Competition Stops Being So Friendly

It has been almost three years since the United States played a women’s soccer match of real significance, that being the Olympic tournament final against China in Athens, Ga., on Aug. 1, 1996.

Since then, the U.S. has played 62 games against 22 countries and a team of FIFA world all-stars, the most notable competition coming in the Goodwill Games, the U.S. Women’s Cup and the Algarve Cup.

The Americans have gone 53-6-3 since the Olympic final and have outscored their opponents, 222-37. But goalkeeper Briana Scurry, mixing metaphors with abandon, says none of that matters.

“Friendly matches are important preparation for this,” she said, “but in all honesty friendlies go out the window when it comes time to play for all the marbles.

“It’s a different level. It’s like playoff hockey or playoff football or playoff basketball. You pick your game up a notch. You get a little jittery. You know this is it. It’s very exciting.”

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Tony DiCicco, the U.S. coach, realizes that his team is opening against what will probably be the strongest of its three first-round opponents but sees an advantage in that.

“You never want to play a team of the quality of Denmark in the first game, but we know them best of the three teams,” he said. “So at least we’re not going in totally unaware of all the nuances that Nigeria or North Korea will bring. We obviously have tapes of them. We’ll see them play each other [on Sunday at the Rose Bowl] and we’ll take it from there. It was better for us to open with Denmark.”

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Canadian referee Sonia Denoncourt has been appointed by the FIFA referees’ committee to officiate today’s opening game between the U.S. and Denmark. Denoncourt was one of the referees at the Sweden ’95 world championship and is an early favorite to referee the July 10 final at the Rose Bowl.