The Making of a Football Superpower - Part Two: The Arrival
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to It Was What It Was, the football history podcast..
Approaching the end of the millennium, the U.S. women’s national team had already won a World Cup and Olympic gold, but they were still fighting for mainstream recognition. That all changed when they took centre stage at the 1999 Women’s World Cup.
With 90,000 fans packing the Rose Bowl and millions watching around the world, the final against China became a defining moment - not just for the U.S. team, but for women’s football as a whole. Brandi Chastain’s iconic penalty, the sold-out stadiums, and the sheer spectacle of the tournament proved that women’s football wasn’t just growing - it had arrived.
This is the story of how the 1999 World Cup reshaped the sport forever.
If you’re enjoying the series, please subscribe and leave a five-star review.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | When we walked out to the first game of a 1999 World Cup at the Giant Stadium, |
| 0:12.1 | there was an 80,000 packed house, and I gave us a standing ovation, literally in my brain, I was like, |
| 0:17.9 | where the hell is that goddamn Jamie Trecker? I want to grab him by the neck right now. |
| 0:22.5 | There's always going to be Jamie Trekkers. But what was amazing about this team, whenever anyone did that to us, we were like, screw you. We'll show you differently. |
| 0:31.7 | Welcome to WasRu'll What It Was, the Football History Podcast. I'm Jonathan Wilson. I'm with Rob Draper. |
| 0:35.6 | And that was Judy Fowdy, a player on the |
| 0:39.1 | Youth Women's National Team in the 1999 Women's World Cup. And Rob, that relates to the tournament |
| 0:46.0 | we're talking about today, that this is the second part of our three-pop-series looking at the rise |
| 0:51.2 | of the US Women's National team to a position of dominance, |
| 0:54.7 | the like of which no national team, no team has ever really enjoyed over a 30-year period. |
| 0:59.8 | We did the interview with Carly Lloyd, so please do go back and listen to that. |
| 1:02.8 | If you haven't heard it, in the first part of this three-part series, |
| 1:06.2 | we looked at the sort of prehistory of women's soccer in the US, their victory in the 1991 World Cup, |
| 1:14.6 | they're getting the gold medal in the Atlanta Olympics of 96, and today we're looking at the 99 World Cup, |
| 1:21.1 | which really is the break-through moment. Carly Lloyd spoke about the infants of the 99ers on her. |
| 1:26.2 | So, go on, take it away. |
| 1:27.8 | Why is this such a significant event? |
| 1:31.2 | I think this is the game-changing moment. |
| 1:33.3 | Just to contextualise a quote, Jamie Trecker is a columnist. |
| 1:36.7 | We all know that we've all been this columnist that, |
| 1:38.8 | who has some skepticism whether the 1999 World Cup is actually going to be a success and whether |
| 1:45.0 | anyone is ever going to be interested or come and watch it. And I think there might still be |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Overlap, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Overlap and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.