Carla Overbeck and the 99ers

Next week in our Soccer Politics class we will have the honor of having Carla Overbeck, the captain of the 1999 U.S. Women’s World Cup team, visit our class. She’ll be offering us her perspectives on the broader history of women’s soccer in the U.S. In preparation, we’ll be exploring a range of materials that explore this history.

This recent ESPN documentary called the 99ers provides a riveting recounting of the events of 1999.

This blog includes a range of materials on women’s soccer.

The Soccer Politics page on “Women’s Soccer in the United States” offers a great overview of key moments as well as important issues surrounding the topic.

These two blog guides, produced by two currents students in the class, analyze the ways in which women’s soccer is (or isn’t) dealt with in the blogosphere.

Finally, there have been a series of posts on women’s soccer on this blog by various authors.

These include

A 2010 post by me called “Kicking the Silence” about the lack of media coverage of women’s soccer in the U.S.

A 2012 post by me called “The Hijab on the Pitch” about the debate surrounding whether women should be allowed to play wearing hijab. 

The video below is an extract from a lecture delivered by Jennifer Doyle about the history of women’s soccer on the international stage, called “Marta’s Pink Star.”

As a supplement to this I highly recommend the archive of Jennifer Doyle’s commentary on women’s soccer from her (now defunct) blog From A Left Wing.

We welcome your thoughts and reactions to this material as well as other suggestions.