Either Sweden coach Marika Domanski-Lyfors or German counterpart Tina
Theune-Meyer will be the first person to win a Women's World Cup title for her
country.
But no matter which team claims the top prize in women's soccer
in Sunday's final, the coach will be the first female anywhere to have done
so.
Neither thinks that matters too much.
"It's not the sex that's the obvious thing here," Domanski-Lyfors said
Wednesday. "It's the coaching staff and the players that will succeed and get
the medals together."
In the three previous Women's World Cups, the coaches who won titles were all
men - former U.S. coaches Anson Dorrance and Tony DiCicco, and former
Norway coach Even Pellerud won the titles with their teams.
"The players
don't think like that," Theune-Meyer said. "They say if they have a coach that
can bring us forward, that's OK. So it's nice if we have a female coach, but
it's not important."
Some of the players on the German team are already planning to join the
coaching ranks when their playing days are over.
"This is the future, former international players," said Willi Hink, the
German soccer federation's chief manager of the women's national team.
"Especially Maren (Meinert), Bettina (Wiegmann) and Steffi (Jones), who have
played in the WUSA and have experienced professional football."
Hink, who was training with the team Wednesday at the Home Depot Center,
hopes the trend of female coaches will expand _ even to the men's game.
"In the future, hopefully it'll be normal to have female coaches on men's
teams and the other way around," he said. "In Germany, we still have prejudices,
so it's important to show women can do it."
Germany goalkeeper Silke Rottenberg, who had a spectacular match in the
semifinals against the defending champion United States, thinks it's good to
have a woman coach win the biggest women's soccer tournament in the world.
"When women trainers win a World Cup it's good for the development of women's
soccer," Rottenberg said.
