Close to three thousand cheering fans - many who were young girls high school age and younger - greeted the World Cup champion U.S. Women's National team (WNT) late Tuesday afternoon at Finley Stadium during the team's practice in preparation for tonight's exhibition match with Costa Rica at 6:30 and broadcast on ESPN2..
They were cheering for and hoping to get autographs of their heroes named Womack, Solo, Lloyd, Johnston, Holiday and more.
Ironically, the team will play on the newest AstroTurf surface on the market as the company celebrates its 50th anniversary.
A half century ago as Astroturf first came on the market, the grandmothers of today's kids were cheering wildly for their own heroes named John, Paul, George and Ringo who also took this country by storm.
Tonight's Match: Tonight, close to 21,000 fans will fill Finley Stadium for the second stop of a WNT 10-city Victory Tour, and once again cheer on their heroes and set a state attendance record for a soccer match played in Tennessee. The U.S. beat Costa Rica, 8-0, Sunday in Pittsburgh in the opening match of the tour.
U.S. Women's National Team coach Jill Ellis wants women's soccer to leave a big footprint around the county with this Victory Tour as "it's so great to be able to play in mid-sized cities such as Chattanooga and see all the great fans.
"In parades in New York and Los Angeles after the World Cup we saw the joy in the faces of people who wanted to share in our victory. The magnitude of those events blew me away as so many people came out to cheer us on."
Giving Back to Chattanooga Community: The players have given so much to this country with the 2012 Olympic and 2015 World Cup gold medals and tonight, the players will continue to give back - literally giving the jersey's off their backs - after tonight's exhibition match.
"U.S. Soccer wants to help this community so the players will give their jersey's for auction with proceeds going to the families of the military men who were killed a few weeks ago," said coach Ellis who also stated the players will wear black arm bands in the match.
Soccer Notes
Chattanooga holds the record for the largest crowd to ever watch an amateur soccer match in this country when 18,227 came to Finley for FC Chattanooga's 3-2 overtime loss to the N.Y. Cosmos B in the NPSL championship match August 8.
contact B.B. Branton at william.branton@comast.net