Former Women's National team captains discuss women's soccer

Julie Foudy and Kristine Lilly, former captains of the U.S. women’s national soccer team (USWNT) and members of the U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame, saluted the spirit of teamwork and discussed the recent surge in the popularity of the USWNT in a panel on Thursday.

As two-time Olympic Medalists and two-time World Cup champions, both Foudy and Lilly are two of the most decorated women’s soccer players and U.S. soccer players of all time.

Lilly began the panel by providing an insider’s look into the national team’s famed run to become 1999 Women’s World Cup Champions on home soil. In the finals, the U.S. defeated China in a penalty kick shootout in front of 90,000 fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

Yet for Lilly, the most incredible story from that 1999 World Cup experience was not the World Cup victory, but the unparalleled unity that the team possessed.

“Winning was great, yes, but that we held strong together and how close we were to each other really outshone what we did on the field,” Lilly said.

Lilly scored 130 goals in her 23 years of playing for the USWNT, from 1987 to 2010, as an attacking midfielder and forward and captained the national team from 2005 to 2007. Lilly’s 352 match appearances in an international game currently stands as the highest total the highest total in the history of the sport – for both men and women.

Lilly noted much of her success and the success of the USWNT over the years to the “team-first mentality” that encompassed the women’s national team at the 1999 World Cup.

“That’s what stands out for me during my time [with the U.S. women’s national team] – that really what made our teams so special was the strength of our leaders and our head coaching staff to represent something bigger than ourselves.,” Lilly said.

Foudy credits the immense success of the U.S. hosting the 1999 World Cup as a major turning point in American women’s soccer.

“This group of women [from the 1999 team] learned … the power of what the team brings when the odds are stacked against you and no one believes in your dream,” Foudy said.

Foudy featured prominently as a midfielder for the women’s national team from 1987 to 2004, scoring 45 goals in 272 international appearances while serving as co-captain starting in 1991 and then captain from 2000 until her retirement in 2004.

Foudy said that she applauds the efforts of U.S. Soccer at that time to go against FIFA’s calls to “play it safe” for the World Cup and relegate the women’s games to tiny stadiums that would guarantee sell-out matches.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Instead, Foudy said that U.S. Soccer decided to go big and set the games for the largest stadiums in the country, but remarked that no one could have guessed just how successful the World Cup turned out to be.

“We were tired of people telling us we were crazy,” Foudy said.

Foudy shared a heartwarming story of the women’s trip to the stadium for their opening game.

“We’re driving into the stadium on the first day in a total traffic jam and thinking, ‘What’s going on, this is a Saturday afternoon, this is so strange, and then we look around and it’s like “Go USA!” I love Mia [Hamm]! I love Lill [Kristine Lilly]… and we suddenly realized that we were the cause of the traffic jam!” Foudy said. “And that’s when we realized that [the World Cup] was going to be bigger than anyone thought.”

Both Foudy and Lilly happily acknowledged that they have not strayed far from the soccer field since their retirement.

Since her retirement, Foudy has been a mainstay on ESPN as a feature reporter and lead television voice for U.S. Soccer and World Cup coverage. Additionally, Foudy is the co-founder of the Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy, a six-day summer sports camp that enables girls ages 12-18 to develop as athletes and as strong leaders, according to its website.

Lilly is the director of the Kristine Lilly Soccer Academy and co-directs the Team First Soccer Academy with former USWNT teammates.

“My camp philosophy is to provide a technical and tactical environment for players to learn and hone their skills,” Lilly noted on her official website. “I strongly believe that basic skills are the foundation for every player to become something more.”

Both Foudy and Lilly personally met with the Princeton women’s soccer team and extended congratulations to the team during the panel for the its great success this past fall. Last season, Princeton women’s soccer captured the Ivy League title and beat Boston College by four goals in the opening round of the NCAA tournament before bowing out to USC in the Round of 32.

The soccer players’ talk, as part of the Jake McCandless ’51 Princeton Varsity Club Speaker Series, was sponsored by the Princeton Varsity Club and took place in McCosh 50 at 7:30 p.m.