Women's soccer fans watch from Lloyd's hometown
Michael Vitez of the Inquirer headed over to Champps in Marlton, N.J. to hang out with some of Carli Lloyd's friends, trainers, and more. Here's the scene:
Postgame - Literally five minutes, maybe seven, after the game ended, Carli calls Galanis. He's still in the sports bar, getting hugs and high fives from players and parents.
"This is her on the phone right now," he says as he answers. "Can you hear me?" he says. "What's going on? What time's the game on?"
Pause. She at first thought he was serious. "I thought it was at 4:45," he continues. Pause.
"What did i tell you?" he says. "I told you. Hey? Feel good?"
Coming off the bench, becoming a starter now, it feels so much better, she told him. It tastes so much better.
"Yep," he says. "Well, I'm very proud of you. You know that. We're all here at Champps. And everyone's screaming. You stole the show, like the plan was all along. You stole the show and you shined brighter than everyone else. You killed it."
Carli told him it got a bit scary at the end.
"Make sure you give Hope a big hug," he said. m"Go get your medal," he concluded, "and call me back later."
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The kids went home, thrilled and elated. One player has scored all the goals in the last two Olympic gold medal games for the United States, Carli Lloyd, one in 2008 and two this afternoon.
"Do you think you can play in the Olympics like Carli Lloyd?" Sara Guzman, 14, is asked. She is an extremely fine player, a midfielder herself.
"Yeah, defnitely," she replies.
"She's going to be there one day," her mother adds. "Definitely."
92' - That's it. Behind Carli Lloyd's two goals, and a strong performance from Hope Solo, the U.S. win the gold, topping Japan 2-0.
Hugs, cheers, chants.
All his assistants and fellow coaches bear hug Jim Galanis as iPhones all around the bar capture the moment.
It was a great game, a joy to watch, a battle to the finish.
90' - A chant in the bar with 45 seconds to go, "Carli, Carli, Carli!"
89' - Wambach gets a yellow card in the 89th minute. Jerry D'Apolito says to his daughter, "Are you kidding?"
Two minutes of extra time. The bar claps.
Two minutes 'til gold.
85' - When Hope Solo lays out for the save with five minutes to go, Allison Bicking was shaking. She couldnt imagine herself in that spot.
"She's #1 for a reason," Allison said. "She wears the No. 1 for a reason, because she's the best in the world."
Three minutes to go.
Every touch, every turnover or take way, elicited a cheer or groan from the crowd.
81' - Carli Lloyd bangs a bullet with her left foot, but it goes wide.
The bar groans. Her leg is connected to their vocal chords.
Japan quickly gets a steal and a breakaway. They dribble in, plays goes silent. The bar fears the worst, but Hope Solo make an amazing save and Champps turns into Cheers!
75' - Tatum D'Apolito, 8, was curled up tight next to her father, Jerry, nursing a plate of fries on the same side of the table and watching the game.
She plays for the Hamilton Wildcats -- a foe of the Medford Strikers -- but attends a camp run by Galanis.
Jerry D'Apolito said they're planning to go to Brazil in two years for the World Cup, and he and his daughter were watching intently in the second half.He kept pointing things out to her. When The U.S. broke up a near goal by the Japanese, it was Carli Lloyd in the center of the defense.
"She's always around the ball," he told his daughter. " Every big play she's right there."
A moment later when the Ref called Carli for a foul, Jerry told his daughter, "She was just being aggressive."
Indeed she was.
63' - Japan comes right back, scores a scrappy goal. The place groans. This is long from over.
Jim Galanis, Carli's trainer, breaks down her second goal.
"It's just because she's peaking," he says."She's not afraid to take players on. She got the ball in midfield. She looks up, sees a bit of space, took on three players and laser beamed it far post. She's the difference today."
53' - The sports bar was quiet, Japan seemed to be controlling the ball, controlling the game, getting chances. Even though the u.s. was up 1-0, nobody was comfortable with the lead.
The U.S. intercepts a ball on defense. A few good passes and Carli Lloyd gets the ball in the middle of the field. She carries. She's on her way. The bar is quiet.
One voice, an adult, a woman, calls out, "Come on Carli"
She weaves through players, and uncorks a bullet with her right foot, to the far post, and in it goes, almost too amazing to be true.
The bar erupts, everyone's hands go up in unison, as if in American football to signal a touchdown, but here just to represent relief and glee. This is ground zero of Carli Lloyd fever and the fans here loved it, loved it, loved it.
They watched the replay and loved it again. And again. Several players and parents went over to Jim, the trainer, and gave him some high fives.
Halftime - Everybody breathed a sigh of relief at halftime. The U.S. was ahead but Japan was taking too many shots.
"I'm a little nervous," said Harry Hart, 12, a medford striker. "But I know the U.S. never gives up.
Hannah DeBerardinis, 11, a Medford striker, was more confident than Harry.
"No matter what Hope Solo will stop them," she said of the Japanese attack. "She's the best goalie in the world." Then she and a gaggle of teammates headed to the girl's room. Too many Shirley Temples for teammate Julia Ryan, 12.
