2011 FIFA Women's World Cup Team USA Watch-You Got The Rest Of America's Sporting Attention

In this summer of my sporting discontent, my Astros are on a pace to lose 100 games, the NBA and NFL are dealing with lockouts, and its another summer without a Houston WNBA team.

But the bright spot of my 2011 sporting summer so far has been this FIFA world number one ranked scrappy team of women's footballers who proudly wear the USA label.   They have a penchant for doing things the hard way mind you, but they never say die and get it done.

Nowhere was that more evident in Sunday's titanic quarterfinal match with Brazil.  Against all odds, playing with 10 women against the FIFA world number three ranked team that breezed through their group and jacked up officiating, they scrapped and clawed their way to a goal that tied the match and sent it to penalty kicks which they eventually won.

Now they are through to the semifinals against France, two tantalizing games from being crowned queens of the FIFA women's football world, and they have the casual American sporting fans attention now.

They have been saying for a while they wanted to make their own history and escape the shadow of the 1999 team, but that's been hard to do up to this point.   Even their big comeback for the ages against Brazil occurred on the 12th anniversary of the day the 1999 team won the title.
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But they are just two games away from holding up the trophy and accomplishing what they set out to do when they arrived in Germany for the start of this tournament.