For Openers, Let’s Honor World Cup Winners Past
Amid all the celebrating at Women’s World Cup ’99 headquarters in Century City now that ticket sales have topped 400,000 for next month’s tournament, one small fact seems to have escaped notice.
Of course, it went virtually unnoticed in 1991 too, so there is precedent for ignoring some of the players and coaches who put the game on the map in the United States.
But that doesn’t make it right.
In 1991, an American team consisting of one coach, two assistant coaches and 18 players--supported by a few dozen family members and friends--traveled to China and won the first FIFA Women’s World Championship. But they might as well have done it in a vacuum for all the attention they received when they came home.
There was no ticker-tape parade. There were no appearances on “The Tonight Show,” no extensive newspaper articles or splashy magazine features.
Two of the ’91 coaches--Tony DiCicco and Lauren Gregg--and seven of the players--Michelle Akers, Mia Hamm, Kristine Lilly, Julie Foudy, Joy Fawcett, Carla Overbeck and Brandi Chastain--still form the core of the U.S. team and will be receiving publicity aplenty in the coming weeks as they try to win back the title they lost to Norway in 1995.
But what of the rest? What of Anson Dorrance, who built and coached the ’91 winning team? What of the players who retired after ’91 or a bit later and went on with their lives? Players such as Shannon Higgins and Lori Henry and Amy Allman. Shouldn’t they somehow be honored during this World Cup, no matter how belated it might be?
For that matter, isn’t a World Cup being staged in the U.S. the ideal place to at least recognize the coach and players on the first U.S. national team, the one founded in 1985, not to mention administrators such as Marty Mankamyer who were responsible for forming it?
Apparently not.
“A number of those veterans have called and are planning to attend the event,” said Marla Messing, president and chief executive of Women’s World Cup ’99. “They will be sitting with the family and friends program of the teams. So I think they’re honored to be there and to be able to see the tremendous growth that’s taken place in the sport. That’s really our plan.
“Obviously, this event is taking place in the United States, and so it will have a very American flavor. At the same time, there are 16 teams competing in the tournament, and we need to have a balanced approach to all those teams.”
Fair enough, but here’s a well-intended suggestion: Invite Dorrance and all the members of the ’91 world championship team to Giants Stadium on June 19 and introduce them on the field to what will be a sellout crowd and a national television audience.
Similarly, invite all the coaches and players from Norway’s ’95 World Cup-winning team to be at Foxboro Stadium outside Boston the next day, and introduce them on the field and to the TV audience before the Norway-Russia game.
That way, both history and protocol will have been served and none of the 14 other teams can surely complain.
Soccer fans couldn’t care less that “British teen sensation” Billie and “Irish hip-hop/pop group” B*Witched, not to mention something called ‘N Sync, will be performing at the opening ceremony. Tomorrow they will be yesterday’s fad.
But for a sport to have a future it must have a past, and there is no better way of giving women’s soccer a solid base than by honoring the players and coaches who were there at the beginning and who earned such kudos on the field of play and at the highest level.
It’s only fair.
A GIMMICK? SURE
One of those U.S. veterans of ’91 is Wendy Gebauer, who these days can be seen and heard as an ESPN color commentator on telecasts of U.S. women’s games.
Gebauer, 32, is still active as a player and stars for the Raleigh Wings of the 31-team W-League. She had a chance Wednesday to see just how far the women’s game has come since ’91 when the Wings played Brazil’s World Cup team and were beaten, 2-1.
And on Friday night Gebauer made history of sorts by playing for the Raleigh Capital Express in an A-League game against the Boston Bulldogs. That made her the first U.S. woman to play outdoors for a men’s professional team. Two other ’91 world champions, Carin Jennings Gabarra and Lilly, had played for men’s teams, but on the indoor circuit.
Was the Gebauer move a sales gimmick? Sure, but why not?
“I think it’s a great idea, promotionally and from a marketing standpoint,” she said before the match, “and it will definitely start some excitement. People will be curious about what happens. I think they’ll get a big kick out of it.”
