FINE CHINA
The scent of gunpowder hung heavy over the “Goat City” of Guangzhou, China, on the night of Nov. 30, 1991.
At Tianhe Stadium, the crowd of 65,000 was slowly spilling out onto the surrounding streets, the fans’ eyes still growing accustomed to the darkness after having been dazzled by the fireworks that had lighted the sky just moments before.
And by the fireworks that had occurred on the field.
The fans chattered excitedly about the play of the tall No. 10 with the wild mop of hair. Wasn’t it wonderful how she had leaped above the other players and headed in the first goal?
Yes, certainly, but what was much better was the way she had intercepted a bad pass from a defender late in the game and had drawn out the goalkeeper before scoring the winning goal.
True, but the American No. 12 was surely as fine a player. Wasn’t she the best dribbler they had ever seen?
Without doubt, but there was also No. 2. Her leadership was unquestionably what held the team together.
And so it went. Chinese fans, wandering away into the night, comparing the talents of Michelle Akers and Carin Jennings and April Heinrichs, and recalling just how the United States had overcome Norway, 2-1, to win soccer’s first Women’s World Championship.
Can it really have been eight years ago?
*
The train from Kowloon to Guangzhou takes little more than two hours, clattering through countryside of no particular character.
In 1991, the rail line connected what was then the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong with the People’s Republic of China.
That’s one thing that has changed, certainly.
There weren’t many U.S.-based journalists on the train that November. Only four of us made the trip to China, two reporters and two photographers.
Perhaps it was just as well. Imagine the scenes that might have ensued had the media hordes that will descend on the Rose Bowl for Saturday’s USA-China final been there in 1991.
“No picture! No picture!” a fussy little man in a drab uniform shouted at the border crossing when one of us--OK, when I--tried to photograph a banner welcoming teams to China for the World Championship.
Obviously, we were not in Kansas anymore.
Sprawled along the banks of the Pearl River, Guangzhou proved to be a pleasant enough place and its people went out of their way to make sure the tournament was celebrated in style.
Once known as Canton, it is called “the Goat City” because legend has it that five goats were instrumental in its founding. A popular statue depicting that tale stands in one of the local parks and a stylized goat’s head was incorporated into the official tournament logo.
To the foreign visitor, however, Guangzhou in 1991--oddly enough the Chinese year of the goat--was a city filled with many strange sights and strange sounds:
* The long red World Championship banners hanging from the sides of buildings were attractive. Not so attractive were the equally red carcasses of skinned dogs and other animals hanging in the marketplace.
* The thousands of madcap bicyclists who clogged the city streets were a hazard. More picturesque were the bleary-eyed water buffalo in the surrounding countryside.
* In the daytime, the color came from the bright beds of red and yellow chrysanthemums that had been planted throughout the city. At night, the color came from the myriad twinkling lights strung up on the tallest buildings.
The Dong Fang and White Swan hotels were the most eye-catching. After dark, the White Swan’s exterior was draped in colored lights, with a flying soccer ball and a depiction of Ling-Ling, the “luck-bringing thrush” that was the tournament mascot, most prominent.
Inside, on a glittering mezzanine strung with Chinese lanterns, the golden Women’s World Cup trophy stood in a glass case, flanked by two armed guards.
In the press center computers, there was a description of the trophy that caused some comment:
“The design of the trophy is delicate, smooth and pithy, which are just the characteristics of women.”
Pithy, indeed.
The two-week tournament was played not only in Guangzhou, but also in Jiangmen, Foshan, Punyu and Zhongshan, so some travel was involved.
On non-game days, tournament organizers did their best to see that the foreign media were not bored. They provided escorted bus trips to such uplifting sights as a lumber mill, a bottling plant and--at least this one was worth it--a large park where all of China’s national monuments were re-created in miniature.
For those who had no time to visit the Great Wall or the Ming Tombs, the mini-wall and the mini-Ming had to do.
And then there was the food.
There were formal banquets where everything was swallowed with a smile, but it will take more than eight years to forget “five-snake soup.” And does chicken stew really have to have the uncooked chicken’s head sticking up out of it, beak, feathers and all?
There were other curious courses, some good, some not so good.
But then, the same applied to the soccer games.
*
“The triple-edged sword” is what China’s press dubbed the trio of Akers, Jennings and Heinrichs.
Of the 25 goals scored by the U.S. in its six games, they netted 20. Akers scored 10, including an astonishing, championship-record five in a 7-0 quarterfinal rout of Taiwan. It was a feat she took in full stride.
