CARSON “”mdash; With a simple step forward, smile and a wave, McCall Zerboni solidified her career as a soccer player.
By going through the motions of a routine pregame ritual for players in the Women’s Professional Soccer League, Zerboni proved that she never “just goes through the motions.”
Zerboni’s mere presence on the field of the Home Depot Center Wednesday serves as a testament to the San Clemente native’s toughness.
Most UCLA women’s soccer fans last saw Zerboni plastered to the grass in Cary, N.C., clutching her ankle and later being carried off the field in her final game as a Bruin: a crushing 1-0 defeat at the hands of North Carolina in the NCAA College Cup semifinals on Dec. 5, 2008.
To literally add insult to injury, the WPS West Coast Combine that Zerboni was supposed to participate in was held the following Thursday after the defeat.
Zerboni’s soccer career, so promising one minute, looked extremely grim the next.
“I’m real competitive and so when we lost in the final four, you know that kind of had my spirits down,” Zerboni said.
“It can go one of two ways. It can either kill you as a player or make you hungry for more.”
Since that December day when Zerboni went down in North Carolina, she has been choosing the latter option over and over. That’s how she says she got all the way back to “the top of the totem pole” where she now sits as a starter on the first place Los Angeles Sol. More than ever, Zerboni wants to be a champion ““ the one thing that eluded her four times at UCLA.
“It’s definitely been a lot of ups and downs ““ the past six months of my career,” Zerboni said. “But I think that is just part of the train and the track you take as you take your career to the next level.”
In order to even get a shot at that next level, Zerboni first had to figure out a way to get herself exposure to the WPS coaches. Her injury turned out to be a “really sprained ankle” and a torn ACS that didn’t require surgery, news that kept Zerboni’s soccer playing dreams alive.
Some intense rehab and a few phone calls allowed Zerboni to withdraw from the West Coast Combine and instead participate in the East Coast Combine, which was held a week later.
“I didn’t come in 100 percent,” Zerboni said.
But a week before Christmas, she went anyway, and then it was time to play the waiting game until the middle of January when the WPS draft would determine how much further Zerboni would go.
Awake at 8 a.m. the Friday of the draft, Zerboni sat in front of her computer clicking refresh until her name appeared as the 47th selection next to the logo of the Los Angeles Sol.
For most players, that moment would signify the turning point at which things, once looking grim, started looking up.
As grateful as Zerboni was to get selected, at the time, she had her reservations.
“Part of me kind of wanted to get out and see somewhere else,” Zerboni said. “I wasn’t so sure how I would feel about the whole L.A. Sol thing.”
So yet again, Zerboni found herself at a crossroads at which she could employ self pity and fail or work hard and make it work.
She’s very glad she again chose the latter.
“Honestly, the L.A. Sol has turned out to be everything I would have hoped for my first year in the league,” she said. “Not just players and coaches. I mean everything: the fans, the staff, our sponsors, our ownership, everything; and of course staying close to my family and my friends.”
That positive perspective comes with three-fourths of the season over and seven games of experience now under her belt. Zerboni had indeed made it onto a WPS roster, but she spent the first 10 games on a developmental contract.
Each WPS team has a roster of 22 players, 10 of which would have their contacts determined after evaluation in the preseason. Six of those 10 would be awarded senior player contracts, and the other four would be designated as developmental.
Zerboni was one of the four.
Essentially, that meant the former Bruin would have to come to practice, practice hard and prepare to play just like any other player on the roster. But the catch was two-fold: First, if a contract player is healthy, a developmental player cannot play in her place. Second, contract status was subject to change any time before July 1.
“Being as young as I am and not having the exposure or experience that other players have, not that it was expected, but it was definitely understandable,” Zerboni said of her developmental status. “I lacked experience and didn’t have a big name or any of that. … All I could do was put my head down and work hard, and I ended up getting rewarded for it. I was lucky.”
Zerboni was called up and named a senior player about a month ago after injuries and national team commitments combined with Zerboni’s effort earned her a full-time spot as a senior player on the squad.
“McCall has worked extremely hard,” Sol coach Abner Rogers said. “Her technical skills are very good. She gives us a little more width than the other players. She serves in balls well. Against Chicago, she was tremendous. She deserved to start. She hit a great through ball to (midfielder) Shannon Boxx for a goal. She’s an intelligent player.”
The assist to Boxx, a national team star, is currently Zerboni’s biggest statistical contribution to the Sol in her seven total games played with three starts. The June 27 game against Chicago was the first start of her career.
But on Wednesday against St. Louis, it was clear she is a major contributor, whether it shows up in the box score or not.
In the first minute, Zerboni went up aggressively for a header, not at all tentative despite having a back that continues to bother her.
In the seventh minute, she possessed the ball, and then with a quick and crisp jab step, she blew past her defender before passing to a teammate.
In the 10th minute, Zerboni was in the middle of a scoring chance, following a long, lofting cross to her side. When she got whistled for a debatable offside, her competitive fire found its way out. Her hands went up in visible frustration, having had a scoring chance snatched away.
Eighteen minutes later, almost the exact same play unfolded with no whistle, and Zerboni’s only shot of the day went wide left.
When she finally made her way to the sidelines after playing the first 77 minutes, Val Henderson, the Sol’s No. 2 goalie, and a three-year UCLA teammate of Zerboni was there to greet her. Having known Zerboni for five years now, Henderson might be one of Zerboni’s biggest fans. She said that regardless of whether she was on the starting or practice squad during workouts, Zerboni was always tackling hard, always running hard and always challenging.
“I’m a huge supporter of McCall,” Henderson said. “From playing together in college, she has the heart and the work ethic and wants it so bad, more that anyone on the field even. She is a leader with her own personal work rate. She wants to do everything. I knew even though she had a bit of a slow start coming into this season, I was just waiting for her to have the chance to prove herself on this team.”
That’s not to say there were not some tough days for Zerboni all along and especially during her time as a developmental player.
“Mornings I woke up and didn’t really want to go to practice. I just had to kind of suck it up and work hard,” she said. “Everyone has something they bring to the team; you just have to remember that. I really just think it’s a mental thing.”
Zerboni said she expected to have to work hard to succeed in the league, but perhaps the thing she has been most surprised by is the huge success of the WPS, which is in its inaugural season. Sol games are drawing between 4,000 and 6,000 fans per game, many of which are little girls with big dreams.
Seeing them at games hits home for Zerboni, who like all of the players in her generation, were caught between the fall of the WUSA in 2003 and the rise of the WPS this past year, with no professional soccer league to dream about playing in.
“I mean the little girls that show up to our games, I mean, it’s so cute,” she said. “They have something to look forward to now, which I just think is an amazing thing. I wish there was something like that for the people around my age group, but now that there is, it makes it worth it to get out there on the hard days.”
Clearly, for Zerboni, there have been many hard days. But with the team in first place by more than 10 points and a playoff system that slots the first-place team automatically in the championship game, Zerboni has a good dream to look forward to.
Regardless of the professional championship prospects, Zerboni is part of a unique group in UCLA women’s soccer history. In four seasons, she went to four final fours, but never won a national championship.
Yet again, it looks as though Zerboni will have a chance to play for a championship. This time it will be the first WPS championship, special in its own way. Zerboni’s words are loaded with passion, and all the adversity of the past six months, when she says winning it, “means a lot.”
“Oh, it’s my world,” she said simply and without hesitation.
“Because, I never got that at UCLA, and that’s all I’ve been chasing for the past four years. All I want to do is be the best.”