Flat-Out Fantastic

We've already won," declared Hank Steinbrecher, the general secretary of U.S. Soccer, even before the American women's team's draining, dramatic penalty-kick shoot-out win over China on Saturday, "no matter what the score is going to be." But when defender Brandi Chastain blasted the team's fifth penalty kick past Chinese goalkeeper Gao Hong after 120 scoreless minutes, including two overtime periods, the American put a fitting exclamation point on a summer of soccer that had swept the nation off its feet. And then, before more than 90,000 screaming fans, including President Clinton, she whipped off her shirt in celebration--hey, her name is Chastain, not Chaste. "I felt very confident," she said of the kick (though that statement could easily apply more broadly). "My team trusted me."

This sweet, sweet victory was very much an act of faith--not the end of a game so much as of a crusade. The U.S. women were good, they were good looking, and they were on a mission to prove that women's team sports, and soccer in particular, deserve the same kind of attention, admiration and money that the guys' get. "I grew up watching Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, men I could never emulate," says Julie Foudy, the thoughtful, funny midfielder who leads the team in quotes. "Girls need role models." The goal of Women's World Cup is no less than the establishment of a women's professional league to create those role models, a strategy similar to one the men used to launch Major League Soccer after the phenomenally successful 1994 men's World Cup, also held in the U.S.

The women's final on Saturday had a look that observers of the men's game found familiar: a taut, defensive contest that tightens leg muscles, turns feet into anchors and transforms a 116-yd. by 72-yd. field into a postage stamp. At their own end, the Americans completely snuffed out the Chinese offense, allowing scoring star Sun Wen precious little room to maneuver. At midfield, Michelle Akers, a 33-year-old orthopedic disaster, made her last World Cup game a memorable one. On defense, she owned the air, hurling herself at anything round that moved--a recklessness that would force her out of the game near the end of regulation time, when she crashed into goalie Briana Scurry. "Akers is one of the greatest women athletes in history," said U.S. coach Tony DiCicco. "Michelle Akers inspires me."

Late in a nerve-racking overtime, the U.S. sensed its moment and pressed the Chinese defense, but it would not break, denying a frenzied crowd a sudden-death triumph. And China almost stole the match away in the final minutes, when Fan Yunjie's header off a corner kick was cleared off the line by Kristine Lilly.