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You always see people coming back to the sport, and I've always thought, 'Gosh, when you're done playing, wouldn't you just want to stay at home?'

Especially when you play at home, you need a good atmosphere behind you.

A lot of young players don't really know much about the history of the game and a lot of them are missing out on what the game is all about, especially the whole concept of sportsmanship and teamwork.

No one ever sits you down at age eight and says, 'Aminatta, this is what's happened so far.' You have to work it out for yourself, and by the time you do, it's ancient history to many of the players. We're trying to make sense of the past, so we start to excavate our memories.

I guess what I'm really saying is something obvious - that there's a unique pride in watching a home team from rival turf, especially when we're not supposed to be any good.

When I play, I'm so in the moment that I can't really remember what happened afterwards. It's a rare experience for a thinking person like me.

I do still have some of the experience from playing, but it's been so long since I've been out in those quarters, semis, finals, the important final matches, just against the top players.

All the really good players I know, they all knew right from wrong. So many of them don't learn that at home nowadays.

It takes the pressure off of your better players to know they don't always have to be on top of their game for the team to do well.