Top 100 momentsNo. 50
The first Women’s World Cup
FIFA stages a women’s championship in China. The United States win it. A tournament that had been a rumor gets a trophy and a future.
FIFA had delayed, renamed, and hedged. In 1991 the Women’s World Cup is real, in Guangdong, with twelve teams. The United States beat Norway in the final. Michelle Akers scores. The crowds are not Rose Bowl crowds yet. The event exists.
Every later sold-out final is downstream of a tournament that still had to prove it deserved a name. Players who had been exhibitions get a world ranking.
1999 will be the American explosion. 1991 is the birth certificate. Without it there is nothing to explode.