Gebauer started for the Express and played for 17 minutes. She was replaced shortly after the Bulldogs took a 1-0 lead en route to a 3-0 victory in front of a crowd of 1,972.
“It was a lot of fun being out there,” she said. “There were a few intense moments when it started.”
AUSTRALIA 2003?
The country so far making the strongest bid to stage the next Women’s World Cup is Australia, which the U.S. will play in a closed-door match in Beaverton, Ore., on Thursday.
If successful, that would give Australia consecutive top-flight events, following the Sydney 2000 Olympics, for which the top seven teams and host Australia qualify from this World Cup.
THE COUNT RISES
One of the reasons for Australia’s interest is the success this year’s tournament organizers have had with ticket sales. On Thursday, Messing gave a breakdown of how the sales have gone. The highlights:
* More than 400,000 tickets have been sold, and Messing said the tournament is “definitely on a pace to sell half a million tickets.”
* More than 62,000 tickets have been sold for the June 19 opening doubleheader at Giants Stadium featuring the U.S.-Denmark and Brazil-Mexico matches.
* Sales for the opening doubleheader that same night at San Jose’s Spartan Stadium (China-Sweden and Japan-Canada) have surpassed 15,000.
* The overall average for all 32 games (15 doubleheaders plus two stand-alone semifinals) is more than 23,000.
* The average for first-round matches not featuring the U.S. team is more than 16,000.
* Almost 42,000 tickets have been sold for the July 10 final at the Rose Bowl.
THE SEND-OFF GAME
One week from today, the U.S. team will play its final “Road to Pasadena” warm-up game when it faces Canada at Civic Stadium in Portland, Ore.
The game, part of a doubleheader that also features Australia-Brazil, is virtually sold out in the 27,000-seat stadium. It will be both a send-off for the U.S. team and a homecoming for two of its players, forward Tiffeny Milbrett and winger Shannon MacMillan, who scored the winning goals in the 1996 Olympic final and semifinal, respectively, and both of whom attended the University of Portland.
The Americans are 18-1-0 all-time against Canada, whose standout player is forward Charmaine Hooper. She scored both goals when the FIFA World Stars defeated the U.S., 2-1, in the Women’s World Cup Final Draw All-Star Match on Feb. 14 in San Jose.
Civic Stadium, which will stage Women’s World Cup doubleheaders on June 23 and 24 featuring Japan-Russia, China-Ghana, North Korea-Denmark and Germany-Mexico, had a new, and unfortunately, temporary grass field installed last week. The removable field consists of more than 1,000 pieces of turf each four feet wide and 35 feet long and weighing more than 3,000 pounds.
The field will be rolled up and removed after the game, then reinstalled June 14 in time for the World Cup.
QUICK PASSES
In games during the past week involving World Cup ‘99-bound teams, Canada handed Mexico a pair of defeats, 3-0 and 2-0, in Burnaby, British Columbia. Also, Germany, a probable quarterfinal or semifinal opponent for the U.S., shut out Switzerland, 2-0, on first-half goals a minute apart by Martina Voss and Monika Meyer. World Cup-bound Italy thumped England, 4-1, with Antonella Carta and Patrizia Panico each scoring twice. World champion Norway was held to a 0-0 tie by the Netherlands.
China and Nigeria will play a warm-up game in Los Angeles on June 12 at a site to be determined. . . . Mexico’s starting goalkeeper, 18-year-old Linnea Quinones, a freshman at San Diego State, is playing again after being sidelined for six weeks because of a broken finger suffered in a 3-0 loss to the U.S. at the Rose Bowl on March 28. . . . The largest foreign media contingent for the World Cup will be the 43 representatives from China. . . . The Pan American Games will feature women’s soccer for the first time, with Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and the United States taking part in the July 23-Aug. 7 event at the Winnipeg Soccer Complex and Red River College in Winnipeg, Canada. The tournament is limited to players under age 20. . . . Loyola Marymount and Azusa Pacific universities will be the local training sites for World Cup ’99 teams.
