On Dec. 2, 2018, Lotte Wubben-Moy fell to the ground twice.
UNC’s even-keeled defender touched the field the first time when Florida State forward Dallas Dorosy slid in front of her to tap in the only goal of the NCAA women's soccer championship game.
As Dorosy lunged, she undercut Wubben-Moy. The defender fell face first over Dorosy's legs. While goalkeeper Samantha Leshnak dove one way, the ball Dorosy had just deflected slowly rolled the other way and in.
The second time Wubben-Moy collapsed was when the game's final buzzer sounded. The entire North Carolina women's soccer team was on the ground then; some crying, some staring out in disbelief.
Most of the crowd assembled at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary looked on in shock. The few Florida State supporters erupted in celebration at their team's 1-0 victory against the third-ranked team in the nation.
On July 20, 2019, Wubben-Moy is sitting at a booth she staked out at Carolina Coffee Shop. The oldest restaurant in Chapel Hill is a favorite of the women's soccer team — it's partly owned by former UNC soccer great Heather O'Reilly.
The first thing Wubben-Moy does is apologize; she forgot about her interview with The Daily Tar Heel the day before and had to cancel. She was working with the girls soccer camp UNC runs during the summer, and the interview slipped her mind amid the 90 degree heat.
She insists that the coffee — English breakfast tea in her case — is on her.
It is here she reveals that on a plain white wall in her bedroom hangs an issue of The Daily Tar Heel from December 3, 2018. Its bolded headline reads "Women's soccer falls in NCAA title game."
She sees it every day.
"I wanted more than just football"
Hailing from London, Wubben-Moy is one of two British players on the team, along with her longtime friend and teammate Alessia Russo.
The two have known each other since they were 10 years old. They played on rival club teams, Wubben-Moy for Arsenal and Russo for Chelsea. From the start of her career, Wubben-Moy had a reputation for a level of composure far above her peers.
"We were young, but she was always so ahead of her years," Russo said. "She's always been much more mature than the others."
Wubben-Moy had to balance her role on a professional club — without being paid — with her education at Stoke Newington School & Sixth Form, where she completed the British equivalent of 10th through 12th grade.
Being a full-time student and an unpaid professional was difficult to balance — Wubben-Moy said she missed 50 percent of her classes working with Arsenal. Her school supported her, but there were still those late nights that become tradition for student athletes trying to find time to complete their work between practices.
Wubben-Moy debuted for Arsenal’s pro team when she was 16, playing in 12 games for the club over the course of three seasons. When she was finishing school, the team offered her a paid contract. But she wasn't interested in going pro so soon.
Instead, she traveled the 3,883 miles from London to Chapel Hill, looking for a place to challenge herself on the pitch while she got an education.
"I didn't want to lead a one dimensional life, I wanted more than just football," Wubben-Moy said. "I wanted to have a degree, I wanted to be able to broaden my horizons. Get a life experience out here. Whereas, if I stayed with Arsenal, stayed in London, I think it would have been very much of the same old same old."
"She doesn't hide"
Soccer is different in the United States than in England.
Different name, first off. Different terms for the field (pitch) or cleats (boots). A very different playstyle.
That was the hardest part about the move overseas for Wubben-Moy. At Arsenal, soccer was all about technicals: practicing passing patterns over and over, studying opponents to know their moves and counter-moves and how to defend them.
In the United States, players are big, fast and aggressive. Wubben-Moy knew this coming in. One of the main reasons she came to the United States was to push herself against more physical opponents.
Taking up the torch from graduated defensive back Julia Ashley, Wubben-Moy is now the team leader for the "beeper test," a cardiovascular test the team does at the start of training.
"Lotte just separates herself from her teammates in this area because she has consistently good habits," head coach Anson Dorrance said. "She goes to bed on time, gets up nine hours later, organizes her day well and gets everything done in the most positive way, including … the cardiovascular platform where we actually measure our discipline. Invariably, she sets the standard."
It's taken long days in the gym working with strength coach Greg Gatz to get Wubben-Moy to the point where she is now. The work isn't new, or something she wants to avoid.
She missed seven games her first year because of a stress fracture in her shin, but it gave Wubben-Moy another opportunity to show off her incredible discipline.
It's all part of what is seemingly a Wubben-Moy mantra — “Control your controllables.”
"If you give me a rehab plan I'm going to do it down to a tee," Wubben-Moy said. "If there's anything else extra I can do on top of that, I'll do it. I think I take that through my whole life, I've done it for as long as I remember."
"There are always ways to hide from challenging yourself, in any environment," Dorrance said. "The thing I really appreciate and respect about Lotte is she doesn't hide."
"When she has something to say, she has something to say"
Go watch a 90 minute UNC women's soccer match. Dorrance's team runs fast, runs hard, runs always. The 4-3-3 formation frequently employed by the Tar Heels constantly presses the other team as far upfield as possible, and requires defenders to be able to push the ball and attack when the time comes.
That's the key to the type of player Wubben-Moy would like to be. She wants to be on the ball, helping on the attack, even while trying to anchor a defense. She already does it when she gets the opportunity. But even when she's taking risks, she stays calm under pressure.
"She'll find passes and be brave to find the most forward pass she can, but her biggest strength for sure is her composure, on and off the field," Russo said.
In 2018, she made herself a vital part of the UNC attack by claiming the spot of corner-kick taker for the team. Wubben-Moy remembers how the team's trainers dubbed her nonchalant walk to the corner flag the "Lot Trot," a rare moment when she's not giving all her energy on the field.
"I was quite casual when I did it," she laughed.
She claimed the role in part because of her long history with soccer, much longer than her American counterparts. Wubben-Moy credits watching the game since she was a young girl to how she learned to place her kicks, and where to send them.
And then, Wubben-Moy stops herself before she gives herself too much credit.
"It just so happened that it worked and I had good headers in the box," she said. "It wasn't all me, I just delivered the ball. We got some really good goals off the set pieces, I was only 50 percent of it."
The junior defender never gives herself too much credit. That's not how she or the women's soccer team work.
Lotte Wubben-Moy lifts the teabag out of her cup, pours some milk and stirs, pausing before she tries to answer questions about herself.
It takes her a minute. She is, Wubben-Moy admits, a reserved person. She can come off quiet to some, but Russo knows better.
"When she has something to say, she has something to say," Russo said.
Wubben-Moy expects her teammates to match her discipline when they're on the field, and she's vocal about it when they don't. Former captains Ashley and Annie Kingman are gone, along with contributing seniors like Alex Kimball and Dorian Bailey.
In their void will be the voice of the junior Londoner, directing her teammates where to go on the field and insisting they give maximum effort.
"I know what I want, and I want to win," Wubben-Moy said. "Whatever I can do to help that is something that I will do."
Wubben-Moy, along with the whole team, knows what it takes to win a national championship. There isn't one key flaw the team needs to fix — they might have been champions if it weren't for a few bad bounces.
The team opens its season against Indiana on Thursday. It will be the first opportunity in 2019 for Wubben-Moy and her teammates to show the world they deserve a place back in the finals.
And if her team makes it back, she doesn't plan to be touching the ground again.
@DTHSports | sports@dailytarheel.com
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