Crazy For The Cup

By Bill Saporito

Change the game!" You will often hear that phrase shouted on a soccer field, words that tell the person with the ball to take the play in a different direction. And change the game is exactly what the U.S. team did on Saturday at the opening match of the Women's World Cup. The Americans put on an unprecedented show of girl power before some 79,000 soccer moms and dads and daughters and sons who jammed Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.--the largest crowd ever to watch a women's sporting event. Not only did the stylish Yanks trounce Denmark, 3-0, but the game also proved that women's soccer, and women's team sports, have reached a new level of skill and popularity. "It was awesome," said forward Kristine Lilly, "really awesome," a word that kept bouncing among the U.S. players. "The crowd was absolutely unbelievable," added superstar Mia Hamm. "It was awesome playing in front of 79,000."

The World Cup will be staged over the next three weeks in seven venues: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York/New Jersey, Portland, Ore., San Francisco/San Jose and Washington. The final will be played at the Rose Bowl on July 10. And if the U.S. is playing for the trophy, the 92,542-seat stadium could sell out, setting a new record.

The U.S. squad, led by Hamm and a host of experienced players, ranks as the favorite among the 16 competing nations. Yet defending champion Norway, as well as China or Brazil, could also win the trophy. The U.S. women won the first Cup in China in 1991. Four years later, Norway won the crown in Sweden. But at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the U.S. beat China 2-1 to win the gold--although few viewers got to see that achievement, since NBC gave the game short shrift. ("NBC thinks the world is made up of divers," fumed Hank Steinbrecher, U.S. Soccer's secretary-general.) That won't happen again. All the Women's World Cup games are being televised on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.

Hamm needed only 17 min. to put her mark on Saturday's game. She buried a vicious left-footed shot in the roof of the Danish net after first flicking the ball past a defender with her right. "I was saying to myself, 'You've got to be kidding. I don't score goals like that.'" Apparently, she does.

Three years ago, when the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) began planning this World Cup, it had a modest event in mind, in keeping with its somewhat patronizing view of women's soccer. But Marla Messing, CEO of the Women's World Cup Organizing Committee, who had worked on the highly successful men's 1994 U.S. World Cup, persuaded FIFA to hold the matches in big stadiums in big cities, a strategy that has paid off.

Messing's bold move has caused a revolution in the macho world of global soccer. Europeans, who cheer for female runners and skiers, have disparaged the women's game of football as a dainty imitation of the real thing. But with attitudes changing, and with the Yanks kicking their derrieres, soccer federations in Germany, Denmark and elsewhere have begun pouring money into their women's programs. This time federations have sent advance scouts and brought their teams over early to train.

Right now the women players are not as skilled as the guys, but in many respects their game is just as entertaining and often much more watchable. The U.S. team employs a relentless, attacking style that puts opponents in a vise until they crack. It's a far cry from the men's World Cup, where teams often dam the goalmouth with defenders and play dull, negative, just-don't-lose-it soccer. Nor do the ladies act like the prima-donna strikers who turn the slightest foul into a scene from Tosca. And, blessedly, there is little danger of the field being overrun by beer-sotted English hooligans or other so-called fans. Pack a lunch. Bring the kids. It's O.K.

In the U.S. the soccer world is upside down. The U.S. men finished dead last in the World Cup last year, bickering all the way. In that same year, a record 7.5 million U.S. women and girls registered for soccer teams, just under half of all player registrations. "Part of our mission statement is gender equity, and we've taken it very seriously, investing heavily in the women's game," says Steinbrecher. Cindy Parlow, 21, a slinky striker from Memphis, Tenn., has been in organized soccer since she was four. Like seven of her teammates, she attended the University of North Carolina, a perennial soccer power.

One of those teammates is the 27-year-old Hamm, the reigning queen of footie, who is a household name--if your household has a girl who plays soccer. Hamm shoots Nike ads with Michael Jordan and earns more than $1 million a year in endorsements. She's one of the most recognized athletes in the U.S. One look at Hamm in action will tell you that she shares His Airness's furnace-like competitive fire and focus. But she parts company with him when it comes to her approach to fame. Jordan wears his celebrity comfortably, effortlessly, like a scarf thrown over his shoulders. Hamm finds the garment restricting. She has refused cover shoots for magazines because she doesn't want to steal the spotlight from her teammates. After scoring her record-breaking 108th international goal, against Brazil in May, she told a TV reporter to "get a life" when he asked her how she felt.

Soccer is her comfort zone, a place to lose herself within the team and the game. "Growing up, I was very competitive, and I didn't like to lose," she says. "I was an emotional kid, and sports let me be happy, sad, frustrated, all on one field. It was O.K. to be that." Says Tony DiCicco, the U.S. women's head coach: "You see Mia's true personality come out on the soccer field. Coupled with her athletic ability and talent, when she puts it together, she's a dynamo."

Hamm lurks wide on the wings, waiting patiently for the ball like a burglar casing a jewelry shop. When she gets it, she sets off the defense's alarm bells. Explosively fast, Hamm often outruns the support of her teammates, leaving her to fend off two or three defenders.

But stopping Hamm won't be enough. The U.S. team is deep, many having played together for more than a decade. Defender Joy Fawcett has had two children in her dozen years on the team. During the Cup, Mommy will be off, kicking some butt. The words team chemistry here don't refer to drug tests. "You develop a bond that comes from spending too much time together," laughs Julie Foudy, a.k.a. "Loudy," 28, the motormouth midfielder who is available after practice to provide wicked commentary on her teammates' lives. Foudy sealed the Denmark victory with another left-footed bomb, courtesy of a pass from Hamm, and celebrated by running to the bench and turning in a comic pirouette.

Says midfielder Michelle Akers, 33, a cheerful wreck of a player who is fighting bad knees and chronic fatigue syndrome to win another championship: "We're part of each other's lives. We're in each other's stories." And if the team wins another championship, the stories will only get better.