She was the only black child out of 700 students in her suburban Minneapolis grade school. Shannon MacMillan knows better than any player on the United States women's national soccer team how quickly one's fortunes can change. She is the soccer gods' version of Job. Her love and faith have been tested by the game so many times, in so many awful ways, there have been nights when she has returned to bed, willing to give up everything. Norwegian summers are short and intense, so much so that the seven-month soccer season begins and ends in the mud and snow of either an approaching or retreating winter.
Fewer people live in that freeze-dried land than in the Bay Area.
Her name is Vida. She was only 5 and had just started playing soccer. In fact, on this wet Mexico City night last month, she was attending her first grown-up match. She came with her father and a purpose. Germany's Tina Theune-Meyer was 30 and already climbing the coaching ranks when a women's national team was formed in her country.