What Happens When A Talented Youth Decides To Become A Defender?

Stephanie Lopez rises from youth to youth for Women's National Team
by Andrea Canales 4/11/2007

http://topdrawersoccer.com/articles.aspx?article=2249

Quietly confident, adaptable, loaded with talent and improving in skill, Stephanie Lopez is in the hunt for the ultimate prize.

It’s fitting in some ways that Lopez is one of the youngest players in the U.S. Women’s National Team residency camp this year.

After all, Lopez started with the youth national teams at the earliest level, after she attended a U14 scouting camp. It was there that Lopez made a fateful decision.

“I had always played center midfield for my club teams,” the Elk Grove, California native said. “When I went to start ODP for my district, I saw – ‘Oh, all the best players are center mids.’ They were looking for people to be defenders, because there weren’t that many defenders. So I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll have a better chance if I’m a defender.’ I tried it and I got picked.”

It was around that time that Greg Ryan, though not yet coach of the Women’s National Team, spotted potential in Lopez.

“I coached Steph in her first Western region ODP team, when she was 14 years old,” Ryan said. “She was just very steady. Everything she did was just very, very good. She never got herself in trouble.”

Lopez could see for herself however, that other players she believed were talented were slipping out of the national team ranks.

“It is interesting to look back on and surprising, just to see at every level,” Lopez said. “I’m thinking back to the people that I met and wondering where they’re at now. I’m in amazement that I’m still here, even though I’ve been playing with this team for a good solid year. With the U14s, and remembering all those girls, I was shocked that I was going to the U16 camp.”

Along with her consistency and persistence, Lopez displayed versatility and a willingness to adapt in the face of adversity.

“I played center back, but then I got moved to the outside when I was first with the U19’s, with Tracey Leone [coaching],” Lopez said.

The move could have been a permanent blow to Lopez, though she understood the reasons behind it.

“I took it as kind of a negative thing, because I think it was that they were looking for a stronger person in the center, someone who was just better in the air. I’m getting better at those, but they weren’t my strengths then.”

Working with Leone in the U19 residency, Lopez was able to develop the attacking proficiency needed more specifically to be an outside back.


“Steph is very composed,” Ryan said. “She’s very good on the ball. She attacks well from the left side of the field. She gives us a true left defender. She holds her own one-on-one and gets the ball from just about anyone. She’s good in the air. She’s young and she’s got a lot of experience to gain, but she has most of the qualities that you’re looking for in a good wingback.”

Eventually, Lopez added center back to her portfolio of playing positions again, even as she embraced her new role on the outside.

“My freshman year (at Portland) I played center back,” Lopez said. “But I think now that coaches see my ability to get forward more, they just think of me as an outside back. Now I like it. Sometimes I still play center back – even for the U20’s I played center back a little bit here and there. It was a little stifling, the different responsibilities. You have to stay back a little more and control things, letting people know what’s going on.”

Teammates such as veteran defender Cat Whitehill have noticed the increased confidence of Lopez on the attack.

“A lot of times with youth, you’re a little tentative going forward. That’s more of a place where you would make some mistakes,” Whitehill said. “In the back, you know what you’re doing, especially as a defender. So that’s where you’re confident. But going forward and taking risks, that’s where the youth kind of shows. Now that she’s getting into the team, she goes forward more.”

In some ways, despite her youth, Lopez has become a veteran of the backline. Sometimes the defenders that line up alongside her have less experience actually playing defense, because they have been converted from other positions.

“There are a couple of players, like Tina [Ellertson] and India [Trotter],” Lopez said. “It’s interesting, because I’ve played there seven years now – a long time. But being the youngest player, it’s hard sometimes. There’s a balance of having respect for what they bring and their ability and also trying to impart some of the wisdom and the things I’ve learned from coaches and from different experiences and stuff.”

A natural defender who has been exposed many times to the tricks of the offense views the game a little differently, Ryan explained.

“She knows the job,” Ryan said of Lopez. “She’s been back there for a long time and it gives that extra bit of experience that she’s got. She feels right at home in the back. A lot of times when you convert a forward to the defense, it just takes a long time for them to feel comfortable back there, because it’s so different from what you’ve done up front.”

Lining up with such players forced Lopez to adjust her game yet again.

“Last year, India and I were playing defense in a closed-door scrimmage against China,” Lopez said. “I think it was her first time playing center back. There was a ball that I thought she was going to get to. She didn’t go after it and I didn’t recover. We both got chewed out after that in the next meeting. It really showed me that even though she didn’t necessarily know that maybe it was her responsibility – that I was supposed to be covering her there. Here I thought that I knew what was supposed to happen, but I wasn’t in the position where I needed to be. We both learned.”

Some of the learning experiences Lopez has gone through have been more painful than others.

“When we lost in Thailand to Germany, they definitely outplayed us,” Lopez said of the 2004 U19 World Championship. “It was harder because we were in a residency program and I’d been with that team for so long. That was frustrating to realize we didn’t have that good a day.”

In some ways, though, Lopez believed her game had taken a big leap in that tournament.

