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Wednesday, September 27
Medal game marks end of era
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- A magnificent era for the U.S. women's
soccer team is about to end, no matter what happens in the gold
medal game.
As a group, Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Julie Foudy, Carla
Overbeck, Joy Fawcett and Brandi Chastain have defined and
dominated their sport for a decade.
All but Overbeck, who was 20, joined the team as teen-agers in
the 1980s and have since won championships, set records and rode a
path to fame that will never be duplicated.
"No coach will ever coach the generation of players that these
players have been," coach April Heinrichs said. "It's the
equivalent of having Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, George Best
and Pele all on the same team, the same 10 years. No coach will
ever have that again."
How fitting, too, that the Americans' opponent in Thursday's
gold medal game is longtime nemesis Norway.
The only major title the U.S. team didn't win was the 1995 World
Cup, when it lost to Norway in the semifinals and had to settle for
third place. Only the Norwegians hold an edge over the Americans in
head-to-head play, a slim 14-13-2.
When the Americans beat Norway 2-0 in the Olympic opener, it was
one of the more decisive wins the team has managed in the series.
It was also a fine way to begin the ending of an era.
Only Overbeck, who wants to have another child and spend more
time with her family, has announced that she will retire from
international play after these Olympics, joining Michelle Akers'
pre-Olympic retirement forced by injuries. But the next major
tournament won't come along until the World Cup in 2003, when
Chastain and Fawcett will be 35, Foudy and Lilly 32 and Hamm 31.
All seemed inclined to stay because of the launch next year of
the new women's professional league, the WUSA, which will allow
them to live more stable lives and not spend weeks on end at
national training camps. But with a solid young, growing pool of
talent in the United States, it's inevitable that many new faces
will be in the national team lineup three years from now.
"Obviously April's got to make some decisions on how much she
wants to change," Foudy said. "We've always had a good balance of
young and old, and eventually we've got to start bleeding in the
younger kids."
Barring an amazing prodigy, however, none will start as young as
Hamm or Lilly, who were 15 and 16 respectively when they made their
debuts against China on Aug. 3, 1987. There are no teen-agers on
this Olympic team. Heinrichs said Lilly's 221 international
appearances going into the gold medal game, a world-record for a
man or woman, will never be topped because there'll be no need to
rush someone along before she's ready.
"In the future of our game, these women won't have 13- and
15-year careers on the national team," Heinrichs said.
While success has been a constant for these women, recognition
for it has not. No one back home paid attention when they won the
1991 World Cup in China.
"Starting in '95, we were saying that this is the best kept
secret out there, market us and let the kids see us," Foudy said.
"And then in '96 the Olympics was one of the coming out
ceremonies, and in '99 we just took it to another level."
Having worked so hard to market the sport to make last year's
World Cup succeed, these Olympics have been one for the players.
All they've really had to do is show up and play. The publicity is
already guaranteed, interviews or not.
"In '99 everything was like, `We've got to do it because we've
got to sell tickets. We've got to do it because the sport needs
it,' Now, we're doing it because we want to do it," Foudy said.
"We're doing it because we laid the foundation, and now we want to
reap the rewards of that.
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