Chickens, meditation and soccer analysis: Carli Lloyd tackles the World Cup in Fox’s TV booth

A new ad for Fox’s coverage of the upcoming women’s World Cup imagines the United States’ chief rivals plotting to dethrone the champs and the Americans’ responses.

The character from France, a nation that has long been one of the Americans’ biggest foes, boasts: “We have veteran experience.” Then the camera cuts to someone with a long history of beating them.

“Listen to what you’re saying,” Carli Lloyd says, before Julie Ertz and other current U.S. stars come on screen.

But the moment isn’t just about Lloyd’s words. Linger on her frames for a moment, and you’ll notice she’s sitting on a yoga mat in a garden, in a meditative pose, surrounded by candles and incense.

Since when does one of the most decorated and relentlessly driven players in American soccer history do Zen?

Well, that’s how she is these days. At least, relatively.

“I can’t express how nice it is,” the Delran native told The Inquirer. “While I like the pressure, to not feel like I’m in constant pressure anymore — you know, I’ve let my guard down a little bit. … I just didn’t feel that I could really do that throughout my career.”

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In letting her guard down, the 41-year-old has shown some self-awareness that she admits she wasn’t always willing to let be part of her public persona as a player.

“I was on a mission,” she said. “And whether that was right or wrong, or whether I look back and say, ‘Oh, maybe I didn’t have to do it that way,’ at the end of the day, I accomplished my dreams and went about it the way that I did.”

Those accomplishments are legion. Lloyd played in 47 major tournament games — Olympics and World Cups — in her 17 years with the senior U.S. national team, the most of any player in program history. She retired with the second-most caps ever by a USWNT player (316), and the third-most goals (134).

Lloyd’s four major titles, the 2012 and ‘16 Olympics and ‘15 and ‘19 World Cups, put her in the group ranked second in U.S. women’s team history. Had the Americans won the 2021 Olympics, Lloyd and Tobin Heath would have tied a third New Jersey native, Christie Pearce (formerly Rampone), for the most major titles in program history.

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Though Lloyd, who retired from playing in 2021, isn’t driving to practices and games anymore, she still has plenty of things to do, starting with devoting more time to family and friends. She also has an ownership stake in the NWSL’s Gotham FC. And there’s a life at home in South Jersey with her husband, one that she put off for a long time to chase glory on the field.

“It’s just been nice to wake up some days where I don’t have anything,” she said. “We’ve got chickens now. I go hang out with my chickens.”

This week, Lloyd is returning to the World Cup stage as a studio analyst for Fox’s coverage of the women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

This won’t be Lloyd’s TV debut. She started with Fox as a studio analyst in April of last year, working U.S. women’s games and the men’s World Cup in Qatar; and has also been a game analyst for CBS’ NWSL coverage this year.

But this will be her highest-profile job yet: one of the biggest names on Fox’s studio set in Sydney, Australia, with colleagues including former U.S. teammate Heather O’Reilly, fellow Rutgers alumnus Alexi Lalas, and former Philadelphia Independence goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc.

“If I wasn’t doing this with Fox Sports, I’d probably be just home catching games here and there,” Lloyd said. “But you’re so invested when you’re doing this, and I’m obviously going to be here for the whole tournament. … You just become so invested. You see the storylines more; you get to watch every team; you get to see players.”

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A viewer at home might think that calling a game and being a studio pundit aren’t too different. But Lloyd has seen firsthand that they are.

“I didn’t want to call games, but I just stepped out of my comfort zone,” she said. “The first night, you know, it was a lot. It was a lot of preparation. I didn’t know how to prepare; I didn’t know how it was going to go.”

It helped a lot that Lloyd was paired with veteran JP Dellacamera, who used to call Union games on local TV and is now Fox’s lead women’s soccer play-by-play voice. He’ll have the top job again this month, marking his 17th career World Cup — his seventh women’s tournament compared to 10 men’s ones.

“Doing highlights, doing lineups, doing players to watch, all of that just comes with experience,” Lloyd said. “I know the game. I know the experiences that I’ve had; I’m smart enough to see stuff happening. It’s just getting comfortable with the run of show of how everything else goes.”

She will certainly be comfortable with her fellow panelists, many of whom she has known for a long time. And if she finds a reason to disagree with any of them, well, she is Carli Lloyd after all.

“I’ve always been honest,” she said. “I want to be fair, and I want to be honest. … And hopefully offer insights to the viewers at home of what may be going into the minds of some of these players, since I’ve experienced it.”

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