Brandi Chastain

Brandi Chastain

Personal information
Full name	Brandi Denise Chastain
Height	5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Position(s)	Defender/Midfielder
Team information
Current team	FC Gold Pride
Number	6
Youth career
1986	California Golden Bears
1989–1990	Santa Clara Broncos
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1993	Shiroki F.C. Serena
	California Storm
2001–2003	Bay Area/San Jose CyberRays
2009–	FC Gold Pride	10	(0)
International career‡
1988–2004	United States	192	(30)
Medal record Representing United States Olympic Games - Women's Football 1996 Atlanta Team Competition 2000 Sydney Team Competition 2004 Athens Team Competition
*Club domestic league appearances and goals, correct as of 00:56, 14 October 2009 (UTC) ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 00:56, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Brandi Denise Chastain (born 21 July 1968, in San Jose, California) is a professional American soccer defender and midfielder currently playing for FC Gold Pride of Women's Professional Soccer and is a former member of the United States women's national soccer team.

Chastain has played for San Jose CyberRays of the WUSA and California Storm of the WPSL. She is best known for her game-winning penalty against China in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup final and her bra-baring celebration afterwards.

Early playing career

She attended Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, California, helping take the team to three section championships. In 1986 Chastain was awarded the Soccer America Freshmen Player Of The Year award at the University of California-Berkeley. Soon after, she underwent reconstructive surgery on both knees which caused her to miss much of the 1987 and 1988 seasons. She transferred to Santa Clara University before the start of the 1989 season, leading them to two Final Four NCAA appearances, 1989 and 1990, before she graduated in 1991.

Chastain first represented her country on 1 June 1988, against Japan. She scored her first (through fifth) international goals on 18 April 1991 when she came off the bench as a forward to score five consecutive goals in a 12-0 United States win in a CONCACAF FIFA Women's World Cup against Mexico. Team USA went on to win the World Cup, staged in China.

After that first World Cup, she played club soccer for one season in Japan in 1993, earning team MVP honors and was the only foreigner to be selected as one of the league's top 11 players.

As a defender, she made the U.S. National team again in 1996 and participated in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, helping the Americans win the gold medal by playing every minute of every U.S. game, despite a third serious knee injury suffered in the semifinal against Norway. Of her 192 career caps, she played 89 primarily at defender during which she occasionally played midfielder.

Sports bra episode

File:Brandi Chastain 1999.jpg

The world-famous 1999 sports bra incident

On 10 July 1999 at the Women's World Cup at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, after scoring the fifth penalty kick to give the United States the win over China in the final game, Chastain celebrated by peeling off her jersey and falling to her knees in a sports bra, her fists clenched. This image was featured on the covers of Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated.

Chastain's take on the incident was an extremely insane take on her nude cover on playboy. "Momentary insanity, nothing more, nothing less. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I thought, ‘This is the greatest moment of my life on the soccer field.’"

Professional career

Chastain played on the San Jose CyberRays in the Women's United Soccer Association from its formation in 2001 until its suspension in 2003. She played on the US women's national team until her last game on 6 December 2004.

She appeared in the HBO documentary Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team.

She was a broadcaster with ABC/ESPN on their coverage of Major League Soccer.

Chastain's website and her book about women's competitive sports are titled It’s Not About the Bra.

She posed nude except for soccer cleats and a strategically-placed soccer ball in the men's magazine Gear.

Chastain served as an analyst for NBC Sports coverage of Soccer at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Career statistics

Club career

Team	Season	League	Domestic League					Domestic Playoffs					Total
			Apps	Starts	Minutes	Goals	Assists	Apps	Starts	Minutes	Goals	Assists	Apps	Starts	Minutes	Goals	Assists
Shiroki F.C. Serena	1993	L. League
		Total
Bay Area CyberRays	2001	WUSA
San Jose CyberRays	2002
	2003
		Total
FC Gold Pride	2009	WPS	10	5	450	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	10	5	450	0	0
		Total	10	5	450	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	10	5	450	0	0
Career Total		-	10	5	450	0	0	-	-	-	-	-	10	5	450	0	0

International career

Nation	Year	International Appearances
		Apps	Starts	Minutes	Goals	Assists
United States	1988	2	0	87	0	0
	1991	13	4	546	7	1
	1993	2	0	84	0	1
	1996	23	23	1961	2	7
	1997	15	15	1319	2	2
	1998	24	22	1891	5	4
	1999	27	21	2035	5	5
	2000	34	32	2520	4	3
	2001	3	3	250	0	0
	2002	15	14	1061	4	0
	2003	14	13	1080	1	1
	2004	20	13	1149	0	2
Career Total	12	192	160	13983	30	26

Personal life

She currently lives in San Jose, California, where her husband, Jerry Smith, is the women's soccer coach at Santa Clara University. The couple's first child, son Jaden Chastain Smith, was born on 8 June 2006. Brandi also has a stepson, Cameron, who was seven at the time when she married Jerry Smith.

External links

• Brandi Chastain – FIFA competition record (archived)
• Brandi Chastain at IMDb
• FC Gold Pride player profile
• WUSA player profile
• Template:Worldcat id