the University of Portland, and the University of Virginia.
  • Wambach accepted a full athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, where she played for coach Becky Burleigh’s Florida Gators women’s soccer team from 1998 to 2001. 
  • Florida’s program had only existed for three years; however, the challenge of joining a less established team over a team like North Carolina with a long history of championship titles appealed to Wambach. From 1998 through 2001, the squad won four straight Southeastern Conference (SEC) titles.
  • Individually, she was recognized as the SEC Freshman of the Year (1998), a freshman All-American (1998), a first-team All-SEC selection for four straight seasons (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001), a two-time SEC Player of the Year (2000, 2001), SEC Tournament Most Valuable Player honors twice (2000, 2001), and was named a first-team All-American in her sophomore, junior, and senior seasons in 1999, 2000, and 2001.

CLUB CAREER

  • Wambach debuted for the USWNT in 2001. 
  • The following year, she joined the Washington Freedom, a Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) team. In 2003, Freedom won the WUSA title. 
  • Wambach was named US Female Soccer Athlete of the Year. She again received the prize in 2004, 2007, 2010, 2011, and 2013.
  • In 2004, Wambach competed in her first Olympic Games. During the Games, she scored four goals, including the game-winning goal that earned the US a gold medal. 
  • Wambach scored six goals in six matches to help the United States finish third in the 2007 World Cup. 
  • She shattered her leg soon before the 2008 Olympics and could not compete. On the other hand, Wambach helped the USWNT win another gold medal in the 2012 Olympics, scoring five goals in six games. 
  • Wambach’s efforts that year earned her the title of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Player of the Year. 
  • Wambach continued to score goals; in 2013, she scored her 158th, which shattered Mia Hamm’s international career goal record. 
  • Wambach and the USWNT won the World Cup two years later.
  • Wambach announced her retirement in 2016.

INTERNATIONAL CAREER

Wambach has scored more international goals than any other player, male or female. And she scored 77 goals with her head. She participated in over 252 international matches.

She has 45 multiple-goal performances than any national team, including five hat tricks, two four-goal games, and a five-goal game in a 5-0 win against Ireland in 2004.

  • FIRST INTERNATIONAL MATCH: was against Germany on September 9, 2001. Her first goal came against Finland in 2002.
  • BEST GOAL EVER: Her most famous goal occurred in the 2011 World Cup quarterfinals in Germany, when she equalized against Brazil in the 122nd minute. 
  • WAMBACH HAS PARTICIPATED IN FOUR WORLD CUPS AND TWO OLYMPICS: She won gold medals in the 2004 and 2012 Olympics but could not compete due to a fractured leg in the 2008 Beijing Games.
  • She is the all-time leading scorer for the United States in both competitions. She has 14 goals in 25 World Cup games and nine in 10 Olympic games.
  • OTHER AWARDS: Aside from her FIFA honor, she has also been a U.S. Player of the Year six times. She was the first individual soccer player to be named The Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year in 2011.

OUTSIDE OF SOCCER

  • Wambach is an LGBT rights activist who speaks about acceptance and equality. 
  • Wambach married Sarah Huffman, her longtime companion and colleague with the Western New York Flash of the National Women’s Soccer League, in 2013. However, the pair divorced in 2016. 
  • Later that year, after she retired, she wrote two novels. Wambach published Forward: A memoir, a book in which she addressed her battles with alcohol and prescription medications. 
  • She married novelist and blogger Glennon Doyle in 2017. 
  • Following her 2018 graduating address at Barnard College, Wambach authored Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game (2019).
  • WOLFPACK became the #1 New York Times book; with the adaptation of WOLFPACK for the next generation, it became an immediate New York Times bestseller she also made.
  • Wambach was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2019.
  • Abby hosts ABBY’S PLACES on ESPN+, where she shows what makes her favorite sport, soccer, so famous worldwide. 
  • Abby also co-hosts the WE CAN DO HARD THINGS podcast with Glennon Doyle, which premiered at number one in May 2021 and was voted Apple Podcasts’ #1 New Podcast of 2021.

ENDORSEMENTS

  • Gatorade, Nike, MVP Healthcare, and Panasonic have all secured sponsorship deals with Wambach. 
  • She appeared in a Dodge ad with some national team colleagues in 2010. 
  • In July 2011, she inked a one-year sponsorship contract with Bank of America. 
  • She appeared in advertisements for magicJack phone service and ESPN SportsCenter the same year. 
  • She earned a gold card from Chipotle Mexican Grill in 2012, entitling her to one free burrito every day for the rest of her life. Although it is not a formal endorsement agreement, Chipotle provides the cards to well-known professional athletes who openly indicate a preference for the restaurant. 
  • She secured an endorsement agreement with the New York Apple Association in the summer of 2013 and was featured in television, radio, print, and internet advertisements.
  • Wambach appeared in a commercial for the LED lighting firm Cree in 2015.

PHILANTHROPY

  • Wambach has donated to the Epilepsy Foundation and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. 
  • She has participated in Mia Hamm’s annual Celebrity Soccer Challenge, raising funds for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the Mia Hamm Foundation. 
  • In August 2011, Wambach ran in the Chicago Marathon with teammates Alex Morgan and Hope Solo in a Bank of America charitable campaign. On her behalf, $5,000 was contributed to the Juvenile Diabetes Association.
  • In 2013, she became an ambassador for Athlete Ally, a nonprofit organization that eliminates homophobia and transphobia in sports.

Abby Wambach Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about Abby Wambach across 25 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Abby Wambach, a retired soccer legend, speaker, New York Times Best Seller, and equality and inclusion crusader.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Abby Wambach Facts
  2. Outstanding Player
  3. Player’s Profile
  4. Triple A
  5. Awarding Ceremony
  6. The Soccer Field
  7. 2011 Famous Goal
  8. Legendary Inspiration
  9. Major Events
  10. New York Times Best Seller
  11. Achievement Safe

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Abby Wambach famous for?

Two-time Olympic gold medalist, FIFA World Cup Champion, and six-time U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award recipient Abby Wambach is a star in her own right. She led Team USA as the top scorer at the 2007 & 2011 Women’s World Cups, plus the 2004 & 2012 Olympics.

How many World Cups did Abby Wambach play in?

After four attempts, Wambach finally achieved her goal by winning the Women’s World Cup in 2015. In addition to this success, she could also take home gold medals from both of the Olympic Games that she participated in, one in 2004 and the other in 2012.

How many goals did Abby Wambach score in her career?

In an astonishing 255 games for the U.S. senior national soccer team, she achieved a record-breaking 184 goals! This places her second in both female and male international goal-scoring of all time, beating the previous holder Mia Hamm who scored 158 global objectives during her career with the United States side.

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

Link will appear as Abby Wambach Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, December 28, 2022

Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

Related Resources