The Sisterhood

For legions of soccer fans, the players on the U.S. Womens National Soccer Team are the games standard-bearers. Together their accomplishments include four World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals. Within five years of their inaugural match in 1985, the team was the best womens soccer team on the planet. But its rise was neither easy nor harmonious. The national team came onto the scene when team sports for women were in their infancy. The players were paid little and played to sparse crowds on marginal pitches and carried their own equipment and luggage. They faced discrimination and unequal treatment, most notably from their governing bodies, FIFA and U.S. Soccer. The Sisterhood is the story of the first and second generations of national team players, known as the 99ers, who were the driving force behind the rise of U.S. womens soccer and who built the foundation for the teams enduring success. Rob Goldman takes the reader onto the pitch and into the minds of the players and coaches for the teams greatest victories and most heartbreaking defeats. Among those featured are players Michelle Akers, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, and Brandi Chastain, as well as coaches Anson Dorrance and Tony DiCicco. When the team won the 99 World Cup in front of more than ninety thousand fans at the Rose Bowl, it was the largest crowd to ever attend a womens sporting event. After Brandi Chastains winning penalty kick beat China, everything changed. These womens soccer players were no longer outcasts; they were hard-nosed players and leaders who not only transformed womens sports but led a cultural revolution. They were trailblazers, role models, and selfless best friends. Their story, told here largely in the voices of the players and coaches who were there, is epic and inspiring.