Famous Failures Lindsey Horan on Winning the Women’s World Cup
In 2012, eighteen-year-old soccer player Lindsey Horan defied conventional wisdom when she turned down a scholarship from soccer powerhouse University of North Carolina. UNC is almost a guaranteed path to the big leagues for talented and hardworking women, but Lindsey decided to skip a step and move halfway around the world to sign with Paris Saint-Germain. She was the first American woman to go pro directly out of high school.
Today Lindsey is a National Women’s Soccer League player with the Portland Thorns. She led her team to the championship in 2017 and was named the Most Valuable Player of the entire league for the 2018 season. She’s the heartbeat of the US Women’s National Team and played in her first World Cup in 2019.
Follow Lindsey on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LindseyHoran, and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lindseyhoran10/.
In this episode Lindsey and I discuss:
- How she made the difficult decision to skip college and turn pro in France
- What it was like landing in France at the age of eighteen with no language or cultural compass
- How she overcame humiliation in the locker room to become the best player she could be
- Why chipped fingernails and short hair got players sidelined in France
- How she talks herself through tough times and failures
- How she supports her team on the field when things go sideways during a game
- How she bounced back from being benched for most of the 2016 Olympics
- Why taking risks on the field boosts her self-confidence and makes her a better player
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