So lets fast forward to 2091. I'm sorry to say perhaps most of us might not be around but I was wondering, do you think the 99'ners will continue to be legendary until they die into their 80s and 90s?
Agreed. I think this trend of the '99ers becoming slightly less "legendary" in the grand scheme of things has already started with the victory in the 2015 WWC. They will always have an important place in the team's history, as will the '15ers, but as Wambach seemed to remind fans as she retired, history doesn't drive the game forward. I'm hoping that by 2091 the stars above the U.S. crest will take up more space than the crest itself.
Technically I suppose the '91ers would be the "1st generation". I feel like they're so often forgotten, partially because when they won, professional women's soccer was in its infancy, and the FIFA Women's World Cup was called the 1st FIFA World Championship for Women's Football for the M&Ms Cup. They may not have captured the imagination of the country/world they way the '99ers did, but nevertheless they were the first U.S. team to ever capture the title, and regardless of how many other World Cups the U.S. wins, they will always have that distinction.
There are several reasons why they receive little recognition compared to the '99ers. First, the tournament was in China, not the USA, and it garnered minimal tv viewership. Second, the crowds in '91 were inflated by Chinese commands to local factory workers to attend. The massive crowds in the USA were of people who actually wanted to go. And, achieving those crowds for a women's sporting event, even if primarily when the USA played, was historic and to then unprecedented (other than the USA itself in the semis and finals of the '96 Olympics). Third, the play was not as good, there were fewer good teams (Brazil was not in '91 what it was in '99, and Nigeria made a splash in '99), the tournament was not called the Women's World Cup and the games were only 80 minutes. It was not as "real" a sport as it was in '99. Fourth, six starters and one reserve in '91 were starters in '99. So, there was considerable overlap of the players. It was not a group of newbies in '99. Fifth, the '99 team set a TV viewing record for a soccer game in this country, not just a women's soccer game. And, that record was no fluke; it stood for 15 years (until the '14 WC final eclipsed it, in turn eclipsed by the '15 WWC final, restoring the title of largest TV audience for a soccer game to a women's team's game). That is something that no other team sport has achieved. Sixth, the publicity that the '99 team generated was nearly infinitely greater than that of the '91 team. This included repeated references on Letterman, one of the players appearing in an ad with Michael Jordan (something only two male athletes achieved) and one player making the cover of Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated and People the same week (NOBODY else in ANY realm of life has done that). Seventh, the winning goal in '91 came off a defensive blunder by the losing team. Though I hate penalties as a tie-breaker, at least the winning one in '99 was textbook perfect, unstoppable even by Sergio Goycochea.
forever debatable. 100,000+ screaming partisan fans in the stands and millions watching...you're gonna make that call?
It's against the rule still. Even Scurry herself admitted it. The USWNT played better than China especially in the 90 mins, but that moment was still talked a lot.
shall we start listing most rules that are regularly bent on the highest levels? wasn't gonna happen...and wasn't going to be saved.
No. It should not have. Claudio Taffarel also moved before saving the fourth Italian shooter, Daniele Massaro, in the 1994 WC final. Nobody ever said that one should have been re-taken. Scurry was entitled to have the same standard applied to her as he was in the men's final. It's one of the points I drove home in my book. Shortstops not touching the bag, traveling calls by NBA players and, yes, movement off the line by goalkeepers are routinely not called. Singling out Scurry is unfair, particularly after Taffarel doing so was ignored.
I wasn't going to comment because its old news, but the discussion just keeps going on. Both goalkeepers moved off the line, not just Scurry. Its something that is seen very often on penalty kicks, I'd say 70-80% of the time. Most of the time it is deemed trifling by the referee. If in the opinion of the referee it is trifling (and the line for that varies somewhat by referee, by level of play, and many other factors), then s/he will not call it. For players, testing and finding where the line is for trifling for a referee in any given game is part and parcel of gamesmanship (You see it all the time as players test how far they can go on little bumps or pulls on jerseys.) The laws of the game are not meant to be enforced in black-and-white terms; they are somewhat up to interpretation (that's why they're called laws and not rules) and many of them fall under the category of "in the opinion of the referee." That's one of the beautiful things about the beautiful game, imo. In the opinion of that referee in that game, it was trifling and that's really all there is to it. A different referee on a different game may very well have called it differently. A different referee may have called it on the first kick and may have called it against Gao, and the result may have been completely different. It may have still ended up the same. But we can't know that; why continue to debate it?
Brandi Chastain will donate her brain to science in the hopes of learning more about CTE and how it may affect women. https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...7affac-e0d3-11e5-8c00-8aa03741dced_story.html
By 2091, it will be Papua New Guinea, Martinique, Hawaiian Islands, and North Pole, that will be Legendary. Tonga will also be a force, but their best run won't come until a few years after the 22nd century beings.
She thinks we should beat France 7-0, since her team used to beat them by that much about 25 years ago.