WOMEN’S SOCCER / FIFA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP : U.S. Takes Command by Scoring on Command
Goals, Inc., that’s what the United States women’s soccer team should be called. Whenever goals are needed, the Americans deliver.
Needing to defeat Australia on Saturday to clinch first place in its group and a perhaps more favorable quarterfinal opponent at the second FIFA Women’s World Championship, the U.S. team came through with a 4-1 victory.
The result means that the defending world champions will play Japan in Gavle on Tuesday, a matchup most observers believe almost guarantees the United States a place in the semifinals.
Of course, Saturday’s game was supposed to be a routine victory, but it wasn’t.
The United States was without its top striker, Michelle Akers, still injured, and its No. 1 goalkeeper, Briana Scurry, suspended after being red-carded in the previous game. In addition, Coach Tony DiCicco wanted to rest as many first-string players as possible to give them a break before the quarterfinals.
For a while, it seemed the circumstances would lead to an upset by Australia, which was beaten, 5-0 by Denmark and 4-2 by China, in its earlier games.
Saturday’s game was scoreless at halftime and, astonishingly, Australia held a 1-0 lead after 55 minutes when 17-year-old Lisa Casagrande scored a superb headed goal that left American goalkeeper Saskia Webber, making her first world championship start, frozen on the line.
The goal marked the first time in world championship history that the United States has trailed in a game. The Americans never fell behind while winning the title in China, or in the qualifying tournaments for China ’91 and Sweden ’95.
With U.S. players becoming increasingly frustrated on the field and the U.S. coaching staff and substitutes growing more and more agitated on the bench, DiCicco was forced to act.
At halftime, he replaced Notre Dame’s Holly Manthei with Carin Gabarra, the tournament MVP in China, and after Australia scored, he sent Mission Viejo’s Julie Foudy, another veteran of the world championship team, on in place of Amanda Cromwell.
The effect was immediate. Two minutes after going in, Foudy leaped to head in a corner kick by Mia Hamm and tie the score, 1-1. Eight minutes later, Joy Fawcett, the UCLA coach and another veteran of the China tournament, scored the game-winning goal.
But a 2-1 lead was still not enough. DiCicco was keeping track of the Chinese team’s match against Denmark, and each time China scored, he had to tell his players they needed another goal to win the group. It almost became comical.
“It was pretty amazing,” he said. “The China-Denmark score was 1-1 at the half, and I didn’t think it would stay that way, so I said, ‘OK, we’ve got to win [to stay in first place].’ Of course then Australia scored, which complicated things for us. Now we needed to get two goals, which we got.
“Then we checked the score again and China was leading, 2-1, so I called out to the team, ‘We need another goal.’ They’re an amazing group, they went out an got it [team captain Carla Overbeck scoring on a penalty kick after a dubious call by Thai referee Pirom Un-Prasert].
“Now we were defending with like four or five minutes to go. We checked again, China had scored again. Now we needed that last goal. We yelled out again, ‘We need one more goal.’ ”
This time, Debbie Keller, a 20-year-old from suburban Chicago whom DiCicco had sent on as a substitute in the 77th minute, found the net, scoring her first world championship goal to make it 4-1.
