Michelle Akers Biography
Michelle Akers (Full names; Michelle Anne Akers) is a former American soccer player, who starred in the historic 1991 and 1999 Women’s World Cup victories by the United States. She won the Golden Boot as the top scorer in the 1991 tournament.
Akers is regarded as one of the greatest female soccer players of all time. She was named FIFA Female Player of the Century in 2002, an award she shared with China’s Sun Wen. In 2004, Akers and Mia Hamm were the only two women named to the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living soccer players selected by Pelé and commissioned by FIFA for that organization’s 100th anniversary. Akers is a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame; she was inducted in 2004, along with Paul Caligiuri and Eric Wynalda.
Michelle Akers Age
Michelle was born on February 1, 1966, in Santa Clara, California, United States. She is 53 years old as of 2019.
Michelle Akers Net Worth
Michelle has an estimated net worth of $100-1K approximately in 2019. Her previous year’s net worth (2018) is still under review and her income source is a soccer player.
Michelle Akers Family
From 1990 to 1994, she was married and was known as Michelle Akers-Stahl. Later she married again (2003-2007) and had a son (Cody) in Orlando Florida Currently she resides near Atlanta, Georgia, with her son Cody on a small farm doing horse rescue and animal welfare work.
Michelle Akers Soccer
Akers was a member of the 1985 United States women’s national soccer team for its first game at a tournament in Italy in August 1985. Due to an ankle injury, she did not play in the first game. However, in the second ever international game for the United States she scored the first goal in the history of the program against Denmark, in a 2–2 tie.
Akers scored 15 goals in 24 games for the U.S. from 1985 to 1990 before scoring a team record 39 goals in 26 games in the 1991 season alone. In 1990 and 1991 she was named the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) Female Athlete of the Year. Akers was also the lead scorer in the inaugural FIFA Women’s World Cup in China in 1991, scoring ten goals. After the 91 WC, she shifted from Striker to center midfield in part to minimize the beatings doled out by opposing defenders. Despite the precautions, Akers suffered a concussion and a knee injury early in the 1995 World Cup and was hampered by the knee in a semifinal loss to Norway.
In 1996, Akers was again a member of the U.S. women’s national team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, where it won the first ever gold medal for Olympic Women’s Soccer. She played with a torn MCL (which after the Olympics required reconstructive surgery for the 3rd time) in the holding center midfielder role anchoring the teams’ defense, dominating in the air, and playmaking out of the back to maintain possession and generate goal scoring opportunities. She was also a member of the gold-medal-winning, 1998 Goodwill Games team.
Michelle Akers Quotes
- At this level, almost everyone has the physical tools to be the best. It comes down to a few things: how bad you want it, what you do when things get hard, and whether you are able to stay focused amid turmoil, challenge, chaos, and demands. It’s all in your head and in your heart.
- It’s the struggle that makes you triumphant.
- God loves me just as I am today. He knows all my junk….and lack of faith, and he loves me anyway. However, he loves me too much to leave me the way I am.
- We’re part of each other’s lives. We’re in each other’s stories.
- Soccer isn’t brain surgery, have fun.
- I think the challenge is to take difficult and painful times and turn them into something beneficial, something that makes you grow.
Michelle Akers Illness/ Chronic Fatigue
Akers was utterly exhausted after the World Cup, she was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome.
Michelle Akers Book
A celebrated midfielder of the phenomenal United States women’s soccer team chronicles her life, discussing the difficulties she overcame, including a strange career-threatening illness and a painful divorce, and exploring the re-found faith that helped her realize her dreams.
From Library Journal
Akers, a member of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team since its inception in 1985, was at 33 the oldest player when the team won the magical World Cup Final at the Rose Bowl in 1999. Along the way, she suffers her parents’ divorce, 12 knee operations, and, most remarkably for an elite athlete, a diagnosis of CFIDS (chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome).
Sapping her energy and requiring post-game intravenous injections, this illness made it impossible for her to train and play at her usual “all-out” level. Much of the book deals with how she overcame CFIDS by combining her innate competitive focus and perseverance with Christian faith. She has founded a ministry to spread the Christian message through soccer. We see Akers the incredible athlete but also the ordinary person kidding around with teammates and afraid of public speaking. Excellent addition to public and academic libraries.
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