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* Through storm, rain U.S. Women's National Soccer Team wins a 7-2 blowout * Greeson: Soccer opportunity could be big for city * Wiedmer: Stormy weather no match for U.S. women's soccer team * Wednesday became an eventful day for Julie Foudy * Victory tour means winning for U.S. World Cup champs * Sold-out crowd set to watch World Cup champs' exhibition match tonight * Wiedmer: World Cup champs know how to inspire their fans * AstroTurf president in town to see Finley field, watch women's soccer * Road closures planned for U.S. Women's match against Costa Rica
For years, people scoffed at the boosterism claim of soccer being the "fastest growing sport in America."
It may have been just that, but what were its rivals? Field hockey? Lacrosse? Rugby?
Forty years ago, when the claim was first being made, no one could imagine paying to watch a soccer match in the South or a young boy (or especially a young girl) setting his sights on becoming a professional soccer player.
Times change.
So when the United States women's national soccer team drew more than 20,000 fans to Finley Stadium Wednesday night, it seemed not only natural but perfectly timed.
Not the rain, of course, which delayed the completion of the friendly match with Costa Rica for 83 minutes but the match coming as it did in the midst of our city's summer of discontent. The appearance of the World Cup champions won't bring back those who lost their lives on a rainy interstate in Ooltewah in June or five service members who were cut down by an angry young man off Amnicola Highway in July, but it was a uniting event.
The world sport of soccer can do that, of course, because in this case it brought together Chattanoogans who know nothing about the sport but want to be where the action is, Gen Xers and millennials who played little league soccer themselves and are bringing their children up on the sport, and immigrants whose national sport was on display in their country of choice.
The 7-2 win by the U.S. team was less important than a filled Finley. That it was filled in the first place is an indication such an excellent venue is being used appropriately when its resident University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Mocs football team is not around. That it was filled with soccer fans is a testimony - as are the ever-growing CFC matches - to the sport finding its rightful place in the baseball-, basketball- and football-loving South. And that it was filled with people who came to watch a women's team puts the lie to the old thought that women's sports never will have the excitement that men's do.
Forty years ago, Americans couldn't understand the car horns, the shouting and the all-night reverie some of us have unintentionally experienced on the streets in many European cities following the end of soccer matches.
Times change.
Indeed, that pure, unadulterated joy of the sport was on display - in miniature - at Finley Stadium Wednesday in front of what Chattanooga can proudly claim was the largest attendance for a U.S. women's stand-alone friendly match in the Southeast.