Bare Facts Make These Two Heroes
Jennifer Lopez serenaded the crowd before kickoff, Hanson crooned their way through the national anthem, but the biggest hitmakers on the field for the Women’s World Cup final Saturday were the Bare Naked Ladies, Briana Scurry and Brandi Chastain, now forever linked by nothing and everything.
Before the penalty-kick shootout that decided the 1999 world championship, Scurry, the U.S. goalkeeper, and Chastain, David Letterman’s favorite left fullback, were best known for being the two women’s soccer players you could tell without a scorecard--no number required.
No jersey or shorts or shinguards or socks, either.
Scurry made headlines in 1996 by following through on her pre-Olympic promise and running naked through the streets of Athens, Ga., after the U.S. women’s soccer team won the gold medal.
Chastain made readers of Gear magazine stop and peruse awhile with her pre-World Cup bare-but-for-the-boots modeling assignment, a photographic study of the nude female football form, a pair of cleats and a soccer ball.
Total pieces of clothing worn by Scurry and Chastain during these two off-the-field forays:
Nil, nil.
Same as the China-United States score after 120 minutes of sun-burned, lung-scorched soccer at the Rose Bowl, with the World Cup up for grabs and both teams too battle-weary to leap up and claim it.
So, as it did with Brazil and Italy on the same plot of grass in another scoreless World Cup final five years earlier, it came down to the dread scourge of international soccer, penalty kicks. There has to be a better way, but, in the words of U.S. Coach Tony DiCicco, “until some genius comes up with a better way,” we’re stuck with it.
So Scurry and Chastain did whatever they could with it, made the best of an unwanted situation.
Scurry made the save that ultimately separated two hopelessly logjammed teams, stepping up--and stepping forward, a technical breach of the FIFA rulebook--to deny China’s third penalty-taker, Liu Ying.
Everyone else who walked up to the spot--the first four Americans, the other four Chinese--converted their kicks. China 4, USA 4, with one kick to be taken.
By Chastain, the same player who shanked a penalty against China in the United States’ 2-1 loss to China in a tournament in Portugal in March. The same player who found the back of the net twice in the World Cup quarterfinal against Germany--once for the Germans, beating Scurry to her right, and then countering for the Americans for a second-half equalizer.
To put it another way, Chastain is unpredictable. A party gag in a No. 6 shirt. Like an exploding can of mixed salted nuts, with a mean left foot.
And it had been a typical Chastain romp on the pitch up to the moment she placed the ball on the penalty spot. In the first half, she was poised for a chance to score after China goalkeeper Gao Hong punched Mia Hamm’s corner kick right to Chastain, but she slipped and landed on the seat of her shorts, the opportunity skittering away. Late in the second half, with China pushing forward and Zhang Ouying tiptoeing through the American central defense, Chastain sprinted in from her left fullback spot to clean Zhang out with sensational tackle.
It had been a full day for Chastain and now this: stepping up for the decisive penalty kick, doing her best not to look Gao in the face.
“Gao likes to get into a staring match and smile at you to make you uneasy,” Chastain said. “So I didn’t look at her.”
Chastain’s kick won the World Cup, finding the right-hand corner before Gao could blink. Chastain got so excited, she temporarily lost track of time and place and acted as if she was posing for the cameras of Gear again.
Off went the top in one delirious clean-and-jerk, leaving her clad in a black sports bra. Chastain brandished the jersey as if it were a lasso, whipping it over her head and the crowd into a frenzy.
“Momentary insanity,” Chastain laughingly explained when asked about her impromptu half Monty. “I just thought, ‘My God, that’s the greatest moment of my life in soccer.’ I just lost control, I guess.”
Scurry made it possible with her--how shall we put it?--savvy outmaneuvering of Liu in the shootout. Scurry knows that the rulebook states that as a goalkeeper prepares for a penalty kick, he or she can move laterally along the goal line but not forward before the ball is kicked. She also knows that this is a judgment call by the referee and Scurry had previously tested the Swiss referee, Nicole Mouidi-Petignat, on the shootout’s first kick, converted by Xie Huilin.
“I came out [early] to see what she was going to give you,” Scurry said. “If she calls the kick back, fine. But she didn’t, so I was going to stay with it.”
Scurry did it again against Liu, knocked the shot away, heard no whistle and the United States had the edge it would need to finally break the stalemate.
Illegal?
“A little bit,” Scurry said with a mischievous grin.
DiCicco, a former goalkeeper, defended Scurry’s decision to push a strict interpretation of the rulebook to the outer limits.
“You’ve got to stretch it,” DiCicco said. “Sometimes in America, we lack so much sophistication [in international competition]. Sometimes in America, we play exactly by the written rule.
“Do you go strictly by the rule or the spirit of the rule? It’s like that rule in baseball when a player’s sliding into second base. The rule says you’re not supposed to interfere with the fielder, but you ever see a guy sliding in to take out the shortstop to break up a double play? That’s the spirit of the rule.
“Same thing with Bri. You’re out there, alone, against somebody who’s pretty damn good at putting the ball in the net from 12 yards. You’ve got to get any edge you can. And that’s the spirit of the rule.”
And that’s how the United States stripped the World Cup from China. By a couple of veterans who have the know-how.
