Krieger is right at home in Germany

Whose side Ali Krieger is on in the Women's World Cup is clear: Born and raised in Virginia, graduated from Penn State, she plays defense for the top-ranked U.S. team that opens play Tuesday against North Korea.

The reason she describes herself as a "kind of double agent" is because the three-week championship tournament is being contested in her "second home," Germany, where Krieger spent most of the last three years playing for the pro team in Frankfurt.

She speaks German fluently. She knows most of the members of the German team, a tournament co-favorite and winner of the last two World Cups, personally.

She can serve as translator and guide as she and her American teammates hop from first-round games in Dresden (site of Tuesday's game), Sinsheim and Wolfsburg. If they make it to the title game July 17, that will be in Frankfurt -- "a dream come true," Krieger said -- against, more than likely, the Germans.

"By playing and training alongside them every day," Krieger said, "I've learned so much. And I hope that all they've taught me will help me to get the better of them now."

German soccer, Krieger said, is not necessarily better or worse than the American brand -- "just different, a different style. Lots of touches. High pressure all the time on the ball. I think we play really well as a team, and we're so athletic. If we make a mistake, we can make up for it. There, they're really strong, strong on the ball."

In Germany, "soccer is the main sport," she said. "Even for women. The surroundings for that sport, and the atmosphere, is so much better; 2,000, 3,000 every game, whether it's against the best team or the worst."

Among Krieger's teammates with FFC Frankfurt, which won the German Cup and UEFA Cup with Krieger at right back, was Birgit Prinz, who has scored more career World Cup goals -- 14 -- than anyone. The irony is that Prinz, now 33, sharpened her game by playing professionally in the United States during the three years (2001-03) that the WUSA existed.

It was the Americans' crowd-pleasing success at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and 1999 U.S.-based World Cup that made them, in Prinz's eyes, "role models. They made the sport so popular." Yet it was the disappearance of the U.S. league that made Krieger look, in 2007, to Europe to improve her soccer.

"I knew my goal was the national team," she said. "I figured, instead of getting a real job, what can I do to better my game and myself? I had a contact in Germany, a family friend who played there in the men's Bundesliga, and I just went and had a tryout."

She didn't speak a word of German at the time. She took classes three days a week and watched a lot of German TV to be able to communicate with her new teammates. It's how spies get started.