The Sisterhood

The 99ers and the Rise of U.S. Women's Soccer

De: Rob Goldman

Narrado por: Gina Rogers

For legions of soccer fans, the players on the US Women's National Soccer Team are the game's standard-bearers. Together their accomplishments include four World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals. Within five years of their inaugural match in 1985, the team was the best women's soccer team on the planet. But its rise was neither easy nor harmonious. They faced discrimination and unequal treatment, most notably from their governing bodies, FIFA and U.S. Soccer.

The Sisterhood is the story of the first and second generations of national team players, known as the 99ers, who were the driving force behind the rise of US women's soccer and who built the foundation for the team's enduring success. Rob Goldman takes the listener onto the pitch and into the minds of the players and coaches for the team's greatest victories and most heartbreaking defeats.

When the team won the '99 World Cup, it was the largest crowd to ever attend a women's sporting event. After Brandi Chastain's winning penalty kick beat China, everything changed. These women's soccer players were no longer outcasts; they were hard-nosed players and leaders who not only transformed women's sports but led a cultural revolution. Their story, told here largely in the voices of the players and coaches who were there, is epic and inspiring.

©2021 Rob Goldman (P)2022 Tantor

The history of the national women’s team until 1999

History tends to put the birth of women’s soccer in the U.S. with the 1999 World Cup home win. But the history of the sport begun even earlier. This book explains the gathering of women participation due to title 9 back in the 1970s and the lone attempt to bring up a women’s team during the time. This was not a glamorous adventure and the author details how small, under funded, and overall unknown the whole experiment was. From struggling in the Italian cup to the Atlanta Olympics and M&Ms cup, the story is told with the players and coach/training staff perspectives of all the highs and lows.

The book is easy to follow with its various players and even people who don’t follow or know the sport can easily follow the narrative. The narrator has an excellent voice and adds to the flow of the story. The conclusion of the book with the 1999 World Cup will make you want to find more information on the next 30 years that have pasted in the sport.