Flat-Out Fantastic

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So it went to a penalty-kick shoot-out, which soccer players dread. The pressure is enormous, the consequences huge and the shoot-out no real indicator that the best team won. "There are two champions here," noted coach DiCicco diplomatically after the match. "There is only one taking the World Cup home." But the shoot-out is soccer's tie breaker: 12 yds. out, shooter against keeper, with the odds overwhelmingly against the keeper. That was true of the first four penalty kicks. On China's third shot, however, Scurry stepped forward, guessed left and threw herself in that direction, where she met Liu Ying's kick. "I just went totally on instinct," she said. "I knew if I could get one, it would be O.K." The crowd erupted and, after Lilly's left-footer beat Chinese goalie Gao, sensed something big was about to happen. China's next two shooters, Zhang Ouying and Sun, calmly found their marks, leaving it all up to Chastain, who had committed a huge gaffe against Germany in the quarterfinals when she scored in her own net. This time she found the right one, prompting the spontaneous strip. "Momentary insanity, nothing more, nothing less," she explained. "I wasn't thinking about anything. I thought, My God, this is the greatest moment of my life on a soccer field! I just lost my head."

Even before Chastain's heroics, something magical had been brewing for this team as the tournament progressed. As the NHL and NBA playoffs came and went--Dallas and San Antonio, remember them?--this was the one sports story that continued to build like a thunderstorm.

Four years ago in Sweden, the American team was dismissed in the semifinals before a scant 3,000 souls. In the days before last week's final, nearly that many fans were showing up to watch the team practice, and the players needed police escorts to make their way off the field. Foudy described this spring's frenzied postgame autograph sessions as a "Beatles-concert-slash-slumber-party." Teenagers, boys and girls, have besieged them, and several of the players tell stories of girls' breaking into tears upon receiving an autograph--or just getting near team members. "It's showing little girls that they have something to look up to if they want to play sports," said Rashad Brown, 32, of Hacienda Heights, Calif., as he led his three daughters--a future midfield perhaps--toward the Rose Bowl for the final. Said his wife Margarita: "Before, we never had this kind of support for a women's event. It's great for our daughters to see such a large crowd supporting a women's event."

Make no mistake: this is a campaign that has been carefully managed and almost perfectly marketed by the Women's World Cup Organizing Committee and such team and event sponsors as Nike, Gatorade, Adidas and Bud Light. Each of the games has been televised and accompanied by ingenious advertising.

Marla Messing, CEO of the organizing committee, had persuaded soccer's mostly male pooh-bahs at the Federation Internationale de Football Association to stage the games in big stadiums. Messing knew Americans love big events, but she also sensed that the moment had arrived. "We have established a world-class, world-caliber, stand-alone event for women like none other," she crowed. "In a small way, we have all been a part of history. The sport of women's soccer is growing around the world."