Shannon MacMillan, who has posted Akers-like numbers to start off 2002, may be on the verge of something special.
Shannon MacMillan has had the hot foot before, so to speak, but never like this. Everything she touches, or nearly everything, is finding net. Don’t ask her to explain it.
“I don’t know – maybe it’s something in the water there,” MacMillan said after scoring seven of the U.S. national women’s team’s eight goals at the Algarve Cup in Portugal. “It just happened. It’s one of those times.”
These times come in only the rarest of instances, for only the most special players. And MacMillan, who has netted 11 goals in eight games for the Americans in 2002, does seem on the verge of something very special.
“It’s Akers-like,” U.S. coach April Heinrichs said. “She touches that many balls, scores that many goals – she’s having a real breakthrough.”
MacMillan, who this year has leapt from 10th to sixth on the all-time U.S. goal list with 46 tallies in 135 international appearances, has scored in every 2002 U.S. match except the two in which the Yanks were shut out, against Norway and Germany, both at the Four Nations tournament in China.
She netted her first career hat trick against Mexico in January, scored the opener in a 2-0 triumph over China at the Four Nations, then went wild in Portugal: the lone U.S. goal in a draw with Sweden, the first in a 2-0 victory over England, both U.S. strikes in a 3-2 loss to Norway, then another hat trick to beat Denmark, 3-2, in the third-place game. A good number of the goals have been gorgeous.
It is Akers-like, or nearly so. Akers scored 33 goals in one 17-game span in 1990-91, tallying in 16 successive matches. She netted 10 over the final five games at the ’91 Women’s World Cup, and another 14 in 10 games in 1994-95.
Mia Hamm, international women’s soccer’s top scorer, has had similar stretches: 11 in six appearances over seven months in 1994-95, 16 in a nine-game span in 1997, 12 in six matches in 1998 and 10 in eight games in 2000. She scored in six successive games in 1999 and had 38 in 37 games in all of 1997-98.
MacMillan’s had her hot spells, too – scoring in five successive appearances during 2000 Olympic preparations – and a few cold ones. In 1997-98, she went 28 games, 21 of them starts, without finding the net.
And tremendous as her production has been, she spent more time in Portugal agonizing over missed chances than celebrating her success. With a tad more luck, she might have scored another half-dozen goals or more.
MacMillan, owner of the Americans’ most scorching shot, debuted with the U.S. squad in 1993 but didn’t secure a job until 1996, when she started 18 matches and was critical in the Americans’ march to the gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics. She scored three goals in the tournament, including an overtime strike off the bench to beat Norway in the semifinals and the first goal in the title-match conquest of China.
She was employed primarily as a reserve afterwards, until Heinrichs took charge and stationed her as a flank attacker. She got 29 starts in 2000 and scored 12 goals, her single-year high – at least until the Americans meet Finland in late April.
“The timing is right for Shannon,” Heinrichs says. “She’s such a great story: overcoming adversity in her personal life, in and out of the national team picture in ’95-96, steadily finding ways to improve her game. She’s gifted, but she’s not one of these players that’s got so much God-given talent that she doesn’t have to work. She really has applied herself, and we’ve seen in the last year the development of her game and her confidence rise continually.
“I feel she’s stepping through a threshold of finding ways to impact [the U.S. team’s] performance and impact wins and losses at the national team level.”
MacMillan, the WUSA’s No. 2 scorer last season with 12 goals and six assists, says more opportunities to get central are key to her improved production. She sees herself more as a center forward than as a winger. Not everyone agrees.
“She’s the ultimate winger,” says Carlos Juarez, her coach with the San Diego Spirit. “But in any game against any team, she can score – she can score in many ways.”
Any doubts? Ask the Norwegians or the Danes, or the Mexicans. Can she keep it up?
“I wish I could,” she says, “but all I can promise is that I’ll be working my butt off to keep it going.”
by Soccer America Senior Editor Scott French