Soccer handoff sign of success

HERAKLIO, Crete -- You hang around long enough, you see a kid who had your picture up on the wall, and who thought you were some kind of a goddess, take your pass and score the goal that gives you one last chance at a gold medal.

"I was this 13-year-old kid in Giants Stadium, screaming my head off for Mia," confirmed Heather O'Reilly.

At least that's not the worst thing Mia Hamm has ever heard. "I've had Greek fans telling me they've been fans my whole life," laughs Mrs. Nomar, who despite the fact that it feels as if she's been around long enough to have been in Ed Sullivan's audience, is actually only 32.

Heather O'Reilly is the resident baby of this US women's soccer team. She's 19 and a student at soccer behemoth University of North Carolina, and she is here playing with women old enough, well old enough to be like 36-year-old Joy Fawcett. "They like to kid me that I am in age closer to Joy's oldest daughter than I am to Joy," O'Reilly explained.

She didn't start last night's semifinal game against Germany, but coach April Heinrichs inserted her in the game's 75th minute and it was Heather O'Reilly, after missing an open net in the fourth minute of the first overtime, who sent Team USA back to Athens for Thursday's gold medal match with Brazil (a 1-0 winner over Sweden) with a tough goal in traffic about five minutes later. That held up as the winner in a grueling 2-1 double-overtime conquest of the Deutschlanders at Pankritio Stadium, a sparkling facility overlooking the Cretan Sea.

Hamm, O'Reilly's official girlhood idol, had created the scoring chance with a move down the right flank before slipping an artful pass through a passel of German defenders. O'Reilly then knocked it home.

"That was great technique," saluted O'Reilly. "Not many people could have found us [Abby Wambach was also lurking] like that."

"Mia played a good ball across the seam and she found it," said Wambaugh. "We have Heather to thank tonight."

And so the ongoing saga of the most celebrated women's team in American sports history will play out in the Olympic Stadium. Throughout this past year, the fact that many of the women whom American sports fans -- OK, women and young girls in particular -- have come to know on a first-name basis will be playing their last game in a Team USA uniform Thursday has been the kazillion-pound elephant in the room. Now that final game will be for the gold medal. One way or the other, there will be buckets of tears shed when that game is over.

We are talking about Joy, Julie, Brandi, Kristine, Briana and, of course, Mia. Fawcett, Foudy, Chastain, Lilly, Scurry, and Hamm. They may not all go, but we know most of them will be suiting up for the last time,

"We have to make sure their last game gets them a gold medal," said O'Reilly.

Talk about a Golden Circle: Heather O'Reilly is their legacy. "Oh, I was a real national team fan," said O'Reilly, who started playing at age 6 for a team she remembers as "the Pink Panther something-or-other."

"Each Christmas my mother would put a [team] calendar in my stocking and I would use it all year. I remember my father coming home from a business trip to Sweden in 1991, when I was 5, and telling me about the other women on the team he had seen play in the World Cup. All I knew was Mia. Now I can't believe I'm playing with her."

To which team captain Foudy, who may very well miss the gold medal game after sustaining an ankle injury in the game's 58th minute, would say, "See? I told ya' so!"

"When I grew up," Foudy said, "there was no women's national soccer team or a pro league. Now there are doors flying open for women. I've always said that our legacy is not just that we've been a good soccer team. Our legacy is that we gave back to the fans and [female] community. We were criticized for that. People said, `Are you saying it's more than just soccer?' The answer is, `Yes.' It's always been about more than soccer. It's about being an inspiration to young girls."

O'Reilly knows exactly why she is good enough to be on this team and lucky enough to be in a position to pick up a gold medal. The success of the Joys, Julies, Brandis, Kristines, Brianas, Mias, and others put the forces in motion to create a powerful feeder program. O'Reilly has played in Big Games before, as a member of various American teams. Hamm said that had everything to do with everything that happened last night, because a less experienced and poised athlete might have fallen apart after striking the left goalpost with a pretty open goal in sight.

"But Heather has had valuable experience in the 19-and-under World Cup," Hamm pointed out. "Having that kind of experience made a difference."

Truth be told, missing that goal wasn't as traumatic as the rest of us might have thought. "Really, I took a deep breath and let it go," O'Reilly said. "I really thought I'd get another chance. We had so many good possessions."

Heinrichs certainly looked prescient. "Heather is a kid you like to send in late in the game because she can provide a change of pace," Heinrichs said. "She has great speed and acceleration, and it can make a big difference when the others are tiring."

But instead of playing the last 15 minutes, plus stoppage time, young Heather wound up playing almost 40 minutes. That's because after Team USA took a 1-0 lead into injury time (on a Lilly goal in the 33d minute), Germany tied the score on an Isabell Bachor goal in the second minute of the extra time. It was, said Hamm, when she knew she had teammates made of the right stuff. "When we came off the field," she noted, "no one on our bench had a look that said we were defeated. That was very important to us."

There is now one game to go for the core group, a collection of women who have made this soccer team into something of an American institution. But if and when they get that gold, they will know how much they owe that feisty kid from East Brunswick, N.J., who once pined for their autographs.

"I'm so happy for her and all the young kids," Foudy said. "They work hard and they don't always get their due. We cast a long shadow."

The real significance of what these women have accomplished will be as true Thursday if the team loses as if it wins. Heather O'Reilly is everything they dreamed of creating.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com.