McCallum: Women's soccer final a magic Olympic moment

LONDON?On a wonderful night in a wonderful stadium, it was?evidently?just meant to be. Team USA was under relentless attack from a precision Japanese team, but one shot hit a post, another hit a crossbar, one sailed high, two whistled by the side of the net, and a few others settled into the sure hands of Hope Solo, who had to leave her feet to punch one away.

And thus did the United States walk away with the gold medal in soccer after a thrilling 2-1 victory.

With the exception of the round of boos that broke out with the announcement of unpopular FIFA president Sepp Blatter, a video could?ve been taken of the whole evening and filed under ?Olympics As It Should Be.? The sound track of the game, played before a Wembley crowd of 80,000-plus, consisted of the rival shouts of ?U-S-A? and ?NEE-POE,? but it didn?t come from one side or the other because the crowd was mixed. The game was played with high intensity?Team USA star Abby Wambach got a yellow card in the final minutes of the game?but it never got nasty, never got mean, and was played with a level of mutual respect.

Both teams had said they expected it would play out that way; on the day before the gold medal game, in fact, players and coaches from both sides stood in front of reporters side-by-side, arms linked, a we-are-the-world moment if there ever was one.

But circumstances sometimes change in the heat of battle. These were the two best teams in the world going at it, after all, and one, Team USA, was looking for redemption, having been beaten by Nippon in the 2011 World Cup in Germany. Yet it stayed clean.

Both U.S. goals came from a Jersey girl, Carli Lloyd, one from her head and one from her foot. On the first one, she beat Wambach into the box, never an easy thing to do. The second one she did herself, from distance.

It?s not clear if it?s also the last journey for Wambach. But the future of Team USA is apparently in good hands with players like attacker Alex Morgan (one of the shining new faces of the Games) and midfielder Megan Rapinoe. They have not yet eclipsed the popularity of the 1999 World Cup winners who kick-started the full-time awareness (all right, part-time awareness) of women?s soccer in America. But they?re on their way.

?When I was 7, I went trick-or-treating as Mia Hamm,? said 18-year-old Alana Keane of Boston, who got finals tickets from her parents as a graduation gift. ?I?m not exactly sure what Carli Lloyd looks like. But this Halloween I?ll put a gold medal around my neck and go as her.?

The United States defeats Japan 2-1 in the women's soccer final. Carli Lloyd scores in the 8th and 54th minutes. It's the United States' third straight soccer gold medal and fourth overall in five Games.

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Source: http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-blogs/soccer/wembley-sees-u-s-women-earn-third-straight-gold.html

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