First Gold Cup for Women Has a Familiar Look
That 1-2-3 finish by the United States, China and Brazil in last summer’s Women’s World Cup could be repeated this summer at the first CONCACAF Women’s Gold Cup.
The eight-nation tournament June 23-July 3 will feature the world champion American team, the runner-up Chinese making their first return to the U.S. since their penalty-kicks loss to Brandi Chastain and company at the Rose Bowl, and the bronze-medalist Brazilians.
Also taking part in the event, to be played in Hershey, Pa.; Foxboro, Mass.; and Louisville, Ky., are Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The U.S. will play Trinidad and Tobago at Hershey on June 23, Costa Rica in Louisville on June 25 and Brazil at Foxboro on June 27.
The tournament semifinals will be played July 1 in Louisville, with the championship game at Foxboro on July 3.
Coach April Heinrichs will gather the U.S. team at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista on Monday, as 30 players begin two months of residency in preparation for the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
Next on the calendar for the American women is the NIKE U.S. Women’s Cup in Portland on May 5 and 7. Also taking part are Canada, Mexico and South Korea.
THE AMERICAN WAY
There was an interesting comment made by Per Ravn Omdal of Norway recently that shows just how much impact American sports leagues have overseas.
Omdal, a UEFA vice president, said European soccer’s governing body will try to emulate the way U.S. professional sports operate.
“We have been perceived as being cold, caring only about profits and weak in terms of public relations and communications,” he said.
“We have taken a huge look at the way we do what we do and why we do it, and we have to become more aggressive, more politically astute and work more in tandem with FIFA, with whom we perhaps have been in competition and conflict too many times in the past.
“We have looked at the way other sporting bodies like the NFL, the NHL and the NBA conduct themselves and hopefully have followed the best examples of what they do.”
TWO LOSSES
Soccer lost two of its more colorful figures in the past week with the deaths in Brazil and England, respectively, of Moacir Barbosa and Wilf Mannion.
Barbosa, 79, died in Praia Grande near Sao Paulo, one month after saying he had been condemned to a virtual life in prison for his goalkeeping mistake at the 1950 World Cup.
“Brazilian law doesn’t permit a sentence of more than 30 years, but I’ve been in prison for 50 years now,” he said, explaining the animosity directed at him for allowing Uruguay to score with 11 minutes remaining in the 1950 World Cup final.
Brazil would have won the world championship with a tie, but lost, 2-1, in front of more than 200,000 fans at Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro when Chico Ghiggia’s shot slipped between Barbosa’s legs. Brazil had to wait another eight years and for the arrival of Pele to win its first World Cup.
The bitter memory lingered. As recently as the 1994 World Cup in the U.S., Barbosa tried to visit Brazilian goalkeeper Taffarel but was denied entry to the team’s quarters.
Mannion, who died at 81, was one of the many gifted players on England’s national team in the years immediately before and after World War II.
A forward with exceptional dribbling skills, he played alongside such greats as Sir Stanley Matthews, Tommy Lawton, Sir Tom Finney and Stan Mortensen.
He made his debut for Middlesbrough as a 17-year-old in 1936 and spent 20 years with the club. In 26 games for England, he never was on a losing team.
After one match in which England trounced Italy, 4-0, in Turin, Matthews said of Mannion: “Wilf could make the ball talk.”
QUICK PASSES
Galaxy and U.S. national team defender Greg Vanney will be featured on ESPN2’s “Worldwide Soccer” at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. The program will air again at 11:30 p.m. Thursday. Host Rob Stone also will interview players and coaches from the U.S. women’s national team in the wake of its 0-0 tie with Iceland. . . . Sebastiao Lazaroni, the former coach of Vasco da Gama in Brazil and Fiorentina in Italy, has taken over from Rene Simoes as coach of Jamaica’s national team. . . . One of the most striking images to grace the European Championship in Belgium and the Netherlands June 10-July 2 will be a 450-foot picture of Dutch midfielder Edgar Davids seemingly bursting through a Rotterdam office building in pursuit of a ball seen crashing into an adjacent building. The artwork will encompass 4,500 panels and take six weeks to complete.
The $760-million redevelopment of Wembley Stadium in London, which is to be razed and rebuilt starting in September, faces possible delays after local government agencies demanded $48 million more in road and rail improvements. . . . Brazilian forward Ronaldo has re-injured his knee and will be sidelined for eight more months, missing the Sydney Olympic Games. . . . Referee Sandra Hunt of Bellingham, Wash., is the lone American selected to officiate soccer games at the 2000 Olympics. Other CONCACAF-area referees selected are Peter Prendergast (Jamaica), Felipe Ramos Rizo (Mexico) and Sonia Denoncourt (Canada). Three assistant referees named are Vladimir Fernandez (El Salvador), Michael Ragoonath (Trinidad and Tobago) and Jacqueline Saez (Panama).
