Brandi Chastain: The Woman Who Turned the World Toward Women’s Football
Story of the woman who has revolutionized women’s football of USA and inspired countless number of girls playing soccer around the world. Debjan Sengupta writes about the iconic footballer who transformed dreams to reality.
On 10th July 1999, Brandi Chastain was given the responsibility by coach, Tony DiCicco, and the United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) to attempt the last spot kick against the Chinese national team. It was the final match of the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
A goal would ensure USA their second World Cup. A miss would take the shootout into “Sudden Death”. 90,000 spectators in the Rose Bowl stadium held their breath and placed their faith in the 30 year-old defender from Santa Clara University.
As the ball thumped into the top right corner beyond the desperate reach of Han Wenxia, the Chinese keeper, the stadium erupted in joy as the crowd cheered and clapped.
But,in that fraction of a second, something else also happened. Brandi Chastain had taken off her jersey, whipped it around in the air, and dropped to her knees in a spontaneous and genuine outburst of emotion.
Brandi Chastain: The CelebrationAlthough it is commonplace for male footballers to take off their jerseys to celebrate a goal, critics pointed out that she, being a woman, had gone too far with her actions.
The picture of Brandi Chastain in a black sports bra kneeling on the ground swept across the world like a storm.
It became iconic and hence, sadly, a point of much debate and criticism.
“There’s something primal about sport doesn’t exist anywhere else—when you have a moment like scoring a winning goal in the World Cup championship, you are allowed to release this feeling, this emotion,this response that is not elicited anywhere else,” Chastain later reflected.
When Brandi Chastain took off her jersey in a flash of unplanned reaction, she embodied the spirit of women’s liberation in the face offiercely patriarchal mindsets that invisibly govern a global sport like football—a sport played officially by more than 200 nations.
Certain basic and harsh facts about the sport around the world only go on to confirm this.
Since the foundation of FIFA in 1904, it has had eight presidents, all of whom has been men(one more president is soon to be elected since the corruption scandal forced Sepp Blatter to resign). The co-option of women in the FIFA Executive Council did not take place until as late as 2012–13.
Currently, the 27-member board has only three women.
The World Rankings for men are updated monthly, while the same for women are updated four times in a year.
And let us not even get into the differences in monetary compensation.The winner of this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup will get USD 2 million, which is 1 million more than the last tournament. Compare this with the USD 35-million prize money awarded to the German national men’s team upon their win in 2014. This was a 17% rise from the prize money awarded to Spain, the 2010’s Men’s World Cup winner.
Equality? You wish.
With the FIFA Women’s World Cup currently underway, let us look back at Brandi Chastain—a defender and a veteran of the United States National Football Team—who, with her historic celebration, changed women’s football forever.
She was born on 21st July 1968 in San Jose, California.Just a year later, in 1969, the English Ladies FA was born. This successfully overturned a long standing ban imposed on the women’s game by The FA of England in 1921, which disallowed women’s football matches to be played on its members’ pitches because they deemed the game unsuitable for women and found it “distasteful”.
After the ban was lifted, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ) recommended that the women’s game be taken under the administration of the national associations of each country.
Italy became the first country to introduce professional women’s football on a part-time basis, China’s Taipei had a formidable team in the late 70s (a team that won three straight AFC Women’s Asian Cups), and the United States Women’s team was officially formed in 1985.
Brandi Chastain started playing football when she was eight. She was inspired by George Best and grew up idolizing the maverick. She regularly went to see the legend from Belfast play when he came to the United States to play for the San Jose Earthquakes and promote “soccer”in the early 80s.
While studying at the University of California-Berkeley in 1986, Chastain was Soccer America’s national freshman of the year.Although injury made her miss the seasons in 1987 and 1988, she eventually made a comeback and became the All-American Player of the Year in 1990. She also guided her next university team,Santa Clara Broncos, to two semi-final berths in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
After debuting for the United States Women’s National Team in 1988, she was called up again for the qualifying matches for the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991.
While playing in a qualification match against Mexico,she came off the bench and bagged five goals. This was a national team record, and were also her first goals for the national team.
