Women’s World Cup 2019: Remembering the 1999 USWNT victory

Twenty years ago, a group of American women captivated a global audience. Let’s look back at the 1999 USWNT and their run to the World Cup title.

The image that sticks in most people’s mind from the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup is the shot of Brandi Chastain, jersey in hand, sports bra exposed to the world. That image, taken as Chastain celebrated her successful penalty kick past Chinese goalkeeper Gao Hong, captured the exact moment when the U.S. women’s national team officially claimed the World Cup over China in a tense shootout after two hours of scoreless play.

Splashed across general-interest magazines like Time and Newsweek and newspapers across the country, it also graced the cover of Sports Illustrated and proved to be one of the most iconic photos to ever grace it. It is an image that expresses unabashed joy, a spontaneous celebration that sparked plenty of controversy.

Speaking to the BBC more than a decade after the fact, Chastain reflected on that moment. “There’s always going to be someone who says, ‘Why did you do that? That’s disrespectful.’ I was grateful for those comments because it gave me a new platform to express myself about what sport has given me,” Chastain told BBC reporter Alison Gee in July 2014.

“There’s something primal about sport that doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Chastain continued. “When you have a moment like scoring a winning goal in the World Cup championship, you are allowed to release this feeling, this emotion, this response that is not elicited anywhere else.”

But that championship was about more than one moment of celebration. As the U.S. women’s national team prepares to defend their FIFA Women’s World Cup title from four years ago, they do so amidst the backdrop of the 20th anniversary of the USWNT’s second World Cup victory. The event itself continues to fade in the rearview mirror of history, but its legacy continues to loom large over women’s sport in the United States.

Winning on home soil was never going to be easy, even if it was expected.

The history of the World Cup, for both women and men, is riddled with stories of host nations on the hook to produce results for the local fan base. Uruguay won the tournament on home soil in the inaugural edition of the World Cup, reinforcing its position as the world’s best team after Olympic gold medals in 1924 and 1928. Four years later, the Italians hosted the tournament and brought in South American reinforcements to bolster their chances of winning at home.

When the Americans hosted the men’s version of the World Cup in 1994, there was little expectation that the U.S. men’s national team would make a deep run in the tournament. Their surprising upset of Colombia, coming thanks to the ultimately-fatal own goal of Andrés Escobar, allowed the USMNT to pass through to the Round of 16 where they bowed out to eventual champions Brazil by a respectable 1-0 scoreline. But nobody ever seriously thought the Americans had a real chance to even replicate the semifinal run of their team from 1930.

Five years later, as the U.S. prepared to host the third women’s edition of the World Cup, the USWNT had far higher expectations heaped upon their shoulders. Coming on the heels of winning the Olympic soccer tournament in the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, interest in the exploits of the American women were at a peak. With the tournament in the United States and televised in its entirety on ESPN and ESPN2, even casual American fans had the opportunity to follow along with ease as the story progressed.

For a teenager growing up in Wyoming, that was an unprecedented treat. I was 11 when the U.S. hosted the men’s tournament in 1994, had sponged up all the coverage from the expanded tournament in France four years later and had developed a full-blown fanaticism around soccer by the time I received my driver’s license.

What made 1999 so exciting for me was that I, along with so many other Americans, finally had a chance to see what the women’s game was all about. It was a revelatory experience, watching women get the same experience as the men on the global stage and for a global audience.

My parents probably still have the VHS recordings I diligently made of every match, whether or not it featured the USWNT. I was spellbound by the event, watching the recordings in the evenings after my summer work shifts were done. In those days, for better or worse, there wasn’t much chance that someone would dish out a spoiler on the score of a women’s soccer match.

The most exciting matches, though, always featured the Americans.

Even as a teenager, I was at a point where I was questioning the significance of national identity. American political actions rarely mirrored my own worldview, a trend that has only intensified as I have grown into adulthood. I was a debater, with access to periodicals from around the globe, and I was constantly questioning the validity of the standard patriotic narrative whether at home or abroad.

There was something about that USWNT roster that was just too dominant to ignore, regardless of the color of their uniforms or the nationality they represented. A 3-0 demolition of Denmark in the opening match could have easily ended in a scoreline twice as large. In the following match, Nigeria actually pilfered an early lead in the second minute but never had any chance as they sustained a 7-1 blowout. Another 3-0 victory over North Korea sealed the USWNT a spot in the quarterfinals.

