INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The 2024 Olympics had gone on without her, just as the women’s World Cup had a year earlier. On her own in London, recovering from persistent knee problems that had stalled her U.S. national soccer team career for most of two years, Catarina Macario watched her friends defeat Brazil, her birthplace, for the gold medal in Paris.
“I remember watching that game just at the edge of my seat,” she said Friday. “It was a little bit bittersweet. … It was one in which I wish I could have been there.