history

The history of the American women's soccer

While European women soccer was already well established in the 19th century, the United States hadn’t even noticed the sport, yet. The first time women’s soccer appeared in the USA was in the early 20th century. At that time it was primarily played in women’s colleges as intramural games. The first time a women’s soccer team played outside of a college on the USA was in 1922. But it was not an American team; it was the Dick, Kerr Ladies team from Preston who made a tour of the United States with the ambition to play against other women’s teams. Unfortunately there was no other women’s team, so they had to play against professional men’s teams.
Even after this it took more than fifty years to get women’s soccer out of gym classes and college intramural games. The first step towards an official women’s league was made by Father Craig of St. Matthew’s Parish of North St. Louis. He established the first organized women’s soccer league in 1951. It consisted of four teams and was able to play for two seasons.
The first college soccer team outside of gym class was established in the mid-1960s and it was also during that time that soccer became interesting in for the gym classes in high school as an alternative to the other major sports, since soccer did not require any physical abilities and was therefore open to all students.  In 1981 there were over 100 women’s teams established and it was also 1981 that the first official tournament was hold.
After the enormous success of the first tournament it was the next logical step to establish a national team.  The national team was founded in 1985 and they had almost no equipment and no practice time and the press took no notice of them. They had nearly no games and separated after one season to form anew the next one.
After the Women’s World Championship was established in 1991 the American team finally had a goal to fight for, and in the 1996 Olympics the team was finally able to make themselves visible in the public. After winning the World Cup in 1999 they were truly established not only in the American sports world by beating the Chinese team in a penalty shootout.