Olympian & World Cup Champ Carli Lyod On Motherhood, Movement & Workout Gear

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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. 

Carli Lyod: 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. 

Lyod: 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.

The Tek Gear has been awesome. I love the Tek Gear Ultrastretch High-Waisted Leggings and the Essential Core Raglan Tee. Plus, they’ve got a Seamless Low-Impact Sports Bra and Woven Run Shorts, so I can layer. 

Lyod: It’s actually similar—the preparation—I don’t know anything different, aside from giving it the best that I can. You don’t continue to make it on TV, especially as a studio analyst in sports, if you don’t prepare. You need to brush up on anything and everything that’s happening in and around the game.

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.

Lyod: 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. 

Lyod: 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.

Lyod: I’m a little envious. I feel like I retired right as things were on this huge trajectory—moving so fast and so rapidly—which is amazing to see, and that’s what it’s all about. The generations before paved the way, and this group will pave the way for the next.

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.