19th
Story Time
Today I was trying to get Vivienne to remember the 1999 Women’s World Cup final.
I was all, hey, do you remember this? And she was all, no. And I was all, really? not even the part where this player ripped off her shirt and ran around screaming? And she was all, no. And I was all, really? And she was all, no.
After a few more rounds of that I finally gave up and shot her this look as if to say, ‘how dare you not recall the pivotal moment of my childhood.’ Because MAN, that was totally the pivotal moment of my childhood, and she totally doesn’t remember it.
It pains me to realize that most of you probably don’t either. It means that women’s soccer was not at the epicenter of your universe in 1999. Which is cool, I guess. It just means that 10-year-old me and 10-year-old you are not and never will be friends…because folks, let me tell you, back in the day I loved me some soccer.
This was back in my long gone Era of Athleticism, when sports were the shit and I hadn’t realized that sitting around was a whole lot easier and never resulted in bruises the size of Alaska (which, incidentally, would also make those bruises larger than the 23 smallest US states combined, because Alaska is that huge. Pretty crazy, huh? But I digress). Also, it was the grrrl-power phase in my life, when I was in the process of reclaiming the idea that female was code for weak with a whole lot of ‘GIRLS ROCK’ stickers and a bunch of posters that said things like ‘you wish you could kick like a girl.’ I was taking down the system one glittery wall hanging at at time.
So cue the summer of 1999. My soccer coach had told me there was this big tournament on, the World Cup, so I started looking for games.
And then I just started watching. All the time. There were games on every day, games full of professional women’s players doing awesome tricks and scoring awesome goals. And the USA had this bad ass squad of probably the greatest players ever to play women’s soccer. They pretty much mowed down every team they played. I liked that.
I had watched a little men’s soccer before this. Colorado has this professional team called the Rapids (like most of our other pro sports teams, they’re named after a natural phenomenon—the rockies, the nuggets (OF GOLD THAT IS), the avalanche, etc), but I found (and find) them kind of boring. Women’s soccer was something different. There was more finesse, less violence—it was a cleaner game.
PLUS, there was this player. Mia Hamm. Please, god, someone say you’ve heard of her. She joined the national team at 15 and went on to score more goals than any other player, male or female, in US history. The ‘99 world cup was the first time I watched her, and she totally blew me away. She’d kick these crazy kamikaze balls from weird angles, and they’d just hurtle towards the goal like they were drawn there magnetically. I loved her. I wore my replica mia hamm jersey all the time and flipped a shit when I realized WE BOTH WORE THE #9 JERSEY FOR OUR TEAMS HOLY CRAP IT WAS FATE I WAS GOING TO BE HER.
The thing is, this obsession sounds pretty typical for a ten year old. Getting neurotically interested in boring shit is what kids do best, after all. But it wasn’t just me. For some reason, maybe it was the fact that the tournament was in the united states, maybe it was that the US women were so good, maybe there just weren’t any other big sporting events on TV around that time, but A LOT of people watched this women’s world cup, way, way more than ever before. 90,000 people went to the final. 90,000! That’s like…more people than are in any city in Alaska except Anchorage (I like incorporating random, unrelated facts about Alaska into my posts, so sue me). Crazy shit.
Anyway, that final game, the previously defined PIVOTAL MOMENT OF MY CHILDHOOD, was between the United States and China. My dad says Americans can’t stand soccer because there isn’t enough scoring, and that game was the picture-perfect example of that. The two teams played to a 0-0 tie. Then came overtime. Then more overtime.
This is where soccer gets weird. Instead of just playing until someone scores a goal, after two rounds of overtime they switch to these things called penalty kicks. Basically, five players from each team get a shot on goal (with only the goalkeeper defending) from what amounts to point-blank range. Whichever team makes more wins. It’s kind of wack. But that’s how it went down in the final of this tournament.
So…long story short, China misses a kick and the US doesn’t. And the last American player to shoot, this defender named Brandi Chastain, when she makes her shot, rips off her jersey and does this SUPER VICTORY I’M THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD yell right there in the middle of the field. Then the whole team descends on her and it’s just melee.
Back at my house in Denver, I started freaking out, running around my living room shouting. This was the first and really only time I’ve felt like a sports team represented me, like they were playing for me (the whole GIRL POWER thing and stuff) and so i could share in their victory. And I kept feeling like that for a long time. Female US soccer players were much more famous than the men. The team was much more celebrated. For once I felt like the women’s sport was the standard and it was the men who people had only a reluctant interest in. And fuck, that was cool.
That was a decade ago. I don’t play soccer anymore (and I’ve lost every shred of athletic grace I ever possessed) and I don’t follow the women’s national team too closely these days. But every time there’s a World Cup or an Olympics, I still watch, and I probably always will. It’s strange this time around in Beijing, because I’m noticing that a lot of the girls who are playing for the US women are about my age. First off, all these goddamn olympic athletes who are MY AGE make me feel like a first class failure of a human being. But secondly, that means they all grew up on women’s soccer like I did. I bet all of them remember watching that ‘99 final in their Mia Hamm jerseys. And I bet that’s when they knew they could do it. They could be in the olympics, do gatorade commercials with Michael Jordan, be really famous for being awesome at soccer. It was all in the realm of possibility for the first time.
And that, my dear Vivienne, is why I wish you remembered the 1999 Women’s World Cup. :-)
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