On August 25, 2001 the Atlanta Beat and Bay Area CyberRays squared off in the first ever final played in a women’s professional soccer league in the United States. The match was played outside Boston, far from either team’s home, yet 21,078 made their way to Foxboro Stadium and were rewarded with a treat. The teams combined for three goals in the first 14 minutes, and six in all, before finally deciding the WUSA’s first champion via penalty kicks.
The Lowdown recently caught up with six figures from that bright summer day 15 years ago. Here are their memories of Founders Cup I.
Here’s who we spoke to:
LaKeysha Beene – Bay Area CyberRays goalkeeper
Marlene Bjornsrud – Bay Area CyberRays general manager
Tom Sermanni – Bay Area CyberRays assistant coach
Sissi – Bay Area CyberRays midfielder
Tom Stone – Atlanta Beat head coach
Tisha Venturini – Bay Area CyberRays forward
The Beat and CyberRays could not have been more different, on the field or off. On the field the Beat set out as the early leaders while the CyberRays lagged behind.
Bjornsrud: Not only were the two teams far apart physically or geographically we were also far apart in terms of philosophy in many, many ways. In any league, leadership sets a certain tone. And I think we were just very different. Our team did not have local investors so we didn’t have the benefit that having local investors had in terms of having local investors. Atlanta had a very powerful local investor so that was the team that had all the bells and whistles. We were very different in that way as well.
