Julie Ertz | Tokyo 2020 Olympic Profile

Team USA midfielder Julie Ertz explains how the USWNT is handling the pressure of being back-to-back World Cup Champions, and how the USWNT has become instrumental in the growth of the sport in the United States.

Video transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

JULIE ERTZ: Hi. I'm Julie Ertz, a midfielder for the US Women's National Team, and two-time World Cup champion, heading to the Olympics. I never really used, necessarily, the word pressure. I think there's obviously an expectation when you have one, especially most recently in the world cup.

But I think everyone goes into the tournament that, you know, you're there because all these teams want to win. We all want to win. So I think there's no difference for us. We want to go in, play great soccer, and get to the final and hopefully bring home the gold. I didn't really watch US-- the US Women's team growing up, because it wasn't on TV or they rarely came to Arizona to be able to watch.

So hopefully, we'll be able to allow young girls to see that, and that they can play and eventually take our shoes as well, and hopefully have the same opportunities that I have, because I'm so grateful what soccer has given me and been able to travel and play the sport that I love against elite players. So I feel like that growth has been tremendous, and our fans have been nothing but amazing.