VANCOUVER, B.C. — Sixteen years after Brandi Chastain buried a penalty kick in Pasadena and showed the world her abs, the United States finally reached the summit of the soccer world again.
How did it happen, you ask?
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It happened faster than a bug goes splat against a windshield. It happened so fast that if you blinked once at the World Cup final in BC Place Stadium, you would’ve missed the first goal by Carli Lloyd. If you blinked a few more times, you would’ve missed her second goal and then her third, a mind-blowing piece of power and precision that came from midfield.
Midfield?
Yes, midfield.
If you are losing count, take heart, because the poor team from Japan probably did, too. By the time the U.S. had a four-goal lead 16 minutes in, the Japanese looked as if they’d been hit by a hibachi.
The aftershocks would continue until long after the U.S.’s 5-2 victory was complete, making the Americans the first team to win three women’s World Cup titles, and reversing the result of four years ago in Germany, where the Japanese scored their only victory over the U.S. in the last three decades, on penalty kicks in the World Cup final.
“A lot of people out in the stands were worried about us, but we all held together. We all stayed the course,” Lloyd said. As for her own performance?
“I’ve dedicated my whole life to this,” she said. “It hasn’t sunk in.”
Sombody asked Jill Ellis, who joins Anson Dorrance (1991) and Tony DiCicco (1999) as the U.S. coaches to win a Cup title, how it felt to be out to such a monstrous lead in the biggest game of her life, doing it against a championship team that had given up three goals in its six previous matches – every one a victory. “Pinch me. Wake me up,” Ellis said.
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The explosion of early goals turned the 52nd and final game of this World Cup into a competitive anticlimax, and made the early-round narrative – “What’s wrong with the U.S. and why does it looks so stagnant offensively?” – seem laughably irrelevant.
All along Ellis preached patience, said that the best games were ahead, invoking her iceberg metaphor. “You guys see the top 10 percent of the iceberg and we’ve got 90 percent under the water. We know what we have in us,” Ellis kept saying, and the final more than vindicated her.
The turning point came when Ellis moved Lloyd right behind Alex Morgan up top in the semifinal victory over Germany, freeing her to attack, with 22-year-old Morgan Brian, the college player of the year out of Virginia, doing yeoman work behind her at holding mid. On Sunday, the raucous, pro-American crowd of more than 53,000 – including Vice President Biden – turned BC Place into one big red, white and blue party, one day after the Fourth of July.
Lloyd’s hat trick – the fastest in World Cup annals – gave her six goals for the tournament, all in the last four games, and made her the runaway choice as the winner of the Golden Ball that goes to the tournament’s best player.
The U.S. pressed Japan right from the whistle, and Lloyd broke through in the third minute, making a knifing run into the box and flicking in Megan Rapinoe’s corner. The fun was just getting started. Lloyd’s second goal came off a free kick after a scrum in front in the sixth minute, and when fellow midfielder Lauren Holiday powered home a volley off a misplay by Japanese defender Azusa Iwashimizu in the 14th minute, you truly couldn’t fathom what was unfolding.
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Nadeshiko – a pink carnation – is the Japanese team’s nickname. The flower was wilting as though it were in Death Valley.
Two minutes later came the wildest development of all, Lloyd getting the ball near midfield, seeing that Japanese keeper Ayumi Kaihori was out of the goal, and then launching a perfectly struck blast that flew over a desperately retreating Kaihori, who was fighting the sun and got a fingertip on it, but not enough to keep it out of the goal.
To its credit, Japan didn’t quit and got a pretty goal in the 27th minute from Yuki Ogimi, ending the U.S. scoreless streak at 540 minutes, and when central defender Julie Johnston headed a ball into the U.S. net early in the second half, you actually began to wonder if this could turn into a game.
“We kept running until the end of the game,” coach Norio Sasaki said, but the final flicker of hope expired when Tobin Heath, U.S. flank midfielder from Basking Ridge, N.J., got a lovely feed from Brian off a corner and side-footed it in, making it Jersey 3, Japan 2 in the 54th minute. The three-goal lead was back and the mission had been accomplished, and in the 79th minute, Abby Wambach came on, the greatest scorer in international soccer history having one last hurrah, and then captain Christie Rampone, 40-year-old mother from the Jersey Shore, had one final spin, too. For the first time in 16 years, since shirtless Chastain and her teammates celebrated the Cup title in Pasadena, the U.S. was back at the summit. That’s how it happened.
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