The WUSA champion Bay Area CyberRays’ worst-to-first tale comes down to talent, tactics, character – and plenty of good fortune.
Ian Sawyers realized quickly there was something about the group, something greater than the sum of its talent, something more than the force of its personality.
Some elusive quality, not quite definable but very apparent. It’s how he knew, even when nothing seemed to be going right, that he’d be here at the end, the WUSA championship trophy snugly in his grasp.
Forgive those who failed to see such potential when his Bay Area CyberRays were 1-4-1 and headed nowhere, last in the standings, seemingly unable to buy a goal.
“I never had any concerns,” said Sawyers, the WUSA’s coach of the year after engineering the worst-to-first climb that climaxed with a stunning penalty-kick triumph over Atlanta after a 3-3 draw in the Aug. 25 title game.
Why would he? This – he could sense from the start – was an extraordinary group, possessing great character and chemistry, all the intangibles … and such talent. He knew it would pay off in the end.
It required steady toil, heavy thought, superb efforts from both superstars and no-names – and more than a little good fortune – to reap the reward.
No problem.
“The most important thing,” said Sawyers, “is the players accepted the challenge. They said, ‘OK, we need to turn this around and get results. Not just play good soccer, but play good soccer and get results.’ When you get a group that you feel is a special group, their ability to look introspectively and decide, ‘OK, this what we need to do’ – I think it has a big impact on your outcome at the end of the year.”
Fortune had the biggest impact, to be sure – how often do Sun Wen and Charmaine Hooper miss penalties? What if Nikki Serlenga had fired an inch to the right? But the manner in which Bay Area twice overcame deficits at Foxboro Stadium, the last on Tisha Venturini’s 86th-minute poke-in, was product of the something else.
‘IN THE TRENCHES.’ “We’ve been in the trenches with these players since the early part of the season,” noted Sawyers, who was hired as coach after helping the CyberRays though last December’s draft days after Notre Dame coach Randy Waldrum changed his mind about relocating to San Jose. “Every game was a big game, every game was an important game that we had to win to claw our way back up. Out of that formed a warrior mentality.”
The Rays showed grit in a final filled with incredible plot twists and heroes – a drama certainly worthy of Homer, right down to the will-or-won’t-Brandi-shoot conclusion.
She didn’t – it was finished before the fifth kick, Brandi-time – and said afterward she was thankful. Winning in the shootout is never the preferred method, but as Chastain gazed on the Founders Cup trophy – a near-replica of the Stade de France, perhaps – she didn’t care.
“At the end of the day,” she gushed, “with that trophy next to our team, I’ll take penalty kicks any day.”
They were required to overcome a fine effort by the Beat, which got superb games from Charmaine Hooper, Cindy Parlow and Nancy Augustyniak, fighting back from an early deficit and getting the goal, in the 83rd minute by Sun, that brought the trophy so tantalizingly near.
‘NO REAL HIEROGLYPHICS.’ It had taken six weeks for the CyberRays to begin finding ways to triumph. By the end of May, they’d lost four of six, had surrendered 11 goals and faced successive road games against San Diego and New York. Katia and Julie Murray, the Rays’ World Cup-tempered forwards, had scored just one goal apiece. Sissi, the incomparable Brazilian playmaker, struggled to contribute after halftime. The back line was staffed by matadors.
Then Bay Area ground out a 1-0 victory in Southern California, followed by a scoreless tie (without Chastain) on Long Island. In that game, Sawyers made his initial switch from the 3-5-2 alignment in which the CyberRays had been struggling to a 4-3-3.
It provided pivotal roles for Christina Bell and Carey Dorn, while opening space up top for Murray and Katia, providing defensive support for the attacking midfielders and enabling outside backs Chastain and Thori Bryan (and, later, Gina Oceguera) to roam the wings without weakening defense.
Bay Area went eight more games without a loss, dropping only two of their final 17 matches en route to the championship.
“Our tactical turnaround helped alleviate some of the problems up top that the strikers were encountering,” Sawyers said. “But I think there’s no real hieroglyphics to this: Katia and Julie started finishing their chances.”
Murray tallied in the 2-0 win over Carolina on June 17, Bay Area’s first full 90 minutes in a 4-3-3, and she netted two more goals (and Katia a third) in the 3-0 rout of Philadelphia that followed. Murray scored three more in the next six games.
‘A WONDERFUL JOB.’ Bell, drafted as a defender but a midfielder while at Sonoma State and Fresno State, was critical to the equation. A tall, physical player, she took on the nasty work up front in order to create operating room for the bigger-name forwards.
“We wanted to isolate Katia where [opponents] couldn’t double-team her as easily,” Sawyers explained. “Then I slid Julie where tactically she may be able to outfox somebody with runs into the box, you know?”
Dorn, whom Sawyers had looked at in midfield and at the back, took on a similar role behind Venturini and Sissi, whose game grew as her fitness improved. Kelly Lindsey fared far better in the back when partnered in the middle (by Aussie Dianne Alagich until she tore an ACL, then by Bryan). Beene found time to catch her breath and reel off six successive shutouts.
“Ian did a wonderful job of realigning players,” said Chastain, who had been playing in midfield before the change. “Playing Carey Dorn at center midfielder, putting me back in the back – I think it allowed us to let Keysia play her game. We’re not giving up bad passes in midfield, we’re not losing balls in the back, we’re not doing the things that were causing people to shoot from six yards out.”
‘THEY’VE ACCEPTED EVERYTHING.’ Murray remained hot until the end, scoring twice with her head in the semifinal triumph over New York (the winner in the 82nd minute) then finishing off the nicest sequence in the final (Oceguera from the rear to Bell, who turns and the splits defense with a diagonal ball from behind the stripe that leaves Murray one-on-one with Beat keeper Briana Scurry), then firing home the decisive penalty kick.
“I wasn’t really playing poorly at the start of the season, I just didn’t find my feet in front off goals,” Murray said. “Then I guess I just stepped up. I needed to perform. Like everyone else, I needed to step up to the next level, and that’s what I did.”
She’s not the only one to do so, she quickly adds. “Sissi and Tisha and Dorn have done brilliantly in midfield; they all stepped up. And also our back line.”
Several factors enabled the CyberRays to immediately develop chemistry, primary among them Chastain’s warm personality. It was at a barbecue at Chastain’s home after the first training session that everything meshed.
Sissi’s skills were revered, but her character wasn’t known – she turned out to be, said Sawyers, “a magnificent human being.” Beene and Lindsey are vibrant personalities, “Julie Murray’s wonderful, Tish and Thori Bryan are wonderful We had a little bit of luck in that the kids were … good. Good, solid kids. The core of our team is good kids.”
Sawyers went after local players who had played with and against each other for years, and ended up with a dozen who grew up, lived or had played college soccer in Northern California. That group, which included Chastain, Venturini, Beene, Bell and Venturini, provided a foundation for the others.
“Brandi and Tish, our two leaders, went out of their way to make everyone feel welcome,” Sawyers said. “I think Sissi and Katia and Julie Murray really benefited from that, and I think when Di [Alagich] came, she benefited from that.”
It was more than Sawyers expected.
“It’s hard to describe it,” he said. “Most of your job as coach, you struggle to teach, or some people are resistant to your teaching, or some people don’t want to listen. This group, from the very get-go, has accepted the challenge. They’ve accepted everything, whether it’s come from Brandi or Tish or me or [assistant coach] Tommy [Sermanni]. And then, you know, when they’re receptive to that, you know you have a special group.
“And you know it’s a special group when their backs are against the wall and they come out firing. Those types of things make life a little bit special.”
by Soccer America Senior Editor Scott French