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| Friday, September 14, 2001 24:13 EST |
Founders Cup up for grabs in Foxboro
By Howard Ulman
[Associated Press]
BOSTON -- Brandi Chastain lines up for a penalty kick and
fires it by the goalkeeper to win a major women's soccer title.
It happened at the 1999 World Cup and it could happen again
Saturday.
That's when the first WUSA championship game will be played
between her Bay Area CyberRays and the Atlanta Beat. But there
would be an odd twist.
Atlanta's goalie is Briana Scurry, whose save against China in
the 1999 shootout led to Chastain's winning kick and memorable
celebration when she took off her white jersey, revealing a black
sports bra.
"I'm just glad in '99 I didn't have to shoot against Bri,"
Chastain said Wednesday.
The WUSA built on the celebrity of team members and enthusiasm
generated by the World Cup victory. Twenty members of that team
were distributed among the league's eight franchises.
Each team played 21 regular-season games starting April 14. The
finalists were determined in last Saturday's semifinals when Bay
Area beat New York 3-2, and Atlanta overcame a 2-0 deficit to beat
Philadelphia 3-2 in overtime.
The league MVP is scheduled to be announced Thursday, two days
before Atlanta and Bay Area meet at Foxboro Stadium in another
milestone for women's soccer. The U.S. won the Olympic gold medal
in 1996 and the World Cup in 1999, both with Scurry in goal.
The WUSA title game "is obviously a smaller scale, a smaller
stage, but it's just as important to me," she said. "I want to be
part of the team that wins the first WUSA championship."
Atlanta won the regular-season title with a 10-4-7 record,
although it was tied with Bay Area with 37 points. The Beat were
2-0-1 against the CyberRays.
Chastain doesn't find it unsettling to play against a former
teammate from the U.S. national team.
"We've played against each other so many times in training,"
she said. But after Saturday's game "we all walk away knowing we
were in it together."
There are no plans for expansion next year, although there has
been interest from some cities, WUSA chief executive officer
Barbara Allen said. And players from other countries are eager to
join the league.
"They're knocking at our doors," she said.
The focus now is on Saturday's game and the sterling silver
Founders Cup, unveiled Wednesday, that goes to the winning team.
Chastain and Scurry examined the trophy but, probably out of
superstition, refused to touch it before the game even when a
photographer asked.
"Sorry, ma'am," Chastain said, "ain't going to happen."
On Saturday, one of them will hoist it as a champion.
If it's Chastain, she doesn't know if she'd take off her jersey
again.
"To think about it and conjure something up beforehand would
make it not spontaneous," she said. "This game will produce
another celebration."
The celebrants could be determined by a penalty kick by Chastain
against Scurry.
"We would probably be giggling and wondering what the heck was
going on," Scurry said. "I personally hope it doesn't end that
way, but if it did, it would be ironic, wouldn't it?"
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