Back in the Saddle

U.S. legend Kristine Lilly trained with the U.S. National Team today for the first time since October of 2007. The only woman in history to play in five Women's World Cup tournaments took most of 2008 off to have her first child, a baby girl, who was born last June. Lilly has worked her way back into playing shape and while her legendary fitness level is probably still a few months away, she felt great after her first intense training in over a year. Some of the players were talking after training about how many practices Lilly has under her belt. They figured a 10-1 training-to-games ratio was probably a fair one, and with a world record 340 caps, that's about 3,400 National Team practices! And that's not even counting trainings during her three years with the Boston Breakers of the WUSA or stints in Sweden. And of course, when you've played that many games and had that many trainings, you need to stretch the legs, as Lilly does after practice with fellow veteran Briana Scurry below.