As if we needed another reason to hail Christie Rampone, a veteran member and defender of the U.S. Women's National team, she goes and marks another milestone.
With her entrance at the 80th minute during the U.S.'s 1-0 victory over Nigeria on Tuesday, Rampone officially became the oldest player to appear in a Women's World Cup game, per U.S. Soccer.
That's right. At 39 years, 11 months and 23 days, Rampone is still KILLING IT on the soccer pitch.
But that's not all. Here are some other reasons, why Rampone is a legitimate bad ass.
- Rampone is the only player on the squad that remains from the 1999 World Cup Championship team.
- She's both a professional soccer player and a mom, returning to the field less than four months (http://english.sina.com/sports/1/2006/0123/63028.html) after giving birth to her first daughter, Rylie, in December 2005. Oh, and that time when she won a championship in the now-defunct Women's Professional Soccer league in 2009? She was three months pregnant with her second daugher, Reece (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/sports/soccer/how-a-fax-helped-rewrite-womens-soccer-in-the-us.html?_r=0).
- She's managed to balance her successful soccer career while also enduring the chronic fatigue of Lyme disease, which she was diagnosed with (http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/health/Rampone-Lyme-Disease-163608216.html) in 2010.
- Her appearance in Tuesday's match also increased Rampone's caps to 307, the most of any active player and second-most capped player in U.S. and world history, according to U.S. Soccer (http://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2015/06/15/17/46/150615-wnt-v-nga-game-notes)
- Rampone battled back after tearing her ACL in 2001, starting every game (http://www.ussoccer.com/players/2014/03/15/02/35/christie-rampone?SPSID=659189&SPID=104205&DB_OEM_ID=14300#tab-5) in the 2002 season of the now-defunct Women's United Soccer Association. She returned to the USWNT as well, and went on to compete in both the 2003 and 2007 (http://www.oregonlive.com/fifa-world-cup/index.ssf/2015/06/veteran_christie_rampones_beli.html) Women's World Cups.
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Source: HuffingtonPost