The defensive midfielder was 30 before she made her debut for the US. She tells Gemma Clarke about her journey to the top of the game

When she was 12 years old, McCall Zerboni saw her first live soccer match.

With the letters USA hand-drawn on her shirt and her blonde hair braided in three sections and sprayed red, white and blue, she joined her mom, twin sister and more than 90,000 eager spectators at the Rose Bowl for the 1999 World Cup final.

Zerboni recalls taking a deep breath, looking around and thinking: “Wow. All these people came here to watch those women down on the field. And those women are such bosses, they’re handling it all like it’s no problem,” she tells the Guardian.

She then witnessed one of most unforgettable moments in sporting history: after 120 minutes of nerve-juddering deadlock, the US won the World Cup with a Brandi Chastain’s penalty and the crowd wildly celebrated the shootout victory in the sweltering Pasadena heat. Up in the stands, Zerboni was profoundly affected. “They showed me what strength is,” she says.

Twenty years later, Zerboni is finally on the brink of reaching the World Cup as a member of the US squad. And, more than anything, she has needed strength to get here.

She made her first international appearance in 2017, just a few months shy of her 31st birthday, making her the oldest debutant in the history of the US women’s team. Since then she has earned four more caps, and will be hoping to get more game time in the SheBelieves Cup, which begins for the US on Wednesday when they take on Japan in Pennsylvania. The tournament is both a dry run and a chance for lesser-known players to impress and stake their claim for a spot at June’s World Cup.

Zerboni has taken the “long road” to the top, though she has played professionally for more than a decade. Her story is inspiring, but it’s more than a never-too-late-to-fulfill-your-dreams-narrative or testament to her single-mindedness and immense determination. Since it’s a story about women’s sports, it’s also a story about inequality, of professional female athletes earning wages so low they can barely keep their heads above water, let alone focus exclusively on their game.

She grew up in the California beach town of San Clemente, one of two sets of twins in a family of seven siblings. Her parents divorced not long before the final in ’99, leaving her mother to raise all seven children, feed them and ferry them to school and extra-curricular activities. Soccer was a big part of family life; Zerboni and her twin, Blake, began playing when they were four. Both showed early promise.

Zerboni won awards throughout high school, joined the Olympic Development Program as a teenager and earned a place in the US Under-17s team in 2003. She and Blake played together at UCLA, but she alone progressed to the professional leagues, signing for Los Angeles Sol in the WPS.

She played for three different teams in three years before the WPS folded, then started out in the newly-formed NWSL at a time when the minimum annual pay was under $8,000. In the off-season, Zerboni took whatever work she could get. For her, the low point came after six years of playing professionally and struggling to make ends meet. She found herself wandering along the beach front near her home, trying to sell packets of nutritional gel to passing surfers.

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“I was like, ‘OK, professional soccer player in the season, then in the off-season, I’m basically walking on the beach, begging people to give me their money because I can barely survive.’” And though she drew positives from the experience, chiefly the belief that you should try to take pride in everything you do, it highlights a potent issue: a contract with US Soccer gives a financial cushion that most NWSL teams cannot yet provide.

Things are improving, but much of the league’s growth relies on grassroots support, such as the many fans who buy season tickets to teams around the country and donate them, in order to bring more people to the games. Zerboni is grateful for all the backing she has received, and that she has been able to grow and improve over time in the league. But she can’t help wondering what might have been possible had the infrastructure of women’s soccer been more advanced.

“If I’d had the resources and capabilities to put more into my job, and more focus, instead of going to train at little camps every night or going to work after training in the afternoon, would I be further long, would I be a better footballer? I don’t know. But that’s what I needed to do to survive at the time. If I’d had more resources, maybe I’d have got here faster, but that’s just not the journey I was able to take.”

With her twin as her personal trainer, and no small amount of grit, Zerboni established herself as one of the standouts in the league; her form for NWSL champions North Carolina Courage has been hard to ignore. And US coach Jill Ellis has made it clear in her call-ups that form is paramount.

Small but strong at 5ft 4in, Zerboni has a wealth of skills. A defensive midfielder who will fight for every ball and throw her body in harm’s way, she also covers a vast amount of ground, finds space up front and scores goals. As a character, she exudes positivity and continually shouts encouragement to her teammates. She’s the kind of player whose presence would benefit the US at a World Cup: versatile, vocal and filled with an innately American zeal.

In the 20 years since 1999, members of that World Cup-winning team have deliberated on the power of adversity, how their struggle to earn recognition fed their spirit and gave them the impetus to succeed. It is an ethos Zerboni can certainly relate to.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about giving up,” she says. “But the small flame inside of me that wouldn’t burn out - that’s the reason I have this opportunity now.”