On a cool July night in Frankfurt four years ago, Carli Lloyd stood over a penalty kick that would go a long way toward deciding the 2011 World Cup final. She told herself to kick the ball as hard as she possibly could, inside the left post—her go-to penalty kick.

Then she remembered she had kicked the ball in that spot in the quarterfinal shootout against Brazil. So at the last moment, Lloyd decided to hit it high and down the middle, harder than she had ever kicked a ball.

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