Excerpted from "The National Team: The inside story of the women who changed soccer," by Caitlin Murray. Permissions by Abrams Books.
Only 17 minutes into the opening match of the 1999 Women's World Cup, Mia Hamm scored in a splendid bit of skill. The ball bounced toward her on the right flank, and she tapped it with her right foot, around a Danish defender, onto her left foot, and, off the bounce, fired a half-volleyed shot. It was a powerful blast that hit the roof of the net, and the national team's path to winning the World Cup was firmly underway.
Hamm ran toward the team bench, screaming and pointing her finger in the air until her teammates caught up with her and jumped on her, creating a massive group hug. The players' emotions were bubbling at the surface and, in that moment, it was a release -- equal parts excitement and relief.
From there, the U.S. bulldozed their way through the group stage. After a 3-0 win over Denmark in the opener, they went to Chicago and walloped Nigeria, 7-1, in front of a sellout crowd of 65,080 on June 24, 1999.
By the time the Americans prepared to play North Korea in the final match of the group stage three days later, Shannon MacMillan and Tisha Venturini had jokingly discussed what they might do if they scored. MacMillan scored first in that game. Venturini, who scored next, wanted to do a backflip, but she didn't get the chance.
"I didn't know she was going to do the backflip," MacMillan says. "I assisted her goal, and I jumped on her back before she could do it -- it was just pure adrenaline."
When Venturini scored again a few minutes later, she made sure no one got in the way.
"After her second goal, she waved everybody off and pulled out this crazy flip," MacMillan says. "We were like, 'Where did that come from?' We'd never seen her do that before."
The Americans were having fun, outscoring their group-stage opponents by a whopping 13-1. They easily topped Group A and advanced to the quarterfinals, where they would face one of the best teams in the world: Germany.
That was when the fun stopped.
The German team was one of the world's best, and four years earlier at the 1995 World Cup in Sweden, they had finished as runners-up to Norway.
"We are no more afraid of the Americans than they are of us," said German goalkeeper Silke Rottenberg before the quarterfinal. "We don't want to hide from the Americans."
But it wasn't the Germans who hurt the Americans first -- it was the Americans themselves. Just five minutes into the quarterfinal in Maryland outside of Washington, D.C., defender Brandi Chastain tapped the ball back to Briana Scurry in goal with the German attacking line pressing. But Scurry was already coming out of goal, and the ball rolled right past her, back into the USA's own net.
Chastain remembers: "I thought, I'm just gonna make a simple play and pass it back to Briana Scurry, and Briana was thinking, 'I'll just come out and get the ball and make a simple play', and we didn't communicate."
It was an own goal, and Germany was ahead, 1-0. All of a sudden, on July 1, 1999, the Americans were in danger of being knocked out of the tournament. Chastain instantly blamed herself. But Carla Overbeck, the team's co-captain and the mother of a [then] 2-year-old, wouldn't let that feeling linger.
"That could've been the most awful moment -- and it wasn't great, that's for sure," says Chastain, "but after we raced back to the goal and we got there just too late, it was almost instantaneous that Carla grabs me and says, "Don't worry about it; there's a lot of game left. We're going to win, and you're going to help us."
"Not for one second longer -- and I mean it -- did I think about the fact I just scored an own goal. I never let myself think, 'Oh, my gosh, I just lost the game.' When you trust people and they're there for you in moments like that, you can only feel empowered. Carla empowered me to move forward."
The Americans equalized 10 minutes later when a Michelle Akers shot was deflected and Tiffeny Milbrett fired the loose ball into the net. Chastain's own goal had essentially been canceled out and the two sides were square again.
The first half dragged on, and the Americans felt that if they could get back to the locker room for halftime with the score level, they could win it in the second half. But in stoppage time before the halftime whistle blew, German striker Bettina Wiegmann fired an absolute rocket from some 25 yards out, and a diving Scurry couldn't get a hand on it. The U.S. was down again, 2-1, and it looked like it could be the dagger that ended their World Cup on home soil.
"When the halftime whistle blew, that was the first time I saw panic," remembers midfielder Milbrett, a native of Portland, Oregon. "We didn't panic in terms of, 'Oh, we're going to collapse' -- but, I saw stress like I hadn't seen. It was probably a remembrance of losing in 1995. It was a moment of realization that we could lose."
The Americans came out of the locker room with fight and energy in the second half. They pressed the Germans hard to win the ball back and they were quick in transition, pushing numbers forward to create chances in the attack.
It was only four minutes into the second half when the Americans found another crucial equalizer. And it came from Chastain, who scored by firing a volley in the box. She credits Overbeck with allowing her to be ready to score when the moment arrived.
"I always talk about it in a funny way, like, 'Woo, thank goodness Carla plays for our team.' But she allowed me to be ready for my moment, and that was the moment my team needed," Chastain says. "I just feel like that is one of the most important moments I've had in my life.
"I always say, you're going to make mistakes, so embrace that fact. What are you going to do when that happens? Are you going to quit? That has been my life ever since that moment."
Chastain fell down on the grass after her goal and lay there for a moment with her eyes closed and arms out while her teammates rushed over and piled on top of her. Redemption.
With the score tied at 2-2, a chance for the Americans to move on was there for the taking. MacMillan was watching from the bench, and she noticed that Joy Fawcett wasn't being marked well on set pieces.
"When you're on the bench, that's just one of the hardest places to be, because you can't really affect the game," MacMillan says. "So for me, I was watching the game and realizing Joy's open on the near post. I kept seeing her on the near post -- there was this massive gap."
In the 65th minute, with the game stopped as the Americans lined up for a corner kick, MacMillan came on as a substitute for Julie Foudy. At first, MacMillan thought Milbrett would take the corner kick, but Milbrett waved her over. MacMillan's first touch of the game would be serving a corner kick into the box.
She looked for Fawcett.
"I just knew Joy was going to be there," MacMillan says. "I drilled the ball into that near post and, as soon as it left my foot, I knew."
Fawcett redirected the ball into the goal with her head and the Americans were back on top. MacMillan ran straight to Fawcett for a hug.
Live television cameras caught Bill and Hillary Clinton celebrating the goal in a suite overlooking the field at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium. They laughed as they clapped, almost in disbelief of the USA's tenacity.
"To come off the bench, and have that be my first touch, and get the ball to Joy, who was my rock on the team, I couldn't get to her fast enough to celebrate," MacMillan says. Fawcett, a defender, was, along with Overbeck, the only other mother on the team. Fawcett had two daughters, and she raised them around her teammates, reinforcing the family atmosphere of the national team.
After finishing the job against Germany, the U.S. blew past Brazil in the semifinals, winning 2-0. At the Brazil game, the U.S. women played in front of 73,123 fans, and by the time D.C. United, the men's pro club team, took the field as part of a doubleheader -- an extra measure to ensure the games could attract crowds --- 60,000 people got up and left. It was clear who the crowds had come to see.
With that, the Americans had landed their spot in the final versus China.
The book released in April 2019.
