Julie Ertz is one of the veterans on the United States Women’s Soccer Team as she has been with the squad since 2013. But will she compete as long as Carli Lloyd, who has been on the team since 2005 and made this year’s Olympic team at 38 years old? PopCulture.com recently caught up with Ertz, who said watching Lloyd compete at 38 (will be 39 on July 16) is inspiring. But Ertz is not sure if she will be playing for another 10 years.
“Man, she’s proven that you can do it,” Ertz, 29, told PopCulture when talking about Lloyd. “I love sports so much. I have been blessed enough to be able to train with her when I’m in Philly, so I’ve seen her train day in and day out. Her mentality is like no other, so being her teammate is unbelievably grateful to see, to get there. Could my body survive that? I personally don’t know for me specifically, but I love playing this sport so much.
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“I just kind of take it, I guess, year-by-year or day-by-day and making sure that I can compete to the best that I can. But yeah, it’s definitely an amazing accomplishment, but one that again, motivates and only inspires your teammates. So, I mean … I, again, see her work rate every day. So I’m not that surprised.”
Right now, the priority for Ertz is helping her team win a gold medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics later this month. When talking about the Olympics, Ertz said that she’s “really excited, and I’m also extra excited to kind of have it be back in Japan. In 2012, for the Under-20s World Cup, I ended up being in Japan, so it’s kind of full circle in that way. So grateful after a year pushed back. I’m grateful to be able to have the Olympics, and I’m definitely grateful and excited to be a part of it.”
This year’s Olympics will be very different due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally set to take place last year, the Olympic Games will not have any fans due to the rise of COVID-19 cases. This announcement came shortly after Japan declared a state of emergency in Tokyo.
“Obviously, right now, we’re training for the send-off games, so we get more information every day,” Ertz said when talking about the team’s plan when getting to Tokyo. “I think they kind of just didn’t want to overload us so we can focus on the soccer. I’ll speak for myself, so I’m not saying we, but I feel very supportive and then they have a great plan going forward. So I don’t know, technically, how much. I know that we’re going a few days early before we start games and stuff, but as of now, it seems pretty good.”
