Women’s World Cup champions textbook example of winners

One way to get better at anything is to study the best.

American soccer players – young or older, male and female – now have a perfect example for study, the American team that won the Women’s World Cup final Sunday in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Soccer aficionados can enjoy even a scoreless game, like the USA-Sweden game that ended 0-0 on June 12. But the final game was one that could be enjoyed even by those who complain that there isn’t enough scoring in soccer. The USA’s 5-2 victory over Japan was the highest scoring competitive game of the tournament. More goals were scored in a few of the early games, but those were mostly blow-outs involving mismatches like Switzerland over Ecuador.

Sunday’s game had drama that any fan could appreciate. These were two teams that had met in the 2011 World Cup final that was won by Japan and the 2012 Gold Medal game at the 2012 Olympics, which was won by the United States. It’s safe to say that no one expected the rubber match to play out the way it did.

Hat trick

USA midfielder Carli Lloyd scored the quickest goal ever in a Women’s World Cup final, punching in a ball coming off a corner kick early in the third minute of the match. Lloyd went on to score two more goals, making her the first player to score a hat trick in the cup finals, and that was all in the first 16 minutes of the game.

Her last goal was an example worth studying by any athlete. It shows what happens when players pay constant attention to what’s happening over their full view of the field. She saw that Japan’s goal keeper, Ayumi Kaihori, had stepped far out from the goal, and she launched a ball from midfield that went over Kaihori’s head and into the net. It was the kind of goal that demoralizes an opponent and sets a tone for the remaining 74 minutes of the match.

USA went on to score two more goals, by Lauren Holiday and Tobin Heath. Even the inadvertent “own goal” scored by USA defender early in the second half for Japan seemed to have a positive effect, sparking more aggressive play by a squad that may have become a little complacent. It was the last goal Japan scored, and the USA followed shortly with a goal that gave the team its three-goal margin of victory for good.

Some soccer fans will use this victory as an occasion to predict that soccer has finally arrived in the United States. Soccer arrived a long time ago, but to dream of it someday supplanting football or basketball or baseball as a national obsession is not only unrealistic, it is unnecessary. (Even if more American viewers did watch Sunday’s championship game than tuned in for San Francisco’s win over Kansas City in Game 7 of last year’s World Series, Golden State’s NBA title-winning victory over Cleveland last month or Chicago’s Stanley Cup-winning victory in Game 6 over Tampa Bay last month.)

Challenging sport

Soccer is already providing tens of millions of American boys and girls an opportunity to compete in a sport that challenges them physically and mentally. Especially for women, since the advent of federal ant-discrimination legislation, soccer has provided an opportunity to compete at the high school level and earn college scholarships. Hundreds of thousands of adults continue to play the game in leagues from coast to coast, just as aging athletes have continued to enjoy baseball, softball, and basketball and flag football.

Recent studies have consistently shown that children and young adults who participate in organized sports benefit not only from the physical exercise, but from the lessons they learn in teamwork, discipline, self-confidence and sportsmanship that make them better students and better neighbors.

Today, the Women’s World Cup winners will enjoy a rare honor, a ticker tape parade down New York City’s Canyon of Hero(in)es. It will be the first time out-of-town athletes were so honored since 1984, when Olympic medal winners from the Los Angeles Games got a parade.

The parade will be a testament to the fact that America loves a winner and that we continue to grow in our recognition that there’s a new group of winners who are ready and able to inspire the next generation.