How This Olympian & World Cup Champ Takes On Motherhood

We love celebrating women at the top of their game. In our Game On series, we’re interviewing top athletes about their well-being routines—covering everything from nutrition that makes them feel strong to the moments that bring them joy. P.S.: Read more in our digital issue of Game On.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion, Carli Lloyd helped define an era of U.S. women’s soccer. Her dominance on the world stage—and headline-making moments like her 2015 World Cup performance—didn’t just elevate the team, they helped push women’s sports into the mainstream in a new way, driving visibility, investment, and cultural relevance that continues to build today.

As excitement escalates for the 2026 World Cup, set to take place across the Americas, Lloyd is preparing for her role as a lead studio analyst for Fox Sports—stepping into the high-pressure, fast-paced rhythm of wall-to-wall tournament coverage, where preparation, precision, and insight matter as much as ever. 

In this conversation, she shares how she’s preparing for it all, the wellness habits that keep her grounded, how motherhood has reshaped her priorities, and what she’s wearing while doing it all. 

mbg:  All of us in the States and the Americas are getting so excited for World Cup! You’ll be a studio lead for Fox Sports. How are you gearing up for the marathon of coverage?

Carli Lloyd: It’s starting to feel really real. We’re about 60-something days out now, so the prep is really going to start to ramp up for me. Now that the playoff games are wrapped, it’s all about getting familiar with the teams, players, and the way they play—how they attack, defend, and all those little nuances.

It’s going to be really exciting, and I’m just grateful to have a role as a female working in the Men’s World Cup. I give a lot of credit to Fox Sports for spearheading that and being really committed to it. They came in with their first-ever World Cup coverage during our 2015 World Cup, and the coverage they gave—the awareness, the features, all of that—played a huge role with getting us all the support we did. With us winning, I don’t know that it would’ve been as big as it was without their coverage. 

So yeah, I’m just really excited to be part of it.

mbg: Learning about the teams and their playing styles, I’m sure that’s not totally different from when you were on the field. It’s probably really interesting to be on the other side of it though. 

Llyod: Oh, yeah definitely. 

mbg: I know you are partnering with Tek Gear by Kohl’s, I want hear about your must have pieces and why you like them. 

Lloyd: Growing up,I was always tagging along with her and going to Kohl’s. It’s a one-stop shop, so you can get pretty much anything and everything you need.

Now for me, being a mom and having a family, I appreciate the affordability and that the pieces really fit with my style. I don’t need to get up, do my hair and makeup, and get dressed for a nine-to-five job, so being able to have that athleisure and comfortable pieces is key.

Whether I’m going to the grocery store, the park with our daughter, or taking her for a walk, I can wear those pieces for anything and everything. And then I like to style it with some lifestyle shoes—my Nike Dunks or Jordans—to make it fun.

mbg: I love talking to athletes about how they mentally prepare. You’re no longer playing, but I am curious about what you did to get yourself in the zone, whether that was back during your playing days—or even now when you’re mentally preparing to go on television. 

So for me, that’s something that’s carried over from my playing career and now merged into this career I’m having on TV.

Mentally, I still prepare my thoughts. What’s tough about being in the studio is that sometimes you get 15 or 20 seconds to get out everything you need to say before a commercial break or something else. Or sometimes games go longer, which cuts into the show, so you really have to lean into exactly what you want to say and how you want to say it.

The days before I go into the studio to cover games, I mentally rehearse and prepare. I think through what I want to say, or if I notice something during a game, I’ll jot it down.

It’s something I do for everything—speaking engagements, interviews, podcasts. It’s just how I’m wired. And even though it’s not playing on the field, it still translates in a lot of the same ways.

mbg: It certainly translates! I want to talk about wellness routines. What habits make you feel your strongest? 

Lloyd: Pilates. I actually started when I was pregnant with our daughter, and even before that. I just love it. It’s an hour where I can shut my brain off and really get in tune with my body. It’s not meditation per se, but you do kind of forget about everything else that’s going on. So that’s a big one for me.

Other than that, it’s really about staying active in whatever ways I can—going out and golfing. I’ve been getting into golf, and my husband and I will sometimes bring our daughter along in the stroller. She loves just being out there. Or we are about enjoying nature and going for walks as a family in the park. That’s kind of the extent of it. 

If I could, I’d love to be getting a couple of massages every week. That used to be part of my routine during my career, but it’s not as easy to keep up with now. A lot of the things I used to do in my career were part of my job and a high priority, and now things just look a little different.

mbg: I know firsthand that staying active as a mom is challenging. How do you find the time—and balance—to do it? 

Lloyd: I would say the first few months of having her were probably the most challenging. I’m so independent. That was a really hard adjustment for me. Even just getting 10 minutes to myself felt difficult. I was nursing her, so those first couple of months were really, really tough.

But as she got a little older and settled into two naps a day—and she’s been a great sleeper and napper—now she’s down to one nap, which is about two and a half to three hours, which is amazing. As soon as she goes down, I feel like my husband and I are ships passing in the night. He goes and does what he needs to get done, and I do the same. 

You just have to adjust. We’re not the priority right now. When you have a baby, it becomes more about them.

That’s not to say I’m not going to do anything for myself or that my husband and I won’t spend time together, but things just change a little. The priorities shift, and that’s okay.

I’ve also tried to let go of that need to check everything off the list. I try not to stress about those things as much and instead remind myself to enjoy the moment. Things will get done when they get done. You’re not going to have this time back, so my mindset has definitely changed from my career to where I am now.

mbg: I wanted to ask you about the future of women’s sports. From my perspective, they’ve never looked bigger or brighter. The popularity of women’s soccer—especially Team USA—is such a driving force in that. So what are you most excited about when it comes to the future of the sport, or women’s sports in general?

It’s really great to see the respect, the marketability, and, financially, players getting paid what they deserve. It’s not a charity anymore to be part of women’s sports, and I think that’s what’s really exciting.

I’ve been following along across sports—tennis, LPGA, WNBA, obviously soccer—and it just keeps growing. There’s still a lot more work to be done. The pay structure is better, but we’re not talking enough about post-playing retirement and things like health insurance.

If your partner or spouse doesn’t have that coverage through their job, that’s something you have to figure out. A lot of men can fly off into the sunset when they’re done playing, but women often still have to stay relevant and involved.

I’d like to see more support in that retirement phase—whether that’s some kind of benefits system. In the NFL, if you play a certain number of years, you get benefits. In Major League Baseball, you can receive long-term benefits and retirement pay.

That’s a really important part of the conversation, because we can’t play forever. So while we’ve made real progress, there’s still more to push for to make it even better.