Meghan Klingenberg is exhausted, but in the best way.
Winning a World Cup will do that.
The Richland native played in all of the United States’ 17 games this year, including every minute of the FIFA Women’s World Cup campaign that ended Sunday with a 5-2 victory against Japan. Things haven’t slowed down for the defender since, and they might not soon.
“I am so tired right now, I cannot even tell you,” Klingenberg said. “It’s a really good tired. It’s a great tired. But it is an exhausted weariness that I just need about 48 hours of straight sleep and nobody to talk to, and I think that I’ll be fine. But we’re not going to get that for a little bit.”
Since the win, Klingenberg has unveiled the team’s new three-star jerseys Monday in Vancouver, British Columbia, and rallied with home country fans Tuesday in Los Angeles. She’ll wave in a New York City ticker-tape parade Friday, and Sunday she’ll sign autographs and meet fans with her National Women’s Soccer League team, the Houston Dash.
But with not even two full days in between, Klingenberg flew Tuesday night to Pittsburgh only to leave today for New York just because she really needed to be home, even for a short time, after so long away.
“It’s nice to just relax and just be around family,” she said. “Not have to worry about the stress of games or the spotlight of being in front of crowds.”
She’ll get a bit of a longer stay next week when she returns for her soccer camp July 17-19 in Cranberry as well as appearing at a Riverhounds game July 18. She’ll have another homecoming Aug. 16 when the U.S. team plays Costa Rica at Heinz Field.
With her packed schedule, it has been hard for Klingenberg to really comprehend what she has accomplished.
“It’s not something that I can describe,” she said. “You don’t realize how important, how cool, how iconic it really is when it’s going on.”
The wildest part of winning the World Cup for her is the comparison to the 1999 World Cup-winning U.S. squad that sparked a surge in popularity for soccer. Klingenberg said she has that legendary team on a pedestal as pioneers of the women’s game, but now there is a whole new generation of young players doing the same to her team.
“To think about it that way is just mind-boggling,” she said. “I certainly don’t think of myself that way, and I know my teammates certainly don’t think of ourselves that way. We just wanted to win.”
The win has brought international attention to the Pine-Richland alumna, and that newfound celebrity is something she’s trying to comprehend. She’s still the same person she was before winning a world championship, even though she now has more than 60,000 followers on Twitter and fans ranging from random people in the crowd waving signs about being “Klingy” to Pirates star center fielder Andrew McCutchen, who tweeted to Klingenberg that they might need to settle who wears No. 22 best for Pittsburgh.
“I’m definitely not as cool as they think I am,” demurred Klingengberg, who said she counts on friends and family to keep her ego in check.
Besides, she believes she still has work to do.
“The sign of an elite athlete is always wanting more and always getting after it,” Klingenberg said. “So of course I’m going to soak this in and enjoy it and really appreciate what we’ve done. But I also want to be able to win an Olympics, and I want to win an NWSL championship, and I want to be the best player I can be. I want to be the best left back in the world.”
Megan Ryan: mryan@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1722 and Twitter @theothermegryan.
First Published: July 9, 2015, 4:00 a.m.