KEY POINTS:
Rebecca Smith has packed plenty into her 25 years - including captaining the New Zealand women's soccer team on debut - and a heap of stamps in her passports.
Born in Los Angeles to New Zealand parents, Smith has never lived here but, in spending three or four
months in Christchurch each year, she feels very much a New Zealander.
She lives most of her always-busy life in the United States although she plays her club football in Sweden.
Smith was in New Zealand for for last week's exhaustive national trials, went back to California but will return to join her 19 team-mates for two internationals against Australia in Canberra next month, April's Oceania qualifying tournament and then, hopefully, September's World Cup in China.
Smith, and others including Hayley Moorwood and Kirsty Yallop, is seen as the new face of women's soccer in New Zealand.
Coach Allan Jones is keen to use their athleticism as a blueprint for a squad to compete on the big stage.
There has been a resurgence in the women's game in New Zealand and Jones is determined to build on the momentum created with a solid showing by the under-20 side at last year's Fifa world championships in Russia and the opportunities handed them with Australia's departure to Asia.
Smith, from a respected southern sporting family (her uncle Richard Wilson was good enough to play two tests and 23 other matches for the All Blacks) dabbled in water polo and tennis and played some "serious" basketball at college in the United States before turning to soccer.
After choosing Duke ahead of other respected US universities Stanford, Yale and Princeton she divided her time between sport and study, emerging with degrees in economics and Spanish.
"But," Smith insists, "there was never any thought of playing professional football". She opted, on graduation, to venture into the business world.
"I was playing for fun for a team called Ajax in Southern California. We won eight of 10 games and the national championship.
"Basically, we were just a bunch of ex-college players. We certainly weren't paid but I suppose we were regarded as semi-professional."
Her first contact with New Zealand soccer came in 2000 when then-national coach Doug Moore invited her - despite her being injured - to come back and observe a tournament which also involved the US and Japan.
With her studies taking precedence, Smith had no further contact with the game at that level until 2003 when coach Sandy Davie selected her for a tour the national side made of Texas and the subsequent World Cup qualifiers in Australia, where they lost the final 2-0 to the hosts.
"I played all five matches, all at centre-back," said Smith, who felt privileged to lead the team on debut.
She then returned to her fulltime employment.
"That was full on, but I had the feeling I wanted to give football a real go. I had no idea how to go about it even though I did have a friend, who had played for the States, who had gone to Europe."
She soon had trials in Norway and Germany signing, in August 2004, a one-year contract with Frankfurt.
"I didn't know one word of German which made life on and off the pitch difficult," said Smith who, in June 2004, switched to Swedish club Sunnana SK in Skelleftea. There she plays alongside Hanna Marklund, regarded as one of the best players in the world.
Smith, who is in her third season with the club, speaks fluent Spanish, Swedish, German and Norwegian.
Now playing professionally - pointing out there is no professional league in the US - Smith admits she lives comfortably but adds "if I wanted to make big money I would not be playing soccer".
Of Jones, Smith says, "you know how he wants to play. He makes it fun. He can be hard on us but at the same time he takes the piss."
So can she.
Life is certainly not passing Rebecca Smith by.
She has her sights set on an "Olympic experience" but beyond that, and this year's World Cup, she doesn't know where she is headed.
"That depends on who I meet.
"But, for now I love Sweden. They are amazing people."