In Spanish It's Called "Pizza"

What could make a group of tired girls break into a full sprint down the halls of the hotel? Only one thing. Pizza.

The team was rewarded for their efforts today with a taste of home... well, okay as close as we could get. Our team liason officer, Rosario, helped get some delivery and truth be told it was pretty good. Could it be that we were craving pizza so badly that anything remotely resembling a pie would be fantastic? Maybe. But we actually were impressed. Especially Alyssa Mautz, pictured below:

Right now everyone is enraptured by the Chile vs. New Zealand game currently on TV. With the way we've been treated here we're all hoping for a comeback from the hosts!

Game Day - Live from Estadio Nelson Oyarzun

It's Game Day!

We had a few things we wanted to share with you leading up to today's big Group B match against Argentina...

Just in case anyone has forgotten how important a figure Tony DiCicco is in this sport, the video board is showing highlights of the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. If you don't realize the significance of that event.... well, what are you doing reading this blog? Did you get here by accident? If that's the case, welcome.

The teams are surely getting fired up by the music that's playing during warm ups - The Top Gun Soundtrack. Nothing like a little "Take My Breath Away" to get everyone ready to play!

Can You Beat Channy?

The YNT Blog just discovered this video - not filmed here - of goalkeeper Chantel Jones nailing several field goals. Check out the distance on the last field goal! Can anyone out there top 50 yards?

We know Shannon Boxx crushed a 40-yarder at Paul Brown Stadium, and that was on narrow practice posts - very impressive.

Kling and Keelin: Chillin' in Chillan

Hola! Yesterday, we were walking in the park, and some guys recognized us and kicked their ball at us. Cleverly, while they were yelling ‘ESTADIO UNIDOS!” we did tricks. Klingenberg did some great tricks, but she exhausted her arsenal within 30 seconds. Keelin did a cool trick where she had the ball on her head and she kissed it without using her hands. It started out with just four Chileans, and by the time we left it was up to about 30 people there with us. They didn’t yell like that for the Argentineans.

We’ve been watching the Borrne series. Last night we got really mad at Nikki Marshall because we wanted to watch the Bourne Ultimatum and she told us it was too late to start it. It was only 9:30! So we ended up not watching it. But this morning we told her that we watched it without her. Hostility was seeping out of her pores until we finally told her we were just kidding.

Last night we watched “Planet Earth – Sharks.” The shark jumped about 37 feet in the air to eat the seal lion. We pretended that the sea lion was Argentina and the shark was Keelin. We look forward to the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week every year, but this year we were in England! What terrible timing! Mark your calendars for the first week in August though for next year. Due to good timing on a broken nose, Klingenberg actually missed our trip to England and got to watch Shark Week.


Great White Shark - The best video clips are right here

We’ll be back after tomorrow’s game sometime – until then… adios amigos!

"Las Gringitas" Son Muy Popular

As you can see, the Americans were all over the papers today after yesterday's big win. That photo of Alex on the front page of the Cronical was hanging from every newstand in Chillan this morning. Obviously, Alex Morgan and Sydney Leroux are getting a lot of love from the press.

Needless to say, the U.S. girls have become a favorite among the locals. Hopefully we'll have swung some supporters in our favor for Saturday's game!

Game Day!

Lots of attention from the local papers in Chillan...

The US team during their walk through yesterday at the stadium

You may be wondering why this picture of Alyssa Mautz losing her shoe made the front page... apparently during the ceremonial "first kick" when the stadium opened, the same thing happened. Woops!

Meghan Klingenberg strikes the same pose that famed Chilean forward Marcelo "El Matador" Salas made famous during his goal celebrations. She's trying to be the most popular player at the tournament

And another one of the players during the walk through. We hope they have those same smiles on their faces after today's game!

It's Christmas Eve

Two years of training... qualifying... sacrificing so many other things at home... and the final journey starts tomorrow. Parents have started arriving, tickets have been handed out and the uniforms have been folded.

The players are mostly relaxing, getting massages and taking a dip in the ice bath to make sure they're 100 percent for tomorrow. Today, the team went through a pretty light training in the morning and got their first glimpse of the beautiful Estadio Nelson Oyarzun - lots of ooohs and aaahs from the delegation as they walked around the newly renovated stadium that's expected to hold a sell-out crowd tomorrow afternoon.

Wanna learn more about the tournament? Or did you already know that eight out of 18 players on the 2008 Gold Medal-winning Women's National Team have played here? You can take a glimpse through the years by clicking here.

The U-20s had a strong fan base present at training today, as what we think was the University of Bio Bio team came out to watch. Actually, they came out to cheer.

They inspired the team with chants of U-S-A and cheers would come for a great goal or a great save by the 'keepers. A good showing from the boys, and the players clapped in acknowledgment after the 90 minute practice. We told you this place was excited about this tournament!

