Victorious

an essay by Julie Logan

By Where Is Football

August 29^th, 2019

The sun is shining as the Rose Bowl gently hummed and gasped in concert with the #USWNT as they played the first game of their victory tour. I’m sitting on the edge of the field, photographers to my right and left, many of them women (in a rare twist). Amidst a sea of long lenses floating over the wall, mine chased the ball as attentively as the women playing.

As Carli Lloyd ran on an open ball, my mind flashed almost a decade back to a similarly sun drenched stadium. Except that time? The stadium roared.

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The USWNT was struggling against Brazil, always a vicious rival, in the quarterfinal match of the 2011 World Cup in Germany. Any touch on the ball was met with a wave of voices from every corner of the stands and around the world as sports fans watched and tweeted. This game shattered global Twitter records for most tweets-per-second, broken again and again with every subsequent US game that World Cup. We didn't know it then, but...

...that game WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE LAST PRIVATE WORLD CUP.

Instagram was not even a year old, still in it's infancy. Twitter was where fans watched and commented on the games more than engaged in conversations with players. The players mostly didn’t share personal moments on social media. The only real glimpses fans had into the players’ lives came from stories told by U.S. Soccer’s Communications team, of which I was a tiny part.

Soon the way we would watch a sport and follow the athletes playing it would radically change, but for that game, for that entire tournament in Germany, the team was hidden from the world.

And I was hidden with them. I was brought on as a part of the support team, living and traveling with the players and coaching staff making short documentary vignettes and taking photos. On the bus, in the airport, at practice––I was capturing a few private moments within a very public experience. On the field for every game, I was clearly the youngest photographer and often the only woman there.

Women's soccer and the way it is photographed has drastically grown since my time in Germany with this team. However, the personalities of these players and their championship mindset is very much the same.

Relive the 2011 World Cup in this two part retrospective series: Volume 1 and Volume 2.

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In 2019, these women use social media to entertain thousands or millions of followers. Fans eager for any moment the player wants to share.

In Pasadena on that Saturday in early August, dozens of photographers chase a snapshot of the game. And, for the first time in a while, I'm sitting shoulder to shoulder with them as my lens chases Carli running onto that open ball.

In a blink, the camera rams into my face. I still don't know if it was a shot on goal or a pass attempt, but what I do know is that while Carli's kick wildly missed it's target, it did very much find me.

(Missed you too, Carli)

I've always chased moments; but the ones most fascinating to me are not always found in the aftermath of a victory. I am drawn to the relationship between the player and the game, and those moments between these women that feel almost suspended in time.

The moments that contain a multitude of stories within a single frame.

Shooting sports is no longer just about capturing a snapshot of the game. Social media has created audiences eager for more, for moments and stories about these athletes. The World Cup this past summer gave fans an incredible wealth of content and art to enjoy.

The experience was shared, not followed.

And the momentum hasn't waned. Shortly after this Victory Tour game, the NWSL's Portland Thorns took on the North Carolina Courage at home in front of a record breaking crowd of 25,218. More sports fans are tuning in because they don't have to wait for ESPN to mention the score or cover a player. They can learn about a win from the team's tweet and experience the joy from a player's story.

It was incredible to step back into this world that Saturday in Pasadena. And it was even more exciting to tune in to that NWSL game and see how the seeds of fandom have taken root.