ASADENA, Calif. - She knew the Chinese would never put five straight penalty kicks by her. Never. ''I knew somehow, some way, I was going to get my hands on one of them,'' Briana Scurry said. And the US keeper knew, as soon as she saw Liu Ying walk to the spot for the third attempt, that she had her pigeon.
''I knew that was going to be the one,'' the former University of Massachusetts star said after her decisive block of Liu's shot allowed her exhausted teammates to reclaim the World Cup with a 5-4 penalty-kick verdict. ''I can't tell you how. I just knew.''
She knew the way keepers always know, by the little signals shooters give when they take the long walk from midfield to the spot. Forwards, who spend their lives working in the penalty area, walk more decisively to the ball than midfielders or defenders do, Scurry said.
Liu was a midfielder, a midfielder who had just spent 120 minutes running up and down the flank in 90-degree heat. The last thing she looked like she wanted to do was kick a ball at the world's best keeper with the world watching.
''It really didn't look like she wanted to shoot it,'' Scurry noticed. ''She just didn't look like she wanted to be there. She didn't have that confidence. You could see it in the way she walked up there.''
So Scurry homed in on Liu like a hawk on a squirrel, spread her gloved wings, dived left, and swatted the ball away. One save was all it would take, Scurry knew, given her sharpshooter teammates. One save was all she was expected to make - if that. ''Make one and you're a hero,'' coach Tony DiCicco, an old keeper himself, had told Scurry.
Keepers aren't expected to make any. They stand in the middle of the shooting gallery, 12 yards from the spot. They have to cover 192 square feet. They can't move until the ball is kicked. Firing squad victims have better odds.
Scurry hadn't had to face a penalty kick shootout in four years, since the Norwegians beat the US in a tournament in Portugal. But she'd sensed she might see one yesterday, given how evenly matched the Americans and Chinese were. Once the Swiss referee whistled the end of overtime and the US lost the coin flip, Scurry went to her line and prepared for the fusillade.
After Xie Huilin and Qiu Haiyan beat her cleanly, Scurry simply shrugged and waited for her pigeon. Once she'd thwarted Liu, she celebrated then turned away, waiting for her teammates to finish it. ''I don't ever watch them take kicks,'' Scurry said. ''I used to do it with my club team but it seemed every time I did, they missed.''
So Scurry never saw Kristine Lilly, Mia Hamm, and Brandi Chastain blast their shots past Gao Hong. All she heard was a roar from 90,000 throats and saw her white-clad mates jump 10 feet in the air. Her job was already done. The keeper only has to stop one.
