INSIDE-OUT: CARLI LLOYD THE BEST PLAYER IN THE WORLD

In case you didn't know, Carli Anne Lloyd is part of the U.S. Women's National Team who just won the FIFA Women's World Cup on Sunday. 

Carli Anne Lloyd was born on July 16, 1982, in Delran, New Jersey, to parents Steve and Pam. After learning to play soccer at age 5, she developed her natural abilities by playing pickup games and practicing for hours on her own at her local field.


Lloyd went on to star at Delran High School, where she was twice named the girls' High School Player of the Year by the Philadelphia Inquirer. She also played for the Medford Strikers club team as a teenager and helped them win back-to-back state cups.

She became the all-time leading scorer at Rutgers University. After joining the U.S. senior national team in 2005, the midfielder delivered the winning goals in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics to win gold for the Americans. Lloyd was voted the top player of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup following her hat trick vs. Japan in the final.

Remaining close to home playing for Rutgers University, Lloyd became the university's all-time leading scorer and the first player in school history to earn first-team all-conference honors for four consecutive years. She was also voted to the NSCAA All-America team three times.

Lloyd was a member of the U.S. junior national team that won the Nordic Cup from 2002-05, but she also considered quitting the sport after being cut from the team at one point. She then began meeting with a local coach named James Galanis, who determined that Lloyd needed to develop her fitness and mental toughness to match her world-class talent.

                            

The workouts with Galanis paid major dividends. Lloyd was named to the U.S. senior team, and made her first international appearance in July 2005 vs. Ukraine. In 2007, she was voted MVP of the prestigious Algarve Cup, and made her FIFA Women's World Cup debut that summer.

Lloyd happened to score three times in the team's 5-2 victory over Japan, becoming the only player to score a hat trick in a Women's World Cup final. England's Geoff Hurst managed to net a hat trick in the men's tournament in 1966, but Lloyd managed to accomplish hers in a historic 16 minutes. Additionally, her first goal in the third minute of the game is also the fastest ever scored in a Women's World Cup final.

Those three goals added to Lloyd's streak of scoring in Team USA's three previous matches in the tournament, making her the only USWNT player to do so.

 So yeah, she's pretty fantastic.