Leigh Ronczka, a Medford Striker parent, arrived to the sports bar late -- she has a job in Pennsylvania. But she saw the goal on the Schuylkill Expressway, right about the Conshohocken curve. "I was streaming it on my iphone," she said. "Technically i'ts not against the law to watch video on your phone." Her daughter was already here, by the way, brought by grandma.
And these kids were having fun, eating lots of fried food, soft drinks and deserts -- not exactly an Olympic diet. Giulia Dunn, 13, was helping her brother polish off something called a mile high ice cream pie, and it was not insubstantial.
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From Inquirer's Kate Harman in Mount Laurel, N.J.
After the US women's national team scored the only goal of the first half Delran native Carli Lloyd dropped to her knees, slid to the sidelines, and threw her hands up in celebration.
The only problem? Her friends who went to Delran High School with the midfielder had no idea it was Lloyd who scored the goal. They assumed it was forward Abby Wambach who put the cross from Alex Morgan in the back of the net.
In reality it was Lloyd who headed the ball in for a goal.
"I can't believe we didn't know Carli scored," Karen Sweet, a friend of the national team midfielder's since middle school, said during the first half of Thursday's gold medal game.
Once Sweet, her sisters Judy and Kathy, and her nieces saw the replay they saw that it was actually Lloyd. And they celebrated all over again.
The goal in the ninth minute, played to Lloyd by Morgan was sent across the box after the national team had moved the ball down the left side of the field. It was the only goal in the Olympic final against Japan, which is a rematch of the 2011 World Cup final.
Lloyd, who for all five previous matches had been playing the defensive central midfield position, returned to the familiar spot of offensive midfield after Shannon Boxx returned to the lineup for the first time since the opening match against France. Boxx had been sidelined with a hamstring injury and Lloyd had been filling in.
The Rutgers graduate has scored three goals in the tournament, giving her 39 for her career.
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35' - There are boys here too at Champps, including Elzo Dunn, 15, who is a Medford striker and plays high school ball at Haddon Township. He predicted before the match began that the U.S. would win 4-1, that Carli Lloyd and Alex Morgan would score one goal, and Abby Wambach would net the other two goals.
He had a big smile after the U.S. took a 1-0 lead. "Carli got her goal," he said proudly.
28' - James Galanis saw the goal, and a moment later a text arrived on his BlackBerry from one of his star players, Ryan Finley of Lumberton, back at the University of Notre Dame for preseason. Finley had practiced much of the summer with Lloyd and Galanis,and they'd worked on head balls.
"All those headers," Finley emailed.
"Yes!" replied Galanis.
Galanis knew it wold be a long game, far from over. "The Japanese are silled and the U.S. are athletic," he said. "A clash of ahtelticism and skill. The U.S. are very direct and the Japanese are very patient. "
Galanis also noted that Carli Lloyd had been playing a defensive midfield position for the Olympics games previously, but today she'd been moved into an attacking midfield position, and surely came througfh early with her header.
8' - So Alex Morgan crosses, and Carli Lloyd comes streaking out of nowhere, into the camera, heading the ball into the goal, and the sports bar erupts in 12 year old squeels.
Allison Bicking, a goalie for the Medford strikers, when she caught her breath, said, "Carli, when she's on the field she's the game changer."
Then she took a little credit herself for the U.S. lead. "I was in goal when she was practicing her headers," Allison said. "I helped with that."
And Buddy Hart added, "We all give Allison a lot of credit." And he reached across the table and gave her a high five."
The early American goal had spirits soaring here in Marlton N.J.
6' - The game begins. Japan in red. USA in blue. the girls sip their sodas. a few U.S. early runs. a few gasps. Seven minutes in, nothing yet.
Pregame - So all the girls and assorted guys were at their tables early, and ready. All wearing their Medford striker uniforms or their Universial soccer academy tshirts.
The game takes on a special sense for them because they know Carli Lloyd, the center midfielder for the Americans, has been to this very sports bar. She has trained with them , teased them, grown up through the exact same program they have. So her reality is the stuff of their dreams. And they know their dreams can come true.
"She makes me feel like I could be an Olympic gold medalist one day," said Olivia Goldberg, 12, who plays on the u-13 medford strikers. Carli Lloyd was once a u-13 medford striker.
Lloyd's trainer, James Galanis, who runs the Universal Soccer Academy, says his favorite Carli Lloyd story as a player is the time she took a red-eye flight home from London, came straight from the airport, dug her spikes ut of her bag, and beganning training. As a soccer player he believes her greatest strength is her ability to attack and "create opportunities consistently and out of nothing.
For her chraracter he says, " Her'es a world clas athlete who has achieved so much but still trains like she's achieved nothing."
Buddy Hart, a board member of the medford strikers and parent, says there are four New Jersey girls on the 18 person roster of the American womens team and at times in thi Olympics all four have been in the game at the same time. He says that "New Jersey soccer is better than any place in the world and these girls here know it."