LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Savannah DeMelo had her moments. The World Cup experience for the Racing Louisville FC star and the rest of the U.S. Women's National Team was shorter than they planned or wanted it to be.
But she had her moments.
There was the moment when she found out she would be starting her first World Cup game. Between the excitement and making sure to be focused on execution, it was a challenge.
"I went in with the mindset of I'm going to perfect my role every day, no matter what role that is," she said Monday after her first training session back with Racing Louisville. "Your role changes day-in and day-out of national team camp. So yeah, when he told me I was going to start, I just kind of wanted to do the best I could and go out there and do everything I could to help the team. And it didn't matter how much I was going to play or if I was going to start the next game, I was just focusing on my first start and us getting the three points against Vietnam."
The U.S. got its win. And DeMelo did start the next game. She enjoyed the World Cup venues. Her mother and grandmother were there, too. Her father was going to come for the knockout round, but it wasn't to be.
DeMelo was on the bench for that moment, watching the fateful penalty kicks in the loss to Sweden.
"It's really nerve-racking," DeMelo said. "I just wanted no matter what for us to move on and I think, just how well we played in that Sweden game, you could feel that we deserved the win but soccer is cruel sometimes like that. I had complete faith in everybody during the PK shootout. I mean, PKs are the worst things about soccer because it's a hard thing to do with so much pressure. I knew it could go either way, but I was still so proud of everybody and I thought we left it all out there."
When she wasn't training, DeMelo was watching every World Cup game she could, including games involving Racing Louisville FC teammates. She saw Thembi Kgatlana score for South Africa, and Uchenna Kanu for Nigeria. Everybody saw Ary Borges score a hat trick for Brazil against Panama. Wang Shuang scored on a PK to beat Haiti and scored on another against England.
She came home with all her national team jerseys, and memories that will last a lifetime.
"The experience was great," she said. "Just being able to represent your country is such an honor. And I think I've looked up to so many of those women. So just being able to learn from them and play with them for the past two months was kind of a surreal experience and one that I'll never forget."
She will always carry with her the the moment just before her first World Cup appearance.
"It was a huge stadium, like we did a familiarization of the stadium the night before, but it seemed a lot bigger once there were people there. Just hearing the fans and seeing how much the woman's game is growing was kind like, 'Oh, my God, this is surreal.' Then just hearing the national anthem. And before the game that countdown to 10, we were all like looking around like we had each other's back. So, surreal moment. But yeah, it was really cool."
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