Akers, Hamm Focused on One Goal
They have been teammates for 11 years and friends for just about as long.
Together, they helped the United States win the first women’s world soccer championship--in China in 1991.
And together they helped the U.S. win the first Olympic gold medal in women’s soccer--at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.
And now they are rivals.
Friendly rivals, certainly, but rivals nonetheless.
Because Michelle Akers and Mia Hamm are locked in an intriguing battle to become the first American player--and only the third in the world--to score 100 goals for their country.
Going into Saturday afternoon’s game against Mexico in Foxboro, Mass., each had scored 97 goals.
But Hamm scored two in a 9-0 rout and is one away from winning the race. It could come Thursday, when the U.S. plays Russia in Rochester, N.Y.
Akers, 32, who made her debut for the national team against Denmark in Jesolo, Italy, on Aug. 21, 1985, has collected her total in 123 games. She would have surpassed the 100 mark by now had she not taken a year off after winning the Olympic gold to rehabilitate a knee.
Hamm, 26, who made her U.S. debut on Aug. 3, 1987, against China in Tianjin when she was only 15, has scored her goals in 152 games. But it has only been in the past year that she has made a race of it with Akers. Hamm has scored 36 goals in her last 34 games.
Typically, though, both players have downplayed their individual accomplishments.
“The fact that I’m approaching the 100-goal mark and soon the world record [of 108 goals held by Italy’s Elisabetta Vignotta], has been talked about a lot over the past weeks and months,” Akers said last week.
“Of course, to be among a handful who have scored more than 100 goals is something very special and a great achievement over the course of a long career. Yes, I’ll take a moment to reflect and think how cool it is to have scored so many goals.
“But I’ve never been one to look back for long. My excitement always comes from looking forward and reaching and striving for another goal, another milestone. The milestone I’m most focused on now is winning the 1999 Women’s World Cup.”
Hamm also has her sights set on the 16-nation tournament to be played in the United States June 19-July 10.
“Getting 100 goals is definitely a unique and special accomplishment,” she said. “But I don’t look at it as an individual accomplishment. I didn’t create the majority of those goals, I just had to finish them.
“It’s because of the players I’ve played with in 11 years on the national team, like Michelle, Kristine Lilly and Tiffeny Milbrett, that I’ve been able to have success in front of the net.”
BOUND FOR THE USA
With the United States qualifying automatically as the host nation, there have been 15 places up for grabs for next summer’s world championship.
Now only six remain.
Canada became the 10th nation to qualify last week when it won the CONCACAF qualifying tournament in Toronto, defeating Mexico, 1-0, in the final.
The Canadians outscored their opponents, 42-0, in the six-nation tournament, with Silvana Burtini, 29, of Williams Lake, Canada, finishing as the leading scorer with 14 goals.
The standing-room only crowd of 4,971 at Centennial Stadium was the largest to watch a women’s game in Canada.
The USA ’99 tournament will dwarf that figure. Already, more than 150,000 tickets have been sold for the event and all the U.S. games are expected to be sold out.
Canada joined China, Japan, North Korea, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Brazil and the United States in the final 16.
STILL RUNNING
Mexico’s loss to Canada in the CONCACAF final did not eliminate it from contention for a World Cup berth.
The Mexicans now face a two-game series against South American runner-up Argentina for a place in the tournament. No dates for the series have been set.
In Europe, four countries--Russia, Finland, Germany and Ukraine--remain in the running for the last two places for European teams.
Russia played Finland in Moscow on Saturday in the first game of a home-and-home series. The return match will be played Oct. 11 in Helsinki.
Before that, the Russians will be taking part in this week’s U.S. Women’s Cup ’98 tournament. They play Brazil on Tuesday at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., the United States on Thursday in Rochester, N.Y., and Mexico next Sunday in Richmond, Va.
On Thursday, Germany and Ukraine will meet in Germany, with the second game in Ukraine on Oct. 11. Germany, which lost the 1995 Women’s World Cup final to Norway in Stockholm and finished fourth in 1991, is favored to advance.
The African qualifying tournament will be played in Lagos, Nigeria, in October, with two countries qualifying. Oceania’s lone representative in the World Cup will be decided at a qualifying tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, next month.
WOMEN REFEREES
A half-dozen nations still are fighting to make it to the World Cup and there are a handful of women in the United States who are doing the same thing.
One is Nancy Lay, 36, an elementary school physical education teacher from Plantation, Fla.
Another is Sandra Hunt, 39, from Seattle, who works as an office manager at a company her husband owns.
Lay and Hunt this month made history of sorts by becoming the first women to referee Major League Soccer games. MLS joined the NBA as the only professional leagues in the United States to employ female game officials.
Both Lay and Hunt were college players--Hunt at Western Washington and Lay at Central Florida--both have been refereeing for more than a decade and had served in MLS as linesmen, or as is now preferred, assistant referees.
And both would very much want to be selected to referee at the 1999 Women’s World Cup.
As would Kari Seitz, who served as an assistant referee at a recent Galaxy game at the Rose Bowl, and Susan Cicchinelli, who did the same at the MLS playoffs last season.
Despite some concerns voiced by the less enlightened Lay, knows that women referees are, for the most part, fully accepted by coaches, players and fans.
“They yell at me just like they yell at any other referee,” she told the Miami Herald. “I’ve gotten real thick skin. Players have gotten in my face and questioned my calls. Now, I just ignore them.”
