WHAT A KICK! U.S. WOMEN WIN WORLD CUP : MATCH MAKES HISTORY FOR WOMEN'S SPORTS.

Byline: Barry Wilner Associated Press 

They played 120 minutes of soccer under a brutal sun, 90 minutes of regulation melting into 30 minutes of overtime, and still no one had put the ball into the net in the final of the Women's World Cup. And so the game was decided by the sport's most tense and capricious arbiter - one-on-one penalty kicks, the shooter versus the goalie.

And when it was over, the Americans having won soccer's world championship over China on a final left-footed penalty kick by Brandi Chastain, she whipped off her jersey, twirled it like a lariat over her head and dropped to her knees in arm-pumping celebration as 90,185 fans gave her a jubilant cheering embrace and confetti cannons dusted the field at the Rose Bowl.

It was the largest crowd ever to watch a women's sporting event in the United States and, organizers believe, in the world. Chastain's kick - which gave the United States five successful penalty kicks to China's four - consummated three weeks of unprecedented interest in a sport that filled huge arenas with soccer moms and dads and little girls who worshiped the American players, painting their faces red, white and blue in star-spangled admiration.

Perhaps gone forever is the myth that women's sports cannot attract crowds and sponsorship dollars, and that the games that women play are somehow lesser than the games men play. The Women's World Cup will undoubtedly be remembered as an epochal moment in women's sports, along with the Billie Jean King-Bobby Riggs tennis match in 1973 and the passage of Title IX in 1972, which essentially forbade discrimination on the basis of gender.

With Saturday's victory, the American women also made a forceful case for a professional league of their own that would start after the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

This was the second world championship for the American women, who won the inaugural Women's World Cup in 1991 before taking a bronze in 1995. The United States also won the 1996 Summer Olympics. However, the Americans had already lost twice this year to China. And until five American players had lined up the ball 12 yards from the Chinese goal and drilled their five penalty kicks, one more than China could successfully manage, Saturday's game was very much in doubt.

America's most confident and accurate taker of penalty kicks, midfielder Michelle Akers, left woozily at the end of regulation and spent the rest of the game in the American locker room, suffering from a concussion and from heat exhaustion.

Despite suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, Akers had dominated the game in central midfield, sliding hard with her cleats up, sledgehammering teammates and opponents in her path and using her head to catapult away one Chinese kick after another.

But Akers stopped a shot with her face at the end of regulation, then crumpled to the ground after heading away a corner kick. Akers had secured the 2-0 semifinal victory over Brazil with a penalty kick, but Saturday she was ineligible to return and help her team after leaving the match.

``She's the toughest damn player I ever played with,'' Chastain said.

Ten minutes into overtime, the Americans got a huge scare when China's Liu Ying played a perfect corner kick to teammate Fan Yunjie, who flicked the ball with her head past the outstretched right arm of Briana Scurry, the American goalie. But Kristine Lilly, the world's most experienced player with 186 international appearances, stood exactly where she was supposed to, on the goal line, near the left post, and headed the ball away for Chastain to clear with a scissor kick. She was named the most valuable player of the tournament.

After a pair of 15-minute halves of a scoreless overtime, the exhausted, drained American and Chinese players gulped bottles of water and lay on the turf of the Rose Bowl, as trainers massaged their aching, cramped muscles. Five players from each team would take the penalty kicks, setting the ball up near the goal, and the game would be decided as much by chance as skill. All a goalie can do is guess, acting on instinct. If she guesses correctly, she is a hero. If not, there is nothing she can do.

Xie Huilin stepped up first for China and punched a penalty kick into the top left corner of the net. Carla Overbeck, the American captain went right, and pumped her fist with a celebratory skip downfield. Qiu Haiyan of China placed a ball just beyond Scurry's reach, but Joy Fawcett, the world's top defender, did a stutter step and placed the ball into the right corner. Both teams were now tied at 2-2 in the penalty kick phase.

Liu Ying was next up for China, but she tipped off her shot in some manner and Scurry dived to her left, punching the ball away with both hands. Scurry pitched four shutouts in six games during this World Cup, but no save was more important than this one.

``I knew all I had to do was to stop one and we'd probably win it,'' Scurry said.

Lilly then put a left-footed shot into the net, and the Americans were up, 3-2. Zhang Ouying tied it right up.

Mia Hamm, who did not score in her fourth consecutive game, and who has admitted to lacking confidence on penalty kicks, made a decisive move this time, putting the Americans up 4-3 and jumping relievedly into the arms of her teammates.

Sun Wen, the Chinese captain who was tied for the leading scorer in the tournament with seven goals, was up next for China. She had been shut down all day by Akers in midfield and Overbeck and Kate Sobrero on the back line, but this time Sun shot precisely to leave the penalty-kick phase tied at 4-4.

Now it was Chastain's turn. If she made the shot, the Americans would win. If she didn't, a new round of penalty kicks would begin. She had missed a right-footed penalty kick against China in a 2-1 loss in February at a tournament in Portugal, but Coach Tony DiCicco called on her again Saturday, and Chastain didn't miss, curling a left footer into the upper right corner. There was nothing that China's goalkeeper, Gao Hong, could do, and the tired Americans had won.

``I was happy for being chosen one of the five,'' Chastain said. ``Being fifth, there's a lot of pressure. But my teammates trusted me, and I had been practicing all week. I felt very confident and I was ready to step up and take it.''

Chastain, the player called Hollywood by her teammates for her theatricality, whipped off her jersey, exposing her sports bra, and she was engulfed by her teammates, who had been linked arm in arm at midfield, bending over, hoping, maybe even praying.

``Temporary insanity,'' Chastain said of the reaction. ``I thought, This is the greatest moment of my career. And I lost control.''

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) Brandi Chastain tears off her uniform top and cheers after scoring the winning penalty kick during the women's World Cup.

Josh Estey

(2--Color) Kate Sobrero, left, and Cindy Parlow parade with the American flag after the U.S. victory.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News