Soccer has gone mainstream. And a great deal of the credit goes to Heineken and their support and sponsorship of the MLS, and major tournaments like Copa America, the UEFA Euro, and the International Champions Cup. Their latest marketing campaign starring Carli Lloyd, Landon Donovan, and David Villa sends the message loud and clear: Soccer is Here.

The world’s largest premium beer brand recently held an up-close and personal session with Carli Lloyd, the 2015 FIFA Player of the Year. At the event we had a chance to put our soccer skills to the test and speak with the FIFA Women’s World Cup champion and two-time Olympic Gold Medalist as she prepared to return to the Olympics as part of the Women’s U.S. Soccer team.

Lloyd has over 200 international appearances with Team USA. Throughout her international career she has scored some of the most important goals in U.S. women’s soccer history.  Lloyd scored the gold medal-winning goals in the finals of the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics. She has represented the United States at three FIFA Women’s World Cup tournaments: the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup, in which she helped the U.S. win bronze; the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, in which the U.S. won silver; and the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, where Lloyd scored a hat trick in the final, captaining the U.S. to its third title.

Prior to her trip to Brazil Lloyd was making headlines. She became the first ever soccer player to be nominated for an ESPY  in the Best Championship Performance category, going up against NBA Finals MVP LeBron James, Pittsburgh Penguins hockey player Sidney Crosby, and Super Bowl MVP Von Miller. Additionally she joined other members of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team by filing a formal complaint  with the EEOC in a quest to secure equal pay with male players.

HOMBRE: How did your involvement with Heineken come about?
Carli Lloyd: My partnership with Heineken started at the beginning of the year. I did a commercial shoot with the campaign ‘Soccer is Here.’ This campaign is really speaking volumes where we are as a country and the support level with soccer. It’s huge. You can see it with the Euros that have been on, with Copa America, and obviously with the Olympics. And it’s great because they unite all varieties of fan level. It’s not just a once every four years thing now, and fantastic to be a part of something so special. Also to be in the company of great players like Landon Donovan and David Villa it’s pretty honorable.

H: How will this impact the increased visibility of the sport in the U.S.?
CL: It’s huge. When you have watch parties, and you have a company doing such a campaign the awareness is in such a major scale.

H: Did you follow Copa America and Euros?
CL: Of course. I had Chile down as my dark horse. They played with so much passion and grit. I wanted Argentina to come away with a win and I was sad for Messi, but I think there were a lot of internal things going on with Argentina. For a country like Chile to be able to win a second year in a row is pretty spectacular.

The Euros have been a little different in terms of play. I feel the teams are sitting back. They kind of relied more on that counter attack, transition type style.

H:  You mentioned Messi and last year you shared the stage with him being named FIFA Women’s Player of the Year, how was that achievement and having that title?
CL: It was an honor being alongside with him. It was a dream come true for me to be able to win that award and an added bonus to be standing next to him.

He’s a very humble classy guy and I’m disappointed things went like they did with him in Copa America. I’m sure he’ll bounce back and come back stronger and continue to get better and we’ll see what happens on the international side with him.

H: Have you always played soccer and who were the players you admired?
CL: I always played growing up. I admired my cousin who was a few years older. There weren’t a ton of role models to look up to, especially female role models. I liked Michelle Akers growing up. And definitely the ’94 World Cup team, Cobi Jones, Alexi Lalas; that was around the time when I became really interested in following soccer, watching those guys play.

H: As a youngster there may not have been too many players to look up to, but the new generation is looking up to you, what advice can you offer them?
CL: Yea, I think we’re the generation for younger girls, and boys, to look up to. The important thing is you have to do the right things when nobody is watching. You have to clock in the hours within your craft. There’s no way you can get to the top without practicing day in and day out. For me, the foundation that I had was going to the park and jumping in with the boys, playing pick up games. Just spending 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, just doing stuff on my own is definitely what laid the foundation. Working hard and spending hours practicing is key.

H: You were injured earlier this year and unable to play for weeks, what did that experience mean to you?
CL: I think it was a blessing in disguise. My schedule was pretty jam-packed since the World Cup ended and I’m not sure if things would have gone well if I had just kept going. It was busy and my mind was completely fried. But this break gave me the opportunity to really rejuvenate myself, miss the game, not be around it, shut down my body so my body could heal, spend time at home, spend time with my fiance, and friends and family. Overall it could not have come at a better time. It couldn’t have been any better for me, it was just meant to be.

H: At the beginning I talked about how you have been on the news, and one of the reasons is the pay discrepancy between the men’s and women’s soccer teams, what can you tell us about that?
CL: We’re still waiting to hear about the EEOC complaint. They’re investigating and figuring things  in regards to the equal pay. We’re going to keep fighting. We’ve done well over the years, we’ve proven our worth, we win. We’re going to continue to fight, create a new bargaining agreement that is essentially going to set up the next generation wave of players. We’re just going to keep getting better. We’re set up for a good fight and I know that we’ll eventually get there.

H: You continue to be a trailblazer with your ESPYS nomination, another thing on the news, how was it being nominated alongside LeBron James and Von Miller?
CL: It’s definitely a tough category to come away with a win there, but it’s a great honor to be included among three fantastic athletes who have done a great job with their performances.

H: How does it feel to be a woman among a group of men, and the first soccer player in that category?
CL: I didn’t realize that, it’s pretty honorable, and pretty cool, but I still have a lot left in me. I want to keep getting better and continue to prove all the doubters wrong. And win more things, you can never win too much.

H: What are the keys to success?
CL: Spending a lot of hours practicing, working hard, but I think the mental toughness is one of the biggest things. You can reach the top with pretty good skill level, fitness, but your mental toughness is what is going to carry you further and further and enable you to separate from everybody else. There’s not too many people that can get through obstacles, come out on top and just continuously do that over and over again, the ones that do that are successful.

Click on image to see Carli Lloyd’s Heineken commercial spot

H: And finally, what kind of support is Heineken giving you personally?
CL: Heineken has been awesome to me. They’ve treated me fairly, equally, they’ve been great. Everything I’ve been a part of with them has been awesome and hopefully these are the building blocks for a long term relationship. But the support they’re giving soccer, the support they’re giving me, females, it’s huge. When there’s respect on both sides of the spectrum there’s a lot of good things that come of that. I’m thrilled to be partnered with them and it’s just been a lot of fun to work with them.

Carli Lloyd, 2015 FIFA Women’s Player of the Year, FIFA Women’s World Cup champion and tw0-time Olympic Gold Medalist with HOMBRE Magazine’s Francisco Romeo