“My shooting was on,” she said. “I don’t think I played particularly well except for my shooting. . . . I haven’t been the type of player who dribbles through six people and gets a goal. I usually get a pass from Carin [Jennings] or Carin gets fouled and I get a free kick or Mia Hamm gets fouled and I get a penalty kick.
“Those are the kinds of goals I get. It’s a team effort.”
Sound familiar? Only last Sunday, Hamm was fouled, Akers got a penalty kick and Brazil was sent packing in the semifinals of the third FIFA Women’s World Cup, as the event now is called.
Akers is still here, still banging in those goals. So is Hamm. And so are four others who started the championship game that Nov. 30 night at Tianhe Stadium--Joy Fawcett, Carla Overbeck, Kristine Lilly and Julie Foudy.
Brandi Chastain was there, too, watching from the bench.
Akers’ 10 goals earned her the golden boot as the tournament’s top scorer. It’s a trophy China’s Sun Wen and Brazil’s Sissi will be gunning for Saturday.
But it was Jennings, whose flying blond ponytail became almost a symbol of the tournament, who stole the show.
Nicknamed “Gumby” by her teammates for her legs of rubber than seemed to go every which way, the winger from Palos Verdes and UC Santa Barbara scored six goals and earned the golden ball as the event’s most valuable player.
One favorite image is of Jennings and Pele doing an impromptu dance of sorts on stage while posing together with her trophy.
Pele attended the final and was photographed in the starting lineup with both teams. He also was at the U.S. team’s party at the White Swan in the early hours of Dec. 1.
By then, of course, things had gotten a little loose. U.S. Soccer’s president, Alan Rothenberg, who had endured the 15-hour flight from Los Angeles and the two-hour train ride from Hong Kong to get there in time for the final, was in his shirt sleeves, dancing with Chastain.
So was Steve Sampson, the future U.S. Men’s World Cup ’98 coach.
Anson Dorrance, the U.S. coach, was there with his wife, M’Liss, and their 6-month-old son, Donovan. So were a few dozen parents and grandparents and friends of the American players.
It was an intimate group, celebrating a historic and almost entirely overlooked achievement: The first American team to win a world soccer championship.
All the stories now being told, all the television footage now being shot, all the swooning over Mia and Michelle and Julie and Brandi could have been done eight years ago. And perhaps better.
In “the Goat City” of Guangzhou, the fairy-tale ending came true.
“This is the best I’ve ever felt in my whole life,” said Heinrichs, the team captain and now coach of the U.S. under-16 girls’ national team.
“It’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me,” said Jennings, now Carin Jennings Gabarra, mother of one and the coach of the women’s soccer team at Navy.
“When we first started the team, we never thought there would be a World Cup [for women],” Foudy said. “It was always this mystical thing, a World Cup. And now we’re holding it in our hands.”
On Saturday afternoon, she might be holding it again.
Or, it might be China’s turn.
CHAMPIONSHIP
Saturday at Rose Bowl
UNITED STATES vs. CHINA
12:45 p.m., Channel 7
JOIN THE CROWD: As the U.S. women’s soccer team has advanced to the World Cup final at the Rose Bowl, its legion of fans has grown to record proportions, says Mike Penner. A1
ROSE BOWL STREET MAP: A19
RANDY HARVEY: D2
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Looking Back
The United States team that won the first FIFA Women’s World Championship in China in 1991 featured seven members of the current squad. The Americans went unbeaten and untied, winning six games in 14 days.
THE ROSTER
Player: Position
Mary Harvey: G
Amy Allmann: G
Kim Maslin-Kammerdeiner: G
Carla Werden (Overbeck)*: D
Joy Biefeld (Fawcett)*: D
Linda Hamilton: D
Shannon Higgins: D
Debbie Belkin: D
Lori Henry: D
Tracey Bates: M
Kristine Lilly*: M
Julie Foudy*: M
Brandi Chastain*: M
Wendy Gebauer: F
Mia Hamm*: F
April Heinrichs: F
Michelle Akers*: F
Carin Jennings: F
G-Goalkeeper; D-Defender; M-Midfielder; F-Forward; * 1999 U.S. team member.
****
THE RESULTS
*--*
Date Site Score Nov. 17, 1991 Punyu, China USA 3, Sweden 2 Nov. 19, 1991 Punyu, China USA 5, Brazil 0 Nov. 21, 1991 Foshan, China USA 3, Japan 0 Nov. 24, 1991 Foshan, China USA 7, Taiwan 0 Nov. 27, 1991 Guangzhou, China USA 5, Germany 2 Nov. 30, 1991 Guangzhou, China USA 2, Norway 1
*--*
