US women's soccer star Lynn Williams said learning to 'fail big' helped her secure a spot at the World Cup after past snubs

• Forward Lynn Williams is competing at the 2023 World Cup with the US Women's National Team.
• She made this summer's roster after narrowly missing the 2019 tournament and Tokyo Olympic roster.

Lynn Williams is the most talked-about US Women's National Team player who has yet to see the field Down Under.

Through the Stars and Stripes' first two matches of the 2023 World Cup — a 3-0 win over Vietnam and a 1-1 draw against the Netherlands — the speedy forward has remained on the bench. Much of the team's fanbase expressed outrage that Williams received no playing time, arguing that the she could've provided a much-needed spark for the weary front line.

But Williams herself is likely unperturbed. After facing more than her fair share of adversity en route to her first career World Cup, the 30-year-old has vowed to simply "take every moment as it comes."

"I've really tried to just say 'Okay, what does today bring, what does tomorrow bring, what can I do today to make me better for tomorrow?'" Williams told Insider ahead of the tournament.

The NJ/NY Gotham star has consistently been among the leading goalscorers in the National Women's Soccer League since turning pro in 2015, and after winning the NWSL golden boot the following year, she earned her first call-up to the US Women's National Team. She maintained top form heading into 2019, but she was still passed over for that summer's World Cup roster.

Two years later, after earning consistent call-ups from USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski, Williams looked to be among the top contenders for a spot at the Tokyo Olympics. But once again, the Fresno, California, native found herself on the outside looking in; this time, Williams was included as one of the team's four alternates, and she still managed to make a huge impact once her number was called.

And then, just over a year before this summer's World Cup, Williams suffered a hamstring injury that required surgery and took her off the field for the remainder of 2022. By then, she feared her time may have passed.

"At this point in my career, I'm not like the youngest person," Williams told Insider. "And so you start thinking, 'Is this ever gonna happen for me?'"

"I haven't had the easiest road and I haven't been a player that at 18 or 20 was getting their first call-up," she added. "I'm 30 years old."

So when Andonovski finally called her with the news she'd been waiting on for so long — that she'd finally made the USWNT roster for a major international tournament — Williams was overcome with "all of the emotions." Everything — "all of the hard work, the crying, the sacrifice, the fights I've gotten in with my family" — had paid off.

Williams jokingly credits her remarkable perseverance to being "a super stubborn person" who doesn't like to be told no. But if she really thinks about it, she knows that her entire soccer career has been a story of thriving despite getting repeatedly overlooked.

"If you look at my career and even my journey to college, every single thing in soccer I've had to really fight for," Williams said. "I didn't get recruited to college; I only had one college do that. I didn't go up in the youth system. I got drafted to Western New York."

"It's always been a fight, so just by happenstance in life, I've trained myself to just continue to stay focused, continue to believe in myself, and obviously surrounded myself with a huge support system who knows what my goals are and are willing to do anything to help me get there," she added.

Williams credits turning to a sports psychologist as the 'last step' to her breakthrough with the USWNT

Back in 2019, after missing a World Cup roster she felt she should've made, Williams re-evaluated her approach. Despite trying everything she could think of to put herself in the best position to earn a shot on soccer's biggest stage, something was still "letting me down."

The last piece of the puzzle, Williams discovered, was speaking to a sports psychologist.

What did she have to lose? At worst, if she hadn't made it to this summer's tournament, she would've known "I gave every single thing I possibly could give to the sport."

Incidentally, her sports psychologist offered similar advice. As Williams expressed fears that she might not come back to soccer with the same skill set after her devastating injury in 2022, her sports psychologist instructed her to "fail big."

"She's like, 'If you're gonna fail, do with every single thing you've got. Just go in completely. Don't half-ass it. Don't be timid, just go for it,'" Williams recalled. "And I think that that really stuck with me and I can take that anywhere in my life."

"Lynn, just fail big," she added. "Or maybe you'll succeed big."

She'll approach the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, where she's one of 23 women tasked with winning an unprecedented third consecutive title with the USWNT, with a similar mindset. The US faces Portugal in Auckland, New Zealand, Tuesday at 3 a.m. ET (7 p.m. local time), and fans stateside can tune in to watch the action unfold on FOX.