Dunn embraces second World Cup experience

Participating in her second Women’s World Cup, Crystal Dunn is living by a simple philosophy: Embrace the moment.
 “The question that many of us who have played in the World Cup get is: ‘Oh, it must be easy now’. I’m like, ‘No, it’s not easy now,’ because each World Cup is different,” she said.
This World Cup is different for the Rockville Centre native because Dunn is a mother for the first time. She has brought her 15-month-old son Marcel to New Zealand for the tournament.
“I took a massive amount of time off last year,” she said. “So everything, every moment that led to this moment is so different. It’s a different journey that I didn’t expect to be on. My message to players in their first World Cup is really just embrace it. It’s going to be wild. It’s going to be crazy. There’s going to be moments where you’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, what did I sign up for?’ But that’s the beauty in it.”
The left back was a member of the 2019 U.S. team that won its second consecutive world championship in France in 2019. The Americans are vying to become the first team — men or women — to capture three successive World Cups.

“We remember that as the last team standing up, you realize that it was also worth it,” she said. “My message to everybody is play with a little bit of noise. It’s not something that you take for granted at all. People are on their fourth World Cup. People are in their first. You just have to embrace it and take that moment and just smile and laugh with everybody along the way.”
Dunn and her U.S. Women’s National Team teammates got off to a solid start in this year’s tournament, recording a 3-0 win over Vietnam in their opener in Auckland, New Zealand last Saturday. The former South Side High School standout played 84 minutes before she was replaced by Kelly O’Hara. The Americans’ next Group E game is against the Netherlands this Wednesday at 9 p.m. (Fox, Telemundo, Universo and Peacock). They close out group play against Portugal on Aug. 1 at 3 a.m. (same channels.)
Only nine members of the current 23-player U.S. roster competed in France, so the 31-year-old Dunn is one of the team’s most experienced players.
“I find myself in a new role, being more of a veteran player, a leader on this team,” she said, lamenting that team captain and center back Becky Sauerbrunn couldn’t play due to a leg injury. “Becky is a massive loss for us. She is somebody whose impact is felt not only on the field but off the field.
“We’re ruthless,” Dunn continued. “As a backline that’s how we’ve always trained. Becky has been someone who set the tone and the standard for that. Without her being here, we have to be even more collective and relentless in our defending.”