After impressing in the early stages, she found a place in the US squad for its inaugural FIFA Women’s World Cup win in 1991. She was left out of the team in 1993, which is when she went to play football in Japan. She was voted the Most Valuable Player (MVP) there, and became the first non-Japanese to win this acclaim. US head coach, Tony DiCicco, eventually brought her back after her foreign exploits. However, instead of assigning her to be a forward as she had always been, he made her a defender.
Her earlier injuries and surgeries started to slow her down. Slowly she adapted to her new position and took up the spot of the Right Back in the national team, establishing herself as a first-choice player.
Her team won the 1996 Women’s Olympics Football Tournament on her return to the national team as a defender, and finished in third place in the 1998 Algarve Cup.
After her historic penalty celebration against the Chinese in the World Cup Final, stories came out about how coach, Tony DiCicco, had asked Chastain, a right-footed player, to take penalties only with her weaker left. The coach felt she was more accurate on her weaker side and he wished to catch the Chinese unawares.
However, her defining moment was yet to come. After winning the first edition and coming third in the next, the United States was elected to host the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup on its home soil. And this time, Brandi Chastain was on the team as a seasoned, first-team player.
After her historic penalty celebration against the Chinese in the World Cup Final, stories came out about how coach, Tony DiCicco, had asked Chastain, a right-footed player, to take penalties only with her weaker left. The coach felt she was more accurate on her weaker side and he wished to catch the Chinese unawares.
It was also said how Judy Foudy was originally chosen to be the fifth shooter. But DiCicco made a last minute switch in the order, and the US team won the match 4–3.
So why exactly was there so much hue and cry over a simple penalty?
Well, first, Brandi Chastain wasn’t supposed to originally take the penalty—let alone pre-plan the celebration.
Second, her statement about her spontaneous celebration was perceived more as an action of women’s liberation than a sporting statement.
And third, it became an iconic, crowning moment for women’s sport everywhere.
Many critics at that timecalled it a “babe move”. Some even went so far as to consider it a Nike publicity stunt. “It was not a body flaunt. It was a flaunt of…emotion,” was all Chastain had to say in reply.
The captured moment made it to the cover of Times. It led to a general interest in women’s football and the incident became largely talked-about and debated thereafter.
Many critics at that time called it a “babe move”. Some even went so far as to consider it a Nike publicity stunt. “It was not a body flaunt.It was a flaunt of…emotion,” was all Chastain had to say in reply.
A single penalty transformed a woman’s national football team into a symbol of a country.
Maybe as a direct result of this controversy, women play more football than men in the United States today. The infrastructure for women’s football has largely improved since Brandi Chastain started playing football in the early 70s.
Women’s spirits and bodieshave always been objectified and sexualized. Gender roles have hugely affected how women are looked at in sports. Brandi Chastain cast down this stereotype with her celebration, ripping it open like her jersey on that fateful day, and constructed new means of expression and liberation for women in the “beautiful game”.
16 years have passed since Chastain showed the world her sports bra, which she still “wears when the laundry get’s low.”
Brandi Chaistain re-enacts her sports bra celebration at a Manhattan charity even
Women’s football has made some progress globally, but still lags miles behind its male counterpart. Patriarchal notions still govern football today. Female footballers are still battling the myths and prejudices that all claim that women can’t play sport.
While more egalitarian societies like the Scandinavian nations have embraced the women’s game, there are still quite a few teams who continue to look down on the woman spirit and treat sports as a divine right for men. FIFA had banned hijabs in football, which meant women from the middle-eastern states could not play the game. This ban has only recently been overturned.
Equality still remains a utopian dream. FIFA is a multi-billion dollar enterprise—yet there are inequalities in wages, opportunities, marketing representation, treatment, and rewards for the female athlete.
Chastain’s penalty shot us in the right direction.
Did it change the sport for the better? We can only hope so.
About Debjan Sengupta
Debjan Sengupta (He thinks therefore he writes) was supposed to born in Italy as is evident from his love for the Azzuri and the Bianconeri. Once a football player he has now predominantly taken up the pen as his means of spreading the play wide. Follows the Serie A, La Liga, Bundesliga and the EPL. He is a student of Jadavpur University,Comparative Literature who loves Music, The "holy herb", Poems and Performative arts. Can be reached at debjan.sengupta21@gmail.com
