[Narrator] On June 11, 2019, the US women's soccer team
beat Thailand 13 to 0.
That's more goals than any team has ever scored
in a game in the history of the World Cup.
It's also more goals
than the US men's team has scored
in every World Cup since 2006 combined.
Yeah, the women's team dominates.
In fact, as of 2019, they're the No. 1 ranked team
in the world.
So, why are American women so good at soccer?
Well, it starts with this graph.
For at least four decades, women's soccer
has been rapidly gaining popularity in the US.
In 1971, for example,
there were only 700 high-school female soccer players.
But by 2014, that number had grown
to nearly 376,000.
And more young players means:
Eileen Narcotta-Welp: That there is gonna be
an increase in competition,
which means that's going to lead to
better technical and tactical play
that will weed out the best players.
[Narrator] That's Eileen Narcotta-Welp,
a soccer scholar at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
There are a few reasons, she says,
why women's soccer has become so popular in the US.
And one of them is Title IX,
which legislators passed in 1972.
It prohibits federally funded educational institutions
from discriminating on the basis of sex.
And that applies to high-school
and college athletic programs.
Narcotta-Welp: They said, "Listen, you have to
add women's programs,
you have to be able to demonstrate
that you are at least
providing opportunities for women.
So you just saw an explosion of different sports.
[Narrator] Especially soccer.
In large part,
Narcotta-Welp: Because you can carry
such a large number of women on those teams.
[Narrator] It was simple math:
By starting a women's soccer team,
schools could easily iron out gender discrepancies
in their athletic programs.
But it wasn't just Title IX
that pushed women's soccer into the American mainstream
and onto the world stage.
It was also victory. Two victories, actually.
In 1991, the US national women's team
won the World Cup, the first Women's World Cup in history.
And shortly after, major brands like Nike and Umbro
sponsored some of its players,
cementing them as American icons.
Then there was the World Cup of 1999,
when women's soccer exploded.
The final game against China is widely
considered the biggest moment
in US women's sports ever.
It went to penalty kicks,
and Brandi Chastain scored the last goal,
beating China 5 to 4.
After that, it seemed like every
American girl wanted to play soccer,
which only increased the pool of talent.
But the team's success isn't just about the popularity
of women's soccer in America.
It's also about the suppression of the sport abroad.
England, for example, essentially
banned women's soccer from 1921 to 1971,
Germany did the same from 1955 to 1970,
and so did Brazil from 1941 to 1981.
These countries and many others
claimed that soccer was simply not a woman's sport.
So for a long time there were hardly any teams abroad,
and that's true even in more modern times.
In 2006, for example, there were about 3,000,000
registered youth female players worldwide,
and more than half of them were in the US.
And even today,
Narcotta-Welp: Soccer really is only defined
as a female sport in the United States.
Everywhere else, it is a male sport.
[Narrator] Taken altogether, that's why
the US women's soccer team is so good,
but other countries might now be catching up.
At least if there's anything to this graph.
It shows what's called the Soccer Power Index,
which is an estimate of a team's skill level.
The US is in first, but France, Germany,
and a handful of other countries are now close behind.
And that's largely thanks to a sharp increase
in the number of players in Europe,
and to money.
From 2012 to 2017, for example, European soccer associations
more than doubled their spending on women's teams,
from about 50,000,000 euros to nearly 112,000,000.
And with more money,
Narcotta-Welp: You might have access to better trainers,
to better fitness instructors,
to strength coaches,
to maybe even start specializing particular coaching areas.
[Narrator] Now whether that translates to victories
is another question.
At least for now,
the US is one of the favored teams
to win the World Cup in 2019.
Take it from the expert:
Narcotta-Welp: I wouldn't put it past them
to continue to remain at the top of women's soccer
for the foreseeable future.