Things tightened up once the stakes increased to a one-off opportunity to advance or drop out of the tournament. Five minutes into the match against the Germans in the quarterfinals, Brandi Chastain scored an own goal that gave the visitors to the nation’s capital an early lead.

Tiffeny Milbrett tied the match in the 19th minute, but Germany went ahead 2-1 at the intermission after Bettina Wiegmann scored a go-ahead goal in stoppage time. After halftime, Chastain atoned for her own goal with a 49th-minute equalizer and Joy Fawcett put the Americans through to the final four in the 66th minute.

Brazil loomed in the semifinals on the Fourth of July. The South Americans drew the Americans after their 4-3 takedown of Nigeria in extra time. With Sissi on a scoring surge that saw her pot seven goals in the first four matches, and an attack that also featured stars such as Pretinha, Kátia and Cidinha, the USWNT knew they would have their hands full at Stanford Stadium.

But Briana Scurry foisted every Brazilian attempt, and the Americans went through to the final thanks to goals from Cindy Parlow and Michelle Akers. What looked to be a possibly formidable roadblock proved a relatively straightforward passage through to the final.

A Chinese juggernaut awaited the USWNT in Pasadena.

The 1999 World Cup final, played before more than 90,000 fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, offered an opportunity for China to get a second chance to deprive the USWNT of a world title on home soil. Three years earlier, the Chinese women challenged the Americans in Atlanta, drawing 0-0 in the group stage before losing 2-1 in the Olympic gold medal match. They came to Pasadena even more formidable than the still-developing side that was already good enough back in 1996 to earn silver on the Olympic stage.

Sun Wen had dominated the tournament up to that point, scoring a hat trick in China’s second match against Ghana and a brace in the 3-1 win over Australia to cap a perfect group stage. She walked away from the tournament with the Golden Ball as the top player of the World Cup, and shared the Golden Boot with Sissi, as they each finished with seven goals apiece.

Just as had been the case in their knockout showdowns with Germany and Brazil, the USWNT entered the match against China heavily favored by the crowd but well-matched on the pitch. The largest crowd ever to witness a women’s soccer match to that point was heavily partisan, as the country’s second World Cup win of the 1990s was within reach. Newfound fans of the team flocked from around the country to the Arroyo Seco, shadowed by the San Gabriel Mountains, to a venue better known for its place in college football history than as a hub of the soccer world.

Both teams kept the match scoreless, as goalkeepers Gao Hong and Briana Scurry prevented every attempt on goal from crossing the line. Through two 15-minute periods of extra time, the scoreboard remained all zeroes. Thus the stage was set for a penalty shootout and Chastain’s memorable finish. That last kick, however, would have been inconsequential if not for what was truly the most iconic moment of the 1999 World Cup final.

Scurry stared down Liu Ying on China’s third penalty kick of the shootout. Clairvoyantly calling her stop aloud, Scurry dove left and lunged to stop the kick. It was the only one of the 10 attempts that failed to fly over the line and into the netting.

If not for that save, Chastain’s moment at the spot would have been merely to extend the penalty kicks to a sixth round. Instead, the goalkeeper’s heroics proved the set-up for the iconic moment that was to follow five kicks later.

Those moments continue to shape the perception of women’s soccer.

Twenty years later, those moments remain indelibly imprinted onto the collective memory of American soccer fans and shape the way every subsequent USWNT roster has been viewed, whether in the context of the World Cup or in other major tournaments such as the Olympics.

What the 99ers did for the sport was set up an expectation of success that was well within the national reach. Until 2015, however, meeting that expectation of ultimate victory proved unattainable through three World Cup tournaments. Dropping out in the semifinals in 2003 and 2007, the Americans made it to the finals in 2011 but fell in penalties to Japan.

While they swept Olympic gold in 2004, 2008 and 2012, they were unable to replicate those results on the biggest stage for the sport. 2015 changed that narrative, as a new generation of women who were raised on the legends of the 1999 team finally ascended to the top rung of the World Cup hierarchy. Avenging the 2011 loss to Japan, Carli Lloyd struck a hat trick in the first 16 minutes of the match and the USWNT once again looked like the most dominant crew in the world.

Now the 2019 team has two reference points against which they will be measured in France — their own brilliance in Canada four years ago, and the long shadow of the 1999 team that remains the benchmark against which all subsequent USWNT iterations will be measured for time immemorial.