Women’s World Cup should wake up administrators
I wouldn’t say it was one of the greatest moments in soccer.
And I wouldn’t say it was one of the greatest moments in women’s sport.
Because Brandi Chastain’s winning penalty in the final of the 1999 Women’s World Cup is much more than that. It’s one of the greatest moments in all sport.
Back then you could be forgiven for not knowing the tournament existed. Only two Women’s World Cups had been held before the ’99 edition and we were still getting the hang of using Internet to find news about subjects that weren’t frequently mentioned in the papers and on television.
Interest in the tournament was growing in that year’s host nation, the United States. Three years earlier, when the Olympic games were held in Atlanta, the broadcasting network cut to men’s gymnastics when the US women’s team was about to win the gold medal match.
Fortunately there were no distractions in 1999. The US team was rapidly gaining fans across the country and an estimated 40 million Americans watched the final against China.
There were 90,000 in the Rose Bowl too and, on a hot afternoon, neither side could find a goal in two gruelling hours of play. Penalty kicks would decide.
One of China’s five penalties was saved and the Americans converted their first four. Brandi Chastain walked to the spot knowing she’d win the World Cup if she scored.
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There’s always a subplot. For Chastain, it was failing to score a penalty in a game (which the US lost) against China earlier in the year. This time her coach told her to take the penalty with her left foot; something she’d never done in a competitive match.
Despite that, her kick was unsaveable. The ball passed just a few centimetres inside the post on its way into the net.
And then Chastain showed the world what it meant.
She whipped her shirt off, spun and dropped to her knees, arms aloft (watch the penalty above).
In America, Chastain is still recognised in public. It’s mostly because of that penalty and subsequent media appearances but she wasn’t a one-hit wonder. She played nearly 200 matches for the US over 16 years and was part of two World Cup winning teams and three Olympic gold medal winning teams. And all that after having both of her knees reconstructed.
The footage and the photos of Chastain’s moment woke much of the rest of the world up to the women’s game too.
If the Women’s World Cup still needed to win fans when the 2011 tournament was played in Germany, another memorable chapter in sporting history helped its cause.
Few observers expected the Japanese to triumph. Indeed, a year earlier, they had only managed to reach the semi-finals of the Women’s Asian Cup (won by Australia).
In the quarter-finals, Japan faced defending champion Germany, forced the game to extra time, and then found a winning goal which eliminated the host nation and stunned everyone following the tournament. After a win over Sweden, Japan would be the underdog again in the final against the US.
The US took the lead twice but the spirited Japanese scored equalising goals just before full time and in the dying minutes of extra time. They then won on penalties.
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Successes of this sort are invariably emotional but a few months earlier Japan had been struck by the devastating earthquake and tsunami which killed 16,000 people and left many more homeless. It brought the Japanese team closer together and gave them something to play for – something greater than a trophy.
With such rich recent history, the 2015 Women’s World Cup, which kicks off in Canada on Saturday, has been eagerly anticipated.
It will be a test for Australia’s Matildas, particularly as they’ve been drawn into a tough group with the US, Sweden and Nigeria.
They’ve been well prepared with matches in New Zealand in February followed by a long tour in Europe.
But it’s unlikely they’ll surpass their best World Cup performances to date – reaching the quarter-finals in 2007 and 2011.
The women’s game still faces many challenges in Australia despite growing interest and surging participation. Our national competition, the W-League, has a short season and is currently without a broadcaster after the ABC discontinued its television coverage.
Here in South Australia, the challenges are even greater. The Adelaide United team in the W-League is a perennial struggler. None of the 23 women in the Matildas’ World Cup squad are from Adelaide and only one played for United last season.
Some local female players remain concerned about the structures that are in place for younger girls. Results in this season’s Women’s Premier League support those concerns as, on average, the under 15 team run by SA’s Football Federation is conceding nearly 10 goals a match.
No doubt more funds are needed – no doubt that’s not the only problem.
Perhaps this World Cup will provide inspiration not just for female players in Australia but also for people running the game.
For once exposure won’t be a problem. Every match in the month-long tournament will be live on free to air television.
And as previous Women’s World Cups have shown, it’ll definitely be worth watching.
Paul Marcuccitti’s soccer column is published in InDaily on Mondays. He is a co-presenter of 5RTI’s Soccer on 531 program which can be heard from 11am on Saturdays.
