When Trinity Rodman scored a dramatic stoppage-time winner for the Washington Spirit against the Portland Thorns on August 3, the celebration extended far beyond the 16,000 fans at Audi Field. Thousands of miles away, a small soccer center in Wimbledon, South London, shared in the triumph.
The goal marked a triumphant return for the U.S. women’s national team forward after a four-month absence with a back injury she says may never fully heal. Overcome with emotion after her volley secured the 2-1 victory, the 23-year-old admitted she had feared she might never experience such a moment again.
“That was just the hardest thing I’ve had to go through,” Rodman told ESPN. “Being back, and being at the home stadium with the crowd behind me, scoring a goal like that—you saw I buried that. I wasn’t going to miss it.”
A key part of her path back to the pitch was forged in an unlikely setting: Goals Wimbledon, a facility renting out five-a-side artificial turf pitches.
In late June, while in England to support her boyfriend, world No. 6 tennis player Ben Shelton, at the Wimbledon championships, Rodman walked up to the reception desk. She asked manager Barry Horsnell if she could hire a pitch to train.
Horsnell didn’t recognize her but sensed she was a professional athlete. “I’m nosy, so I’ll just ask questions,” he said. “She said she was here for the tennis, with her other half playing at Wimbledon. I said, ‘I really want to pretend that I know who you are, but I don’t.’ She just laughed and was so nice about it.”
As Rodman ran through drills with the Spirit’s team chiropractor, Josh Angulo, Horsnell looked her up online and was stunned by her celebrity. He subsequently refused payment for her training sessions, asking only that she be willing to pose for photos if local fans recognized her. Rodman readily agreed.
It didn’t take long for her presence to be felt. “As soon as Trinity walked out, you could just see this girl’s eyes light up,” Horsnell recalled of another young player training nearby. “She knew straight away who Trinity was, and she couldn’t concentrate on her own football for the next 10 minutes.”
Yet, for many, the Olympic champion trained in anonymity as commuter trains sped past the facility. “There were hundreds of people going past, and they wouldn’t have realised who was training on that pitch,” Horsnell noted. “It’s mad, isn’t it?”
When Rodman scored her comeback goal, the staff at Goals Wimbledon felt a special connection. “It’s mad to see her scoring that last-minute goal and feeling more emotionally connected to it,” Horsnell said. “We know what it means to her and are happy we could play a small part.”
He described the star forward as completely down-to-earth. “There was no air of arrogance, and her celebration for that goal was the same. It was so humble. I know now how big a star she is, but each day that I met her, she was just so normal.”
Horsnell was left with a prized memento: a soccer ball signed by Rodman for his 11-year-old niece. “I showed her the ball and she didn’t know who had signed it,” he said. “Then I showed her the photo on my phone and she was like, ‘Oh my god! That’s Trinity Rodman!’”
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