“[Someone] told me, when we were in Thailand and played Australia, ‘Steph Lopez, that’s the best I’ve seen you play.’ I thought about it and I was proud of myself and proud of that performance. It definitely is hard to differentiate how you do personally and how your team does. We ended up not winning that tournament. You don’t necessarily feel great about that experience.”

Ryan saw the progress of Lopez even more in another tournament.

“With Steph, it’s been a very steady progress. But we took her to Japan last year and committed to play her and make sure that she was learning the defending side of the game. The attacking side she’s very comfortable with, but she needed to be stronger on the defending side at our level. She really stepped up, got more aggressive, more physical and more focused defensively. She did a great job in the small periods of time that we inserted her against Japan. More than anything, that gave me confidence to bring her back.”

In order to advance to the next level, Lopez had to overcome her own character a little bit. She credited the team’s defensive coach with facilitating the transition.

“Brett Hall has done a good job bringing out another side of me,” Lopez said. “My personality as a person, even as a competitive soccer player, is one of being very patient and mild-mannered. But you need fight to you. I’m very competitive and I always have been, but I just needed that grit and that courage. I think the positions that he puts us in in practice and the way he coaches us, has instilled that battle mentality this past year.”

The transformation took time, but it changed Lopez’s perspective.

“Without that [toughness], I can’t get on the field, and I realize that. There’s not any amount of possession and composure that makes up for that, especially as a defender,” she said. “You need to have a lot more. I always thought my defending was consistent, but you need to have an extra amount that puts you up with the other girls, because they have a little bit extra. It took a lot. It was hard to get that extra fight, but I’m glad that I have that now. It’s part of my characteristics as a player now.”

Now Lopez offers a package of strength and savvy on defense.

“She might have helped with three or four goals in Portugal,” said Whitehill. “It’s good seeing her go up there. She has speed, she has quickness and she serves some great balls. She’s very creative. It’s fun watching her play.”

Whitehill, who has more than 100 caps for the U.S. women’s national team, noted that Lopez had the talent to also be a stalwart for the full national team.

“Her first touch is definitely something. You can play her any ball and she’ll control it. But her services are also really good,” Whilehill said. “She can pin the ball and put it right where she wants it. That’s a very big thing to have, especially as an outside back. We don’t have a whole lot of time to work on that. If you already have it, than that’s a good start.”

Along with her youth, Lopez stands out on the full national team due to being the first Mexican-American player to feature regularly with the senior squad.

“I do have a lot of pride in that, being the only one – it’s cool to be distinct and unique,” Lopez said, though she added that she didn’t feel drastically different. “I feel pretty Americanized.”

In fact, Lopez first learned soccer from her mother, who isn’t Latina.

“She played soccer in high school and she was really into soccer,” Lopez said. ‘I think I started around 5.”

Her basic language skills in Spanish also didn’t come from her family.

“My Spanish is from school,” Lopez said. “I know more Spanish than my dad and he’s my Mexican side.”

Still, there were times when Lopez experienced a little bit the cliché that soccer is a suburban, white-bread sport.

“Even up at school in Portland, it’s very homogenized,” Lopez said. “I’m one of the only Hispanic girls on the team or even at the school, it feels like sometimes.”

The Women’s National Team has seen more of an ethnic variety in this latest generation.

“It is very special to come here and see so much diversity and to know there’s strength in that diversity, from everyone’s different backgrounds,” Lopez said. “Hopefully, that will continue.”

Despite all the success that Lopez has accomplished, the lack of a world title still rankles Especially bitter was the latest setback at the U20 level.

“In Russia, I was the captain for the U20’s and we were just so much better than the opposition,” Lopez said. “That was why it was more frustrating and more heartbreaking, because we lost both games – the one against China to go to the finals and the third place game on PK’s. Losing on PK’s is probably the worst way to lose.”

Setbacks at the world level made the 2005 NCAA National championship of Portland, her university team, that much sweeter.

“I’m always a steady player, but I haven’t had consistent wins in championships, getting third in Thailand, getting fourth in Russia, and then my club team got second at nationals. Winning the (college) national championship was huge. You want to be more than just a consistent player. You want to help your team win it all. That was a huge moment, for us to win, and also because we had so much support from the community in Portland. Even though we were in Texas, there were so many people there that it felt like home for us. Both my parents were there and my boyfriend was there and it felt like such a special moment for us to win.”

As the Women’s National Team ramps up preparations for this year’s FIFA World Cup, Lopez craves that feeling again – the right to claim the title of the very best.

“Every individual is so competitive. I think the build up for me is to have a good showing, to kind of establish myself on the team, but as a team, there’s no doubt that we want to win it all, to show that we are the best in the world. That desire, that goal and vision, is what’s there. It’s getting down to it and it’s a little scary to realize that it’s here and it’s time to fulfill that. My goal is to win a world championship. I haven’t gotten that yet, so that’s the goal for this year.”

It hasn’t been in a flashy, showy way, but Lopez has steadily progressed to meet her goals before.

“All the qualities you still see now, you could see it then,” Ryan said of Lopez and her development. “You just didn’t know if from 14 to 20, she would continue to grow, but she certainly has.”