Stars & Stripes

Grab World Cup

in Overtime

Team USA defeats France for power

soccer world championship

by Bill Norman

Photos by Robin Chinn and Tressie Ritter

What a magnificent tribute to the gutsiness of eight incredible athletes!

On Oct. 14, after days of intense competition, Team USA emerged victorious in the Power Soccer World Cup in Tokyo.

On their way to the top they beat world-class power soccer teams from Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Japan and Portugal. Their final win came in a sudden-death overtime match against France, which had never before been beaten in international competition.

Victory was sweet, and well deserved, for the team members who hail from local and regional power soccer teams from across the U.S. They had practiced and scrimmaged endlessly for months on end, ultimately assembling a finely tuned machine.

Power soccer is played on a basketball court with a 13-inch ball slammed around by people piloting high-speed metal chairs that can weigh 300 pounds or more. Principles of defense and offense are the same as in standard soccer, although players “kick” the ball with modified foot guards on their chairs and block shots by interposing the chair (or themselves) in the ball’s path.

Did it matter that half of Team USA’s players are in their mid-to-late teens, but they were taking on teams composed largely of experienced adults, often with wheel-