As the shootout loomed to close the 1999 Women’s World Cup, millions of US women’s national team fans fought their nerves. But at our family’s watch party in central Minnesota, nobody doubted the USWNT’s chances.
My relatives – all soccer fans – were fixated upon the action as each second passed, as is the nature of a soccer family like mine. As extra time progressed, they reassured me, aged five, that our team was in control. I wasn’t exactly locked in to the match – it was summer in Minnesota, and my brother and sister had our own ball to kick around – but I clearly remember my family’s confidence in that moment.
It didn’t stem from a bullish belief in the penalty placement of stars like Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain. The reason was on (or at least somewhat near) the goalline.
A decade before Briana Scurry started in goal at the Rose Bowl, she was a decorated high school athlete thwarting would-be goal scorers across the state of Minnesota. Among her adversaries was a team backstopped by my aunt and coached by my grandpa. Those matchups left a lasting impression – to them, Scurry was synonymous with inevitability. There was no goalkeeper they’d rather have in that situation than their former foe.
That match has long since been iconified through a pair of photos. Yes, there’s the shot of Chastain’s victory cry with her right hand clutching her jersey. There’s also the freeze-frame showing Scurry making the decisive save off of China’s Liu Ying. The sport’s biggest stage saw my aunt’s on-field adversary become a national hero, and my lifelong obsession with the sport was born.
When we think about the moments that hooked us on this sport, they aren’t cold collections of proper nouns and statistics. They’re stories, with protagonists and challenges and emotion and perhaps a bit of creative license. Soccer is among humanity’s great creations, a rare activity that’s open to people of all backgrounds. If you’re reading this, I’m sure you have your own origin story at the ready.
I fell for this sport because of its storytelling potential as much as the action itself. It’s why I’m grateful to do what I do for a living, now at an outlet that rewards a reader’s curiosity like nobody else in the landscape.
Jeff joins the Guardian as part of our ongoing expansion covering soccer in the United States ahead of the 2026 World Cup. He arrives alongside two other new hires: soccer correspondent Pablo Iglesias Maurer and assistant sports editor Ella Brockway. He is based in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
