Top 100 momentsNo. 15
The penalty that launched a team
The U.S. women win the World Cup at the Rose Bowl. Brandi Chastain’s kick — and the crowd of 90,000 — tell a country that the women’s game is not a sideshow.
The 1999 Women’s World Cup final fills the Rose Bowl. Ninety thousand people. A country that had treated women’s soccer as a nice story treats it, for one month, as a big one. The United States and China go to penalties. Brandi Chastain hits the last one, pulls off her shirt, and kneels in a black sports bra. The picture runs everywhere.
Mia Hamm, Michelle Akers, Briana Scurry — the 99ers — become the argument for a professional league, for equal pay, for the next girls who will fill youth clubs because they saw that stadium.
The league will stumble. The pay fight will last decades. The image does not. A packed Rose Bowl and a penalty kick told American sports that the women’s game could sell out the building if you bothered to open the doors.