Still Making the Most of Good Thing
Forget that battery-powered rabbit on television. The ones who really keep on going and going and going are the five veterans on the U.S. women’s national soccer team.
One of them, Brandi Chastain, tried to explain the other day just what it is that keeps her and teammates Joy Fawcett, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly at the peak of their game more than 14 years after they made their respective debuts for the U.S.
“If you look at the names on the U.S. roster, we’ve got Heather O’Reilly, who is 17 years old,” Chastain said. “I’ve got to chase her around the field. So that’s how I keep my excitement and my edge.
“There are a lot of young players out there who would just be thrilled with the opportunity to participate on the national team level. My job is to make sure they don’t take it.”
Age has nothing to do with it. Ability and experience are everything.
Chastain and Fawcett are 34; Foudy and Lilly are 31. Hamm, at 30, is the baby of the group. Between them, the “famous five” have played 1,030 games for the U.S. since 1987 and have won two world championships, Olympic gold and silver medals, and countless other titles and honors.
But it is more than the clink of medals that keeps them competing.
“I’ve always loved the game,” Chastain said. “I’ve said a hundred times before, when I go out onto the field I feel younger. I have my best friends out there with me and we’re all trying to challenge ourselves to reach one ultimate goal, and that’s to win the World Cup.”
Today, the five set out on that quest for the fourth time. The eight-nation CONCACAF Women’s Gold Cup that begins today at the Rose Bowl is also the qualifying tournament for the fourth FIFA Women’s World Cup, to be played in China from Sept. 24 to Oct. 11, 2003.
The U.S. does not qualify automatically as defending champion. It must earn its place, and that means getting past Mexico today, Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday at Cal State Fullerton and Panama on Saturday at Safeco Field in Seattle.
That will get the Americans to the semifinals, where another victory in Seattle would clinch a place in the Gold Cup final at the Rose Bowl on Nov. 9 and, more important, one of the three World Cup berths allotted to the North and Central American and Caribbean (CONCACAF) region.
Coach April Heinrichs, a standout player on the U.S. team that won the first world championship in China in 1991, relies on her veterans but has selected a balanced 18-player roster that is deep.
“Our mantra in selecting rosters is [to] pick the best 18, not the 18 best players,” she said. “We want to pick the group that works best together, bearing in mind tactical combinations, positional combinations and systems of play.
“Experience is the single most important quality that a player has. You can’t fake it. You can’t wish it on a player. You can’t will it. When a player has it, she knows it, and when she plays as an experienced player, you see a calmness and a composure and confidence from that player.
“The thing that’s most exciting about our roster is we have experience and we have youthfulness. We have young professionals and young pups and we have wise women who have been around, who have been in every conceivable scenario in the game of soccer and have the all-knowing belief that at the end of the day if they’re on the field they can help us win.”
The question remains, why stick around so long? Why not retire at the top?
“I’ve heard other athletes asked that,” Chastain said. “Michael Jordan, why do you continue to play? Jerry Rice, why do you continue to play?
“I think it’s something that you love. It’s a passion that you have. It doesn’t go away just because you win championships. Every day is a challenge. Every year there’s a different obstacle.”
And so today Chastain will step again onto the Rose Bowl turf, the same turf where four years ago she experienced her defining moment as an athlete when she fired that game-winning penalty kick past Chinese goalkeeper Gao Hong to regain the Women’s World Cup for the U.S.
Chastain’s reaction became the photographic image of the tournament, and indeed of women’s sports in general, as she ripped off her jersey and knelt on the grass, arms upraised in triumph.
A year from now, she and the rest of the famous five hope to provide another picture just like it.
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Women’s Soccer
What: CONCACAF Women’s Gold Cup.
When: Today through Nov. 9.
Where: Pasadena, Fullerton, Seattle and Victoria, Canada.
Who: Group 1: Mexico, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, United States; Group 2: Canada, Costa Rica, Haiti, Jamaica.
Format: Teams play a round robin in the first round, with the top two advancing to the semifinals, where the group winners play the runners-up in the other group.
Favored: The U.S. and Canada are expected to reach the final, with Costa Rica and Mexico contending for third place.
Significance: The two finalists qualify for the 2003 FIFA Women’s World Cup in China. The third-place finisher advances to a playoff against the third-place team in Asia for a World Cup berth.
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SCHEDULE
* Today: Panama vs. Trinidad and Tobago (1 p.m.) and U.S. vs. Mexico (3 p.m.) at the Rose Bowl.
* Tuesday: U.S. vs. Trinidad and Tobago (7 p.m.) and Mexico vs. Panama (9 p.m.) at Cal State Fullerton.
* Wednesday: Costa Rica vs. Jamaica (6 p.m.) and Canada vs. Haiti (8 p.m.) at Victoria, Canada.
* Friday: Haiti vs. Costa Rica (6 p.m.) and Canada vs. Jamaica (8 p.m.) at Victoria, Canada.
* Saturday: Mexico vs. Trinidad and Tobago ( 5 p.m.) and U.S. vs. Panama (7:30 p.m.) at Seattle.
* Nov. 3: Jamaica vs. Haiti (noon) and Canada vs. Costa Rica ( 2 p.m.) at Victoria, Canada.
* Nov. 6: Semifinals (7 and 9:30 p.m.) at Seattle.
* Nov. 9: Third-place game (4:30 p.m.) and final (7 p.m.) at Rose Bowl.
