![]() ![]() ![]() “Right away, my producer was like, ‘We want to do a hit on your take on it, with your experience of what it’s like going through this.’” “Warner and my producer, Shaw (Brown), they know a lot about my background,” she said. Ortiz, again, had a platform to advocate for equality, perhaps larger than the 2019 Instagram post. One of her first assignments was at February’s SheBelieves Cup, where Canada wore purple as a pre-match “symbol of protest” during a labor dispute with Canada Soccer. She aims to elevate the game both through her analysis on the field - she believes “there could be a little bit more honesty” during tactical discussions on-air - and off it. With her WBD Sports sideline role, she is tasked with capturing the mood at USMNT and USWNT matches, which brings her back to her roots in women’s soccer. Last year, Ortiz was able to bring that story full circle. “I was like, ‘I think I have so much more talent than I have just with the ball at my feet and I just need to find it and how to showcase it.’” … It was so many things that I was just like, ‘I feel like I’m not getting anywhere anymore’ and our national team at the time was treating us like absolute crap,” she said. “I wanted to be part of our first pro league in Colombia and so I went down and I played, but I ended up tearing my meniscus. The tail end of Ortiz’s career was marred by injuries and the common mental fatigue faced by women’s soccer players, which ultimately ushered in a decision to swap her cleats for a microphone. “After that Olympics, I was so physically and mentally just done, even though I wanted to continue playing, but I just wasn’t in the right spot and I had no money at the time, barely any money.” “There was a lot of corruption,” Ortiz said. The federation also wouldn’t foot the bill for new uniforms or travel to national team camps if and when they chose to hold them, Ortiz and Echeverri said, with the team going more than 700 days without a training camp after the 2012 Olympics and more than 400 days without one after the 2016 Olympics. According to multiple players, the Colombian Football Federation once paid players $20 a day but decided to stop paying them altogether. Ortiz’s national team career shared some unfortunate similarities with Foudy’s, as she and ex-teammate Isabella Echeverri detailed on Instagram in 2019. “(I) just missed the (2015) World Cup by five days because I got injured and then my goal was to get back on the national team (for the 2016 Olympics),” she said. The West Palm Beach, Florida native represented Colombia at the youth and senior team levels, including the 2010 U-20 Women’s World Cup and the 2012 London Olympics. That seed initially led Ortiz to the pitch. soccer, and not just North American soccer, you literally impacted global women’s soccer from 1999.’ I was only eight or nine years old at the time and just seeing what I was able to bring to South America, that’s a trickle effect.” The ‘99ers, you guys didn’t just impact U.S. “It’s crazy because (I) work with Julie Foudy (at WBD Sports),” Ortiz said. But her globetrotting journey began with a familiar hook: the 1999 Women’s World Cup. Soccer, and a studio analyst for Apple TV+’s new MLS coverage, which puts her alongside the sport’s most prominent voices covering American soccer. Discovery Sports, as it kicked off its eight-year broadcast deal with U.S. This year, Ortiz became the sideline reporter for Warner Bros. She hit (at least) eight cities in a month before sitting down with The Athletic to discuss her new jam-packed schedule. ![]() The Colombia international-turned-broadcaster frequents American soccer screens - and airports. ![]()
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