Get Your Best Of...

You may have noticed that U.S. Soccer has announced the candidates for the 2008 Best Of Awards, which cover all things soccer - including best fan photo, best bar and best soccer store.

Also included in the BEST GOAL: WNT, PRESENTED BY SIERRA MIST category is our Becky Edwards for the absolute GOLAZO she hit against Cuba during qualifying in Mexico in June.

Michelle Enyeart was also nominated in the BEST PERFORMANCE: PLAYER category for the offensive show she put on against Trinidad & Tobago in the first game of qualifying.

You can vote for your favorites at our special "Best Of Blog"

The Keelin and Klingenberg Guest Blog Returns

Well..... we have arrived here in Chillan and are definitely settled into our surroundings. Our first night here we walked around a bit to get our bearings in the new city. We’re really close to a park, and there happened to be a festival going on with bands and dancers and what not. It was pretty good timing on our part. Naturally we stayed to see what was going on and take in some local flavor.

It was really funny. The band started playing YMCA and our team was super excited that we knew the song, but apparently no one else knew it. We were doing the dance and screaming and everyone looked at us like we were idiots. It was more like Y….. isn’t anyone doing this?

We were then tricked into going onstage. Keelin served as the translator. She haven’t taken Spanish in three years. We thought they were just going to give us front row seats but those seats came with a price. She thought she was doing a pretty good job of translating but all of the sudden we were going up on stage. Baxter, you know I don’t speak Spanish (name that movie). Apparently people here love us though so that’s nice.

People here seem really interested in the tournament. There are signs everywhere promoting it and everyone knows who we are when we’re walking around. When we pulled up on the bus from Santiago, there was a huge crowd waiting for us. There is also quite a bit of media attention as well, including an insert in today’s paper all about the tournament.

We went to the market, which was cool. We don’t really know how anyone does any business because they all sell the same things. Really cool things, yes, but it’s mostly the same in every shop. We bought a few things, including a sling shot. Later we used the sling shot to shoot Tootsie Rolls at inanimate objects – that made the maids laugh. We’re going to try to get marshmallows to shoot at people.

Other than that we’ve been doing a lot of homework. Keelin also plays the guitar a lot and is teaching Nikki Washington how to play a few things. She’s only been playing for three months so her Mom told her she had to learn how to play a Christmas song. For some reason she thought Silent Night would be a good choice but it really wasn’t. She is trying really hard to hit the high notes though.

So, our game is apparently on ESPN2. Live. That’s freaking sweet. We hope all of our friends and families to be able to watch. It’s a really big step towards getting people at home interested in this tournament and we couldn’t be more excited about it.

Goodbye New Zealand, Hello Chile

The U.S. U-17 Women's National Team leaves New Zealand today with a silver medal, but also with the knowledge that they gave their best effort throughout the tournament and in overtime of the World Cup Final against a very talented North Korean team. These youngsters came up just short of making history, but the lessons learned throughout the competition will surely last them a lifetime. For those players from this team that go on to make the U-20s and perhaps the full National Team, they will look back at the month in New Zealand as a stepping stone to greater things, in soccer and in life. While these players have not lived long, they all agree it was a journey of a lifetime. Sure, there were a lot of tears after the match, but when you compete at this elite level, with so much to gain, there is always so much to lose, and the players on the U.S. team could not have done a better job of handling the pressure situations and adverse conditions over the past three weeks in such a huge competition at such a young age.

Special thanks to all the organizers of this tournament for making it truly world class and setting an extremely high standard for future U-17 Women's World Cups. Special thanks to the great people of New Zealand, who treated this tournament and our team with the respect and appreciation that was truly exceptional. And special thanks to our Kiwi team liaison Andrea who could not have done a better job of guiding us through month Down Under. Now, it's time to move the YNT Blog up a few years and focus on Chile and the FIFA Under-20 Women's World Cup.

So from the U-17 players to the U-20s (and especially from U-17 Vicki DiMartino to her U-20 sister Gina), good luck in Chile!

A Stroll in the Park

Yesterday evening after dinner, the team went for a stroll through the nearby park (with a walking police escort). The girls walked around a bit before reaching the giant temporary stage set up on the far end of the park. The Chile Reality Festival was a collection of local talent - from traditional dancers, to a 12-piece band that played disco hits, to hip-hop dancers to cheerleaders.

Needless to say, the American girls were a big hit with the local crowd. Though none of the players speak Spanish, they quickly made friends with a group of high school-aged girls, teaching them variations of the high five.

Event organizers quickly took notice of the Americans as they took a lot of photos and signed some autographs. So they did what any smart event organizer would do - called them onstage. The players went up on stage to a great ovation and then individually introduced themselves.