SANFORD, Fla. — Minutes after the final whistle of Pride training last Thursday, midfielder Abby Elinsky rolled several soccer balls to the middle of the pitch.
It was almost noon, the temperature tipping past 90 degrees, but Elinsky didn’t head for the shade. Instead, she drilled the same combination with an assistant coach — three quick passes, opening up over her left shoulder on the final pass to take a controlled touch and loft a pass up the sideline. Each repetition was accompanied with a quick self-assessment from Elinsky.
“Too hard. That one was better. Lighter touch.”
To coach Marc Skinner, those extra minutes of training reflect the extra level of effort Elinsky is always willing to provide to the Pride.
“She possesses a bravery that you don’t see in many players,” Skinner said. “If you say to Abby, ‘Look, there’s a brick wall here. It’s gonna hurt, but I’d like you to run through it for the team.’ She’d do it. When you start from the basis of someone who would give everything, you can add to any other technical quality to it.”
While the club’s record has struggled due to injuries and national team absences this season, the 2019 season has offered opportunities for players like Elinsky. The midfielder recorded a little more than 30 minutes of intermittent play last season as a national team replacement player.
But this season, she has grown into a more regular feature of the Pride roster, notching four starts and 16 total appearances for the team. The result has been a mix for Elinsky, as she balances the positive feelings of personal progress with the team’s losing record.
“As the season’s gone on, we’re mainly focusing on who we’re playing around and being able to play with each other,” Elinsky said. “That’s the frustrating thing is that we play really well in training, but then it doesn’t translate into the game. That’s where we have to wrap our heads around it.”
Despite the challenges of the season, Skinner and Elinsky said this has been a season of growth for the midfielder. That growth came after taking a chance in the offseason.
As she neared the end of the 2018 season, Elinsky studied the schedule and realized the national team players would not have any absences during the final month of play. Knowing that she wouldn’t have the opportunity to see the pitch during that time, Elinsky signed with ASPTT Albi, a Division 2 Féminine club based in Albi, France.
At first, she admits that it was a hard transition. Everyone in the club only spoke French, so she stuck close to a fellow teammate who she had once played against in college. The towns were smaller and the lifestyle foreign to what Elinsky was used to; she joked about her surprise to see restaurants and shops intermittently closed during regular business hours.
But despite the new culture and language, Elinsky said that she managed the season by focusing on improving in order to earn more time with the Pride during the 2019 season.
“You’ve got to be invested in it,” Elinsky said. “I just wanted to play as much as I could. It’s not easy. I know what it takes to show up and be ready to compete. Whatever you can do that day, you have to give that. You have to develop every day just to keep up and be ready to get in.”