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Hamm's goals Star forward wants offensive production in semis
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- The last time the U.S. women's soccer team played Brazil, Mia Hamm scored twice. The second goal was a superb solo effort that left her on her knees, pumping her arms in delight. That was three weeks ago in a 4-0 victory, the last game the Americans played before coming to Australia. The two teams played again Sunday in the Olympic semifinals, a fitting opportunity for the world's most prolific scorer to produce the goal explosion she's never had in a major championship. Hamm entered the game with 126 international goals, but without ever scoring more than twice in a World Cup or Olympic tournament. It would be as if Michael Jordan, Hamm's Nike commercial partner, had scored all his 40-point games in the regular season with none in the playoffs. "You go into a tournament, and you have personal goals that you'd love to achieve," Hamm said. "As front-runners, we all want to score, we all want to help our team win. But I sit down and look at the results that we've had, and I'm not going to trade those results to get more goals for myself." Hamm had one goal in the U.S. team's three first-round games, a confidently struck ball after beating the offside trap in the opening 2-0 victory over Norway. She looked tentative and picked up a yellow card in a 1-1 tie with China, but set up a goal with a fine corner kick in the 3-1 win over Nigeria. Hamm had to be careful in the Nigeria game, because another yellow card would have meant a one-game suspension. "I couldn't be as aggressive defensively, and emotionally I had to be under control," she said. Despite her successes, Hamm has been known to struggle with self-confidence. After scoring a goal against Canada in July, she felt the need to run to the sidelines and hug and thank coach April Heinrichs for not giving up on her. The reaction to that moment was such that a few days later Hamm promised to "stop whining." "I don't know what it would be like to be her," said forward Tiffeny Milbrett, who is just as dangerous as Hamm with the ball but doesn't have the superstar profile. "I can't imagine. As a player and as an icon for the American public, I'm sure she has her pressures and her demons and her days when it's hard to handle stuff. But she's been the same Mia Hamm from Day One that she is today." Heinrichs defends Hamm's play, pointing out that she has played well defensively, often can't find space to score because other teams mark her so closely, and that she has helped set up goals that make the American attack more than one-dimensional. Six players scored the six U.S. goals in the first round. "China went home," Heinrichs said. "And only two players had scored for them. When you have a team like ours with six players scoring goals, how do you scout that?" Four years ago, Hamm scored just once in the 1996 Olympic tournament, but she set up both goals in the 2-1 victory over China in the gold medal game despite playing on a gimpy ankle. "You can't just measure what she does on the field with just statistics," Milbrett said. "You look at Mia in '96. I honestly believe Mia was the heart of the team. There's a lot of things soccer players do that you can't measure because it's hard work, defensive work, tracking back and making a tackle. It's stuff that never gets recorded." If Hamm has a fault, said Heinrichs, it's that she is too dedicated to helping on defense. It's a point well taken by the 28-year-old forward. "You get stuck back in the midfield sometimes, and as a front-runner that's not where you want to be," Hamm said. "But I seem to get a lot of confidence offensively with my defense, and sometimes it's at the expense of what I can do offensively. You try to find a balance, but obviously my job is to help my team put the ball in the back of the net. "Right now, I just have to be as positive as I can."
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