From the looks of the traffic around Heinz Field on Sunday afternoon, it seemed like a typical game day.
Cars clogged the roads, going speeds measured not in miles, but in feet, per hour. Thousands of fans swarmed sidewalks, bridges and parking lots on their way to their Pittsburgh Steelers-yellow seats.
Here, in this city known for its football and football legends, and a football fanaticism that bridges generations, it was indeed a day for football. It was a day for soccer and for the United States women’s national team, the sports stars of this summer. A record day, too.
In the first game of the team’s 10-match World Cup victory tour, nearly 45,000 fans came to watch the United States play Costa Rica, making it the most attended stand-alone international friendly game in the history of the team, according to U.S. Soccer. When a giant, circular banner was unfurled at midfield before the match, those fans shook the stadium with their cheers as each letter of the banner appeared: W-O-R-L-D C-H-A-M-P-I-O-N-S
The visual I have of this stadium is snow and big men with just snow coming down and short sleeves on — ugh,” she said, explaining that she was pleasantly surprised to see so many fans come to celebrate her team’s World Cup victory.
But that fervor for this team seems to be everywhere, ever since the United States six weeks ago beat Japan, 5-2, and won its first World Cup title in 16 years.
Abby Wambach, the forward and team leader, said fans now gather at airports to meet the team’s flights — so much so that she and other players had resorted to wearing “sunglasses and whatnot” to try to go unnoticed.
At the team’s hotel, as many as 500 fans waited to see the players on game day, some gathering in the lobby and others squeezing behind barricades outside the lobby. Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation, described the scene as being “as crazy as it would be for an N.B.A. final” and “bigger than I’ve ever seen it.”
The players soaked it in. And then they showed off, dominating Costa Rica, 8-0, with five different players scoring.
Meghan Klingenberg, a native of Pittsburgh, was one of them. In the 56th minute, on a cross from Tobin Heath, she popped the ball into the corner of net so quickly and precisely that Costa Rica’s goalkeeper had no chance. Then she ran to the sideline, where Ellis was holding a yellow towel. But this was not just any towel. It was a Terrible Towel, the one Steelers fans wave over their heads during games.
To the delight of the crowd, Klingenberg thrust it into the air and swung it over her head as the screaming fans danced along with her.
“It was really special for me,” Klingenberg said after admitting that she went “little nuts” after scoring.
What those fans saw was worth the price of admission and the long wait at most of the entrance gates — and that was pure joy.
More joy followed when Christen Press — who didn’t turn out, after all, to be a breakout star of the World Cup — scored a hat trick. And when Heather O’Reilly, who played only 10 minutes of one World Cup match this summer, scored twice. And when Whitney Engen, who was on the World Cup roster but who didn’t play at all, scored.
It was a reminder of what’s to come.
Klingenberg’s spot on the Olympic team next year is nearly a given, even though the Olympic roster is 18 players, down from the World Cup’s 23. But some other players aren’t as fortunate. They will have to fight their way onto that roster, and so much work lies ahead.
Right now, lingering somewhere beneath all of this post-World Cup glee, there are so many questions. Who will be on the team for the Rio Olympics, which are less than a year away? Who will shine enough to catch Ellis’s eye in the Olympic qualifying tournament, which begins in February.
Will Press be a starter. Will O’Reilly and Engen even make the team. How about the captain, Christie Rampone, who lost her starting spot at the World Cup because of a leg injury and will be 41 next year.
What will happen with Wambach, who has scored more international goals than anyone in the history of soccer? She turned into a substitute at the World Cup and was fabulous as a cheerleader and late-game addition, but is considering retirement.
Ellis said she wasn’t at the point where she is seriously evaluating players. It’s too soon, she said, too soon.
But Wambach knows this victory tour fun is fleeting. Looming beyond it is her decision to go on with the game, or not.
