Carli Lloyd finally gets recognition she deserves with FIFA Ballon d'Or award
If you had ever watched the United States women's national team practice, you already knew. If you'd seen the world champions and the deepest team on the planet at work on the training field, where the competition is harder and more brutal than in any actual game, you didn't need Monday's FIFA World Player of the Year ceremony to tell you that Carli Lloyd is the best female soccer player on earth.
Out there, away from the packed stadiums and the TV cameras, Lloyd has been dominating for years. You could find plenty of people who are deeply knowledgeable about the women's game who would support the argument that she's perhaps been the best since the 2012 Summer Olympics.
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It's just that, with Lloyd, the larger audience didn't always notice. And she refused to call their attention to it, receding into the necessary work her team needed during games. So they didn't pick up on all the ground she covered, recognize the number of balls she won, see the passes she dispatched in order for others to score or appreciate the sheer toil she put in to make the difference on both sides of the field.
Her teammates saw it, though. And her opponents saw it, too.
They looked on as she fought back from being cut from the under-21 national team in 2003, developed a more well-rounded game and broke into and then blossomed on the national team. They haven't missed her racking up 79 goals in 211 national team appearances, as a midfielder no less, and with 18 of those coming in 2015 alone. And it isn't lost on them that she scored the only goals in the 2-1 and 1-0 Olympic final wins in 2012 and 2008, respectively. Or indeed her 16-minute hat trick in the 2015 World Cup final, after which she was also named the player of the tournament.
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But it wasn't until the latter performance, ending a Women's World Cup which she'd begun in something of a rut on an epic high, that much of the world took note. And that isn't because Lloyd lacks the mainstream appeal of Alex Morgan, Hope Solo or Mia Hamm; Abby Wambach's gaudy numbers and big personality; or Megan Rapinoe's flash and eccentricity. It's not because she's a worker, tending to her team's needs, rather than the things that would get her noticed.
It's because awards such as these on the women's side of the game have long favored the most famous players, rather than the top performers. While they are voted on by national team captains, head coaches and select journalists, for the first decade that this award was given out, only three different women won it – Hamm in 2001 and 2002, Germany's Birgit Prinz 2003-2005 and Brazil's Marta 2006-10.
,p>The latter won five years in a row – while Prinz was runner-up four times – not just because she was the best, but also because she was the best-known. Since then, Wambach had been a finalist every single year until this one, winning the thing in 2012. (Morgan came third in 2012 as well.) But for several of those years, Wambach wasn't even the best player on her own team.
As the interest in the women's game has grown, however, voting has become more sophisticated. And the winners of this award are beginning to more accurately reflect the balance of power on the field, which is how Lloyd finally came to win.
But Lloyd, long overdue for her recognition, once again refused to hog the spotlight even as she stood squarely in it after beating out Germany's Celia Sasic and Japan's Aya Miyama.
<p[>"We all know that individual honors come from being a part of great teams," she said in a statement through U.S. Soccer. "And I want to thank all my teammates and coaches and the many people who have helped me along the way. It was a memorable year for all of us and I want to thank U.S. Soccer for their tremendous support of our national team, as well as FIFA and everyone who voted. Now, we're all looking forward to the hard work it will take to achieve more success and continuing to the push the women's game to greater heights."
They may sound like hackneyed athlete platitudes, but they're rather typical for Lloyd and sincere in their message. She's more concerned for the team than for herself. More worried about the game as a whole than her personal legacy.
On Monday, Lloyd got her moment in the sun all the same. For serving her team, she was recognized personally.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
