Soccer star Carli Lloyd surprises NYC girls at practice

NEW YORK (FOX5NY.COM) - It was just a regular weeknight soccer practice for some girls at Asphalt Green in Manhattan until one of the greatest soccer players in the world showed up.

Carli Lloyd, of Olympic gold medal and 2015 World Cup championship fame, twice named player of the year by FIFA, stopped by with the help of sponsor Krave to give the girls her best tips for on and off the field.

"It was awesome, I was really, really excited," Sienna Mora, one of the Asphalt Green players, said. "I'm a big fan."

"I've never really met an Olympian before," Savannah Phillips said. "She kind of inspires me a lot."

Inspiring young girls is what Lloyd is all about because when she was growing up in South Jersey, there weren't any famous female players to look up to. 

Lloyd and her teammates have put women's soccer on the map and have gone further than that by championing equal pay for female athletes too.

"It's about continuing to push on as females," she said. "In every workforce in the world you have to fight."

Lloyd isn't done when it comes to setting the bar high.

"In my eyes I still have a lot left to accomplish," she said.

Namely the 2019 World Cup and the 2020 Olympics. And while some have questioned whether Lloyd, 35, will be too old to compete, she refuses to listen.

"There's loads of people who think maybe I'm getting a bit too old and I can't have the impact I had in the past," Lloyd said. "But as I continuously do in my career, I continuously prove all those doubters wrong."

It's a message to which these girls, even at 10 and 11, can related

"Everybody pretty much has doubters, even if you're at that level," said Gabby Aaron, one of the young players.