Birthday Boxx

Happy Birthday to U.S. midfielder Shannon Boxx! The Torrance, Calif., native turns 31 today, and like many a WNT player, is celebrating her B-day on the road. She did get an impromptu rendition of Happy Birthday on the bus ride from training today, but no word if she's gotten any cool Norwegian-themed gifts from her teammates yet. (We hear they've got some great smoked herring here in Norway, though). Boxx broke into the National Team in 2003, so she's only been playing for her country for five and half years, but in that time she's piled up 92 caps and will likely get her 100th sometime during the 2008 Olympics. How many of those 92 games has she started? 87. Pretty impressive for a player who didn't break into the WNT until she was 25. Primarily a defensive midfielder, Boxx impressively finished third in the voting for FIFA Women's Player of the Year a few years back. Above Angela Hucles and Natasha Kai helped her celebrate during team lunch... and there was cake for all. (Well, not a birthday cake but a delicious chocolate thing with some sort of cream filling. Not like the WNT Blog had a big piece or anything... we HEARD it was good). The real birthday cake will probably come out tonight. That necklace Shannon is wearing was given to her as a B-day present by Rylie Rampone. We're thinking her mom Christie probably helped make it.