In 1988 FIFA held a "Women's Invitation Tournament" in China. It was a precursor to the Women's World Cup. There is info about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_FIFA_Women's_Invitation_Tournament In the first round the USA slammed Japan, and then earned draws against Sweden and Czechoslovakia. America was eliminated by Norway in the Quarterfinals. Unfortunately this tournament was not televised in America. But it must have been televised somewhere, so it's possible that tapes of the USA games exist. It would be so interesting to see what the US National Team looked like in the 1980s. If anyone finds tapes of these games, please contact me on my web site: www.DaveBrett.com Thanks! Dave
I have never seen any full matches for this tournament before, but there are a few small highlights. At about the 6:20 mark of this video ..........
The footage in the montage above is taken from: So FIFA has some footage! Not helpful, huh? Yeah, I have no idea, but if you find it, I'd love to see it, especially as this was the first tournament (or maybe second...first could have been the 1987 tournament in Taiwan?) for the young, future stars who came in about that time....would love to see the really young Lilly, Hamm, Biefeld (Fawcett), etc.!
Not sure if it was televised in full at all, pretty sure it wasn't sent here in Sweden anyway. Funny Fact on the Wkipage, the Norwegian players are under Sweden and vice versa, at MF 7 in Norway we have a former US and current Swedish WNT coach (and belive me she nerver played for Norway ).
Sorry for the necropost, but years later, there's this documentary on the 1988 tournament on YouTube (actual highlights!):
And from finding that video on YouTube, I also found that Australia's federation posted their 1988 tournament group game against Brazil on their FB page (it's the full match): https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=466728760806708 I wish more federations would do this for the early games that were likely never televised in the first place. Bring them out of the vault! EDIT: Once you start looking you find more stuff! The USSF also has a report on the US-Japan group stage match from the tournament (includes some highlight footage), comparing the scoreline to the 2015 WWC final.