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But five years ago, Lloyd says, entering the 2016 Olympics, USWNT head coach Jill Ellis and high performance coach Dawn Scott wouldn’t let her.

Their reasons were likely backed by science, individualized data, empirical research that has refined our understanding of how elite athletes can optimize performance. Every major professional sports team employs data; weaponizes it; chases it in search of every last microscopic advantage. And it told the USWNT, at times, that Lloyd’s obsessive running was suboptimal.

It told her to do less. She wanted to do extra.

It told her to taper before games. She wanted to push.

It told her to rest up, especially coming off a knee injury in 2016. She wanted to run.

So she did, clandestinely, again and again. She says Ellis and Scott “denied” her. She “had to sneak out and run a massive amount of times.”

But there is a human being behind that machine. It hasn’t always been easily visible, and at times Lloyd has deliberately kept it hidden, but it’s there. And as Lloyd the soccer player prepares for the Olympics, the eighth and likely last major tournament of her career, Lloyd the human — who celebrated her 39th birthday on Friday with her U.S. teammates in Japan — is coming back to the fore.

“I think this is the first time in my career where I’m entering a major tournament feeling, physically and mentally, more prepared and ready than I ever have been,” she told The Inquirer. “But I think the most important aspect is I’ve never been this happy.”

"I don’t know what would’ve happened if the Olympics actually went on in 2020," Lloyd told TODAY. "Would they have been a part of it? Would I have rekindled the relationship with them? I don’t know.

"I’m just happy now that we are in the place that we are, and everybody feels good about it."

Here’s a look back at how Carli Lloyd has fared in the Women’s World Cup and the Olympics, the two biggest tournaments in global women’s soccer. Written by: Jonathan Tannenwald https://www.inquirer.com/soccer/carli-lloyd-uswnt-world-cup-olympics-goals-20190531.html

“There are a lot of reasons why this would top a lot of moments. Where I am in life right now, what I had to overcome from 2020 on and the ups and downs of life. It would be the best feeling in the entirety of my career.”

Lloyd and her teammates who were just selected for the Summer Olympics hope to join that elite club, following their 2019 World Cup title with an Olympic gold. Experience is on their side — nearly the entire Olympic roster played in the Cup — but the other side of that edge is age.

"Obviously, we have a lot of experience on this roster, but we're going to need all 18 players to play a huge role in this," Lloyd says.

A third Olympic gold would put another exclamation point on Lloyd's career. FIFA has twice honored her as the best women's player in the world, and she has won two World Cup championships. Lloyd is also one of only three players, male or female, to appear in 300 or more international matches.

Lloyd says she's never been in better shape, despite speculation that she might retire after Tokyo. In an interview with NPR, Lloyd also discusses how the team has changed over the years — and what hasn't.

No one fits that description better than Lloyd.

Relegated to the bench at the 2019 World Cup, the two-time FIFA Player of the Year had said she wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue to Tokyo. But a coaching switch – Andonovski replaced Jill Ellis in October of that year – and the year postponement of the Olympics because of COVID-19 has rejuvenated Lloyd, who said earlier this month that her game is now at a “whole other level.”