Tracy's Diary: Part Five
July 22, 1999
One of the biggest benefits of winning the quarterfinals was that we got to take a chartered plane to the west coast. I think this was a first for most of us. It was great! The bus pulled right up to the plane and we boarded without hassle....no security, no long walk through the terminal, and no tickets.
The plane was mid-sized and had all first class seats inside. There were several TV's and we got to pick whatever movies we wanted to watch, ("As Good As It Gets" and "The Mask of Zorro"). There were even seats in the back which flattened out that we could sleep on. Michelle took advantage of that and passed out for the entire trip.
There was a bar in the middle with all the snacks and drinks that you wanted. I think this was the first plane trip where I actually wanted to eat their food.....we had a delicious lunch of steak or chicken. It was so nice to be able to spread out and walk around as much as we wanted. It really made the 6 hour flight to the west coast fly by. I would love to fly like this all the time...too bad every flight isn't like this!
This will make a difference in our recovery for the next game. We only have two days to rest and can't afford to have heavy legs versus Brazil. Brazil, Norway and China are all flying on regular commercial flights. The US Soccer Federation treated us to this flight. Otherwise the WWC would have paid for our flight. The USSF found it was a necessary arrangement -- even though it was costly -- to help us attain our goal of winning the Cup.
We arrived in San Jose to sunny, beautiful, typical northern California weather. It is nice to be out of the humidity of the east coast. The reserves trained at the Stanford soccer fields this afternoon. We played a hard 4v4 game for almost an hour on their plush game field.
Meanwhile the starters stayed at the hotel and recovered with a pool workout. In the evening we had 2 long serious meetings, one with Colleen and the other with the coaches.
Colleen spoke about regaining our focus for why we are here and trying to eliminate as many distractions from our goal as possible. It was a good stern meeting for us because amongst all the media hype, family, friends, etc. it can be hard to stay on path. We needed the reminder. We would hate to look back upon this event after losing and say we could have done more.
Following Colleen's meeting, the coach's went over the Germany win with us. Their basic analysis was that we won on guts, not on our technical or tactical prowess. The bottom line was that we won and at least we could win against one of the world's best teams on a subpar US performance. However, Tony stressed that we would not be able to continue to advance in the tournament if we didn't play a more solid game against Brazil. We heard the message LOUD and CLEAR.
On Saturday I woke up and took an easy run around the Stanford campus. They have a gorgeous campus and some top notch facilities. At 11am we trained at the Stanford Stadium. The field is in great condition and the stadium is huge. And once again we have soldout the game, which means somewhere around 70,000 fans!
Tomorrow's game will be special on several levels. First it is July 4th, second the US Men's National Team played Brazil here in this same stadium on July 4th in the 1994 World Cup, and finally Julie went to Stanford and has never played on this field because it is a football field, so it is a homecoming for her.
Saturday afternoon a lot of the players hung out at the pool, went to Jamba Juice, (this is the best juice shop EVER! Those of us that live on the East coast have nothing that compares to it, so when we are on the West coast we have to go as often as possible), walked around downtown Palo Alto, rested, and I went with our massage therapists to lift at the Stanford facilities. It had been a while since I had lifted, so it was nice to give the body a good workout.
The other big event of the afternoon was the dying of Kate's hair! She is a woman of her word and had to dye her hair because of her deal with Joy. Joy scored so Kate had to dye her hair red and blue! We had a hair stylist from Fresno that is a huge fan of the team come to the hotel and do the deed. Well, the blue hardly came out because she has dark hair, and the red was REALLY red. One of the papers dubbed it "Heinous Henna"....we all got a chuckle out of that.
Sunday, July 4th.....it is our national holiday today, nobody can defeat us on this day in front of 73,123 crazy US fans! We had a strong warmup and came out ready from the opening kickoff. Cindy Parlow capitalized on a goalkeeper error and scored in the first 5 minutes. She was in the right place at the right time, (the sign of a good player), and headed the ball in right as it slipped through the goalkeeper's hands.
We had been told that the goalkeeper was their weak link and we took advantage of it. After we scored, the game settled down and was up and down. They created some dangerous chances, but Bri played one of her best games ever....she snubbed every chance they had. Finally late in the game Mia was pushed down in the box and Akers buried the ensuing penalty kick.
We all breathed a collective sign of relief on the bench. After she scored she sprinted over to the bench and jumped onto Dainis, our equipment manager and kissed him on his head. It was her special way of thanking him for the all the extra time he had spent with her after practice.
He would always jump in goal when she was practicing her penalty kicks when the goalkeepers didn't want to get in goal. Typically we see so many shots in training that we are exhausted and don't want to stand in goal for anymore target practice....thus we stick Dainis in goal. :-) What a great guy....he is an underpaid equipment manager who is willing to do anything to help us win.
The final score....2-0! We are going to the finals BABY! We went nuts as we ran our celebratory lap around the field. It was fun to look up at the crowd and read all the signs that they had made for us. We were so excited and relieved at the same time. None of us wanted to admit it, but there was a huge unspoken burden that in order for this tournament to be a success we would have to make it to the finals. Well, we did it....one more game that's it! Rose Bowl here we come!