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| Friday, September 14, 2001 24:18 EST |
Scoreless draw with Iceland: foreshadowing?
By Jamie Trecker
[Special to ESPN.com]
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Was there anyone who didn't expect the USA to overwhelm Iceland? Probably not; after all, even the local paper noted that the reserves had done a number on this team behind closed doors to the tune of 8-0. What surprised me, in fact, wasn't the effort, or the new formation. No, it was the fact that the local paper actually knew that the team had won a closed-door game. Not only that, the paper in question, the Charlotte Observer, even noted that this wasn't exactly a testing matchup for the American women.
Boy, was everyone in for a shock.
The USA was clearly the better team, but this 0-0 result -- the first scoreless draw the Americans had played to since the Women's World Cup final against China -- was a virtual replay of a certain match vs. Holland last year in Milwaukee when the USA was held by a team playing a 1-9 formation for the better
part of an hour until the floodgates were opened in the last half hour. This time, the gates stayed shut.
"This was one of those games where when you get the goal, the game opens up," said Sara Whalen, who watched the game from the press box because of a thigh injury. "The keeper [Thora Helgadottir] is really stuffing them.
"The Olympics are going to be exciting," Whalen continued, "because there are so many teams who now want to just kill us."
And how.
This is a sea change from even a year ago, when the Americans could hardly find a decent opponent to save themselves. Now, programs all over the globe are ramping up to take on the champs, and even a comparatively meaningless friendly such as this one will have major ramifications. Last year, a
team such as Iceland wouldnąt have crossed the halfway line. Saturday night, they got off a few shots, even forcing keeper Siri Mullinix to make a save. Horrors!
The changes in attitude toward the women are reflected in the press as well: last time we checked, the average local feature about the Americans might include a riff on a player's hair (Alexi Lalas, Frankie Hejduk and Cobi Jones have all tasted this on the men's side) or would be filled with lukewarm platitudes that signaled the author had little idea what event he or she was writing about. That's long been a disease infecting coverage of women's sports in general -- while we supposedly want the ladies to hit hard on the field, many journalists are loathe to hit hard in print, for fear
of coming off as, well, I'm not sure, but it's probably politically incorrect to even reference it.
It's the clearest sign of the lasting legacy of the Women's World Cup; now the women's team is considered to be the leaders of the entirety of women's sports and as such, able to handle some slings and arrows. That said, people at U.S. Soccer probably had to take pause in the fact that even with
such astute coverage -- and they got plenty of it down here -- that the American soccer family still seems to be much thinner than we've been led to believe.
Despite being the leaders, the women were only able to attract 10,315 to Saturday night's game at Ericsson Stadium, or about one-third of what the men -- who no one in their right mind would consider leaders of their sport at the world level -- are capable of drawing. That said, last year at this time in Tampa
the team was only able to draw about 2,500 fans; a four-fold increase is nothing to sniff at.
Why is this? Is it because the fans of the women's team are a distinct group, separate from sports fans in general? Maybe -- at the Orioles game I attended the night before in Baltimore, the stands were filled with families and young kids of the same ilk I see at soccer matches. Yet those families made up a crowd that was 39,000 strong -- and this was to see a team that, frankly, has lots of questions to answer and another (Detroit) which is hardly a marquee drawing card, especially when Juan Gonzalez doesnąt play.
Is it because soccer remains an underground sport? Perhaps -- but this team was the recipient of some of the best publicity I've ever seen given to a side; has the bloom fallen off the rose that fast?
Or is it because soccer fans are finally getting savvy, and know that a match featuring Iceland probably isn't going to be real good? Maybe, but if thatąs the case, it raises the larger question of how you grow the game worldwide. The women cannot play Norway or China every game, a la the Harlem
Globetrotters; at some point, you have to develop credible opponents, and that's what these games are for.
My take is that the answer involves all three factors, and that raises further questions in my mind about the viability of a women's professional league. At present, the American women -- as a unit -- are the best in the world. But split them up and the larger picture will be exposed; that they are
an elite in a sea of players who are average at best. I worry that those games will resemble the hack-and-pull MLS style many fans have already seen and rejected -- only at a slower pace.
Right now, of course, the real issue on the front burner is the Olympics, and the women's team remains solid. They are playing a smoother style, experimenting with shape, and coach April Heinrichs is rightly giving some younger players a shot. On Saturday, Lorrie Fair, Aly Wagner and Christie Welsh
all impressed as the team slithered through a 3-4-3 that compressed the field neatly into about a 60-yard area. They couldn't convert their chances, but they had plenty.
Iceland showed something as well: even the best team in the world can't score when there are 10 players in the box. Who wants to bet that other teams take note of this before Sydney?
Notes
Mia Hamm collided headfirst with a sideline board late in the first half, seemingly knocking the U.S. star unconscious for several seconds. Hamm returned to the game, apparently unscathed ... Julie Foudy sat out the match due to a minor groin strain.
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