SANDY, Utah -- It's hardly a surprise that it takes sacrifices along the way to make it to the U.S. women's national team. It requires a willingness to follow a road wherever it leads, accepting that its end might not be your desired destination.
So when she found herself eye-to-eye with a sheep's severed head, Casey Short could have been forgiven for thinking she might have missed a turn or two along the way. In Norway at that moment, she was literally and figuratively a long way from her desired destination.
The sheep's head was dinner; the dish a longstanding part of Norwegian cuisine.
"I don't know that I miss it, but it was kind of a neat experience," Short said of that culinary adventure she had while playing professionally overseas. "Surprisingly, I kind of liked it."
If the current moment is about where the national team goes next, it also encompasses how those who hope to answer that question got here.
For the past two weeks, the national team searched for the pieces to complement the familiar and help solve puzzles posed by the 2019 World Cup and 2020 Olympics. A left foot here, poise on the ball there. With 11 players who were either entirely new to the pool or back in the fold after the briefest of cameos, the experiment marked the first wholesale roster expansion since Jill Ellis took over as coach in 2014.
Without the chess pieces, Ellis won't have the team she believes she needs.
Without people willing to commit years to the chase, she wouldn't have the luxury of choices.
"I feel like you never really feel fully prepared when you're coming in here," said first-time call-up Arin Gilliland in Utah. "You always feel like you need to do something better before you get called in. So I didn't expect it, but I wanted it to happen."
Standing next to her teammate, both with the NWSL's Chicago Red Stars and the national team, as Short discussed eating sheep's head, Gilliland listened with mouth agape in mock revulsion. There was far more agreement when it came to stepping on the training field for the United States, with Short vigorously voicing her consent when Gilliland found an apt metaphor.
"It's so high-tempo, it's like the NWSL on three Starbucks coffees," Gilliland explained. "But it's great. It makes you think faster; it completely changes your game. And it's not something you can adjust to in just one camp."
It is daunting. Just not nearly as daunting as life can be.
Gilliland's mother, Letita, was diagnosed with cancer while her daughter was still in high school. Arin enrolled at Kentucky a semester early, in part to ensure the same mom who had helped her get ready for Halloween trick-or-treating dressed as Mia Hamm, would see her play for the Wildcats.
Letita saw those spring scrimmages and, with the same resolve that's evident in the way Arin plays soccer, saw enough games beyond that spring to witness her daughter grow into one of the best players in college soccer. She also saw a once rebellious young girl grow into the woman who would be honored, after Letita passed away in 2012, with the Honda Inspiration Award, given each year to only one female athlete across all NCAA divisions and sports.
For Short, the path to the national team included not only the Scandinavian sojourn but three knee surgeries before it. A regular in the U.S. youth national team system, Short enjoyed a standout college career at Florida State and was the fifth pick in the 2013 NWSL draft. But the injuries ensured she never played a game in the league until this year, so her first professional season was spent not in the NWSL but in Avaldsnes, Norway.
"The culture was incredible. That was probably the best part," Short said. "Everyone was so nice there. And they love football. It's everywhere. You see kids playing everywhere. So I think I was able to find a new passion for the game there and learn from everybody there. I was playing with people from all over the world. It was where I was meant to be at that time."
The menu offerings might have made for the occasional comic moment, but Norway wasn't a lark. The sun sets for only a few hours a night during the Avaldsnes summer, but the twilight of Short's career was fast approaching if she couldn't catch a break. For years, there had always been the opportunity for another game and another season. Suddenly those things were no longer givens.
"Almost had to put myself back together," Short, 26, explained. "It was such a long journey to get there. ... I just needed to find myself again and find my confidence and get my fitness back and all these other things."
Unlike the college coach she was at UCLA, Ellis isn't trying to get to know recruits and convince them to choose her program. Here the players are trying to convince her they deserve to stay. Once that is done, there might be more room to get to know the people. For now, Short isn't the product of her story; she is a rare left-footed option to play on the left side. Gilliland is a technically raw but athletically gifted prospect at outside back.
Some of the newcomers left little doubt they will be back, Short is among them after a pair of starts in defensive capacities. The same goes for goalkeeper Jane Campbell, midfielder Andi Sullivan and forward Lynn Williams. Abby Dahlkemper, Ashley Hatch and Kealia Ohai played too sparingly to offer hints as to their fortunes, Ohai's record-quick debut goal after 48 seconds on the field notwithstanding. Still others -- Gilliand, Danielle Colaprico, Shea Groom, Merritt Mathias -- trained throughout but didn't dress for either game.
The reality is that for most of the newcomers, a contract with the national team does not await. Not at this moment. Maybe not ever. But they made it this far. And with Allie Long just the most recent example, after the 29-year-old claimed an Olympic starting spot following years in purgatory, that can be enough to keep some traveling an uncertain road.
Gilliland's purple-streaked hair is, in her own words, a "hot mess." Shortly before an NWSL semifinal, she broke her necklace chain while engaged in some aggressive brushing. The pendant that went tumbling is an impression of her mother's thumbprint. Desperate to fix the memento before the playoff game, she said she commandeered one of the team's vans and made an emergency run to the store. It was in those minutes that her phone rang with the news from U.S. Soccer that she would be joining them in Utah.
"People can call it a coincidence," Gilliland said. "But I kind of thought that was a sign from her telling me she was listening and knew what was going on -- and that she was happy. I got really emotional and called my dad, and we had a breakdown in the car, but it was great."
The past week offered a glimpse of where the national team goes from here.
It was also a reminder that here isn't anything to take for granted.