It's summer of 1985 in sweltering hot Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We're at the National Sports Festival, the off-year showcase for America's top Olympic athletes – Greg Louganis, Bonnie Blair, Jackie Joyner, Debi Thomas, Carl Lewis. A ragtag group of young women have been playing a regional round robin in a sport that had never even been invited to the festival until that year. Among them are a brash, big-haired New Yorker who grew up down the street from the coach of the famed New York Cosmos; a wise-cracking, half-blind goalie from St. Louis; a tough, physical midfielder from Seattle who went to college on a basketball scholarship; and a tall, lanky teenager named Michelle Akers. They just heard their names called out as the roster for the first-ever US Women's National Team. The catch: they had ten days to learn their new teammates, train together, then jump on a plane headed for Jesolo, Italy, to play in the first FIFA sanctioned women's soccer tournament. This would not be a "real" World Cup, but rather the diminutively named  "Mundialito" or "little world cup", to be played 55 years after the first men's World Cup.

No one knew their names. There was zero press coverage. And the games would definitely not be televised back home. The sport so often referred to as the “World’s Game” had for decades excluded half the world’s population. But, not any more. The single greatest women's team in the world, in any era and in any sport, the US Women's National Team, didn't become rock stars overnight. In those early years, they built the foundation of something special, forging their never-say-die character, while no one was watching.

Through the lens of an 8 MM video camera, we see a dimly lit locker room, The young coach of the US team, Anson Dorrance, is in half time pep talk full swing. After singling out great moments for each player, he thunders: “There’s no way in hell they’re getting back in this game!” We see the faces of the young players – tough, determined, but young, kids away from home. We cut to another locker room, present day, at half time in a sell-out game in Portland, Oregon. We see the US team huddled up, with faces of current US National Team players Christen Press, Crystal Dunn, Kelly O’Hara, and Amy Rodriguez. We cut back to the original scene, as the players walk out onto the field, the camera panning to reveal an empty stadium, then cut back to 40,000 fans all on their feet, as the present day players walk out from their locker room. 

Throughout the episode, we contrast the historical device of never-before-seen, archival footage of the ‘80s teams with a contemporary storyline, featuring current USWNT mainstays as well as up-and-comers like Maddie Nolf, former youth national team standout now pursuing her dream as a pro player in the NWSL and fighting to earn a spot on the senior USWNT roster for the next World Cup.  We see and hear the continuum of the fight – the original fight just to get on the field, to get a chance to play, the fight to be taken seriously, and ultimately the fight today for respect, sustainability, growth, and equal pay. We see and hear and feel how far women’s soccer has come, how far there still is to go, and how the rest of the world looks to the US Women as trailblazers at the forefront of social change.    

From '85 to '91, the American women toiled in obscurity, while steadily finding their footing, as the international women's game was just taking shape. Earning a stipend of 10 dollars a day and wearing hand-me-down men's jerseys with USA logos they sewed on themselves, these young women didn't flinch or ask too many questions. They were just thrilled to get the chance to play. They were outmatched at that first tournament in 1985, playing against better prepared teams from Italy, Denmark, and England. But, they won the crowd over, getting serenaded with chants of "Ooosa!" - the Italians' spin on "USA." 

Through a fast cut sequence, we see the team going from playing in one tournament a year, to adding another, hosting the first friendlies on US soil, forming burgeoning rivalries with Canada, China, Sweden – the first ever goal, first assist, first win, first home game, first tournament championship, first mention of a World Cup. Finally, we see the first ever World Cup qualifiers in 1991 – a rapid fire series of matches played under horrifying conditions in Haiti – cratered fields, giant rats at the hotel, fans attacking the team bus – and how they emerged victorious from that experience ready to take on the world.

We meet the eventual superstars before anyone knew their names - Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Michelle Akers. And we are introduced to other great players – strong, colorful characters who happened to come along just a few years too early to ever gain the fame that would later come to the team. We hear their back stories – growing up playing with the boys, idolizing Pele, dreaming of playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Through fly-on-the-wall camera work, we get to see authentic moments –  half-time speeches, chatter on the bench, long rides on the train and team bus in faraway places, working out in training camp. For the first time ever, this is the story we get to see and hear and feel. We also get to meet Maddie Nolf, a player from a new generation who also grew up playing with the boys, but who had Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers as role models to follow, and who is now plying her trade in a league that is fighting for long-term survival while paying meager salaries. At the NWSL game, our pioneers from 1985 are reunited, there to take in the game and connect with the new generation of players. The game has come full circle.

They are outliers, all of them, “the different girls” who happened to grow up in little pockets of soccer culture, with parents who fought tooth and nail for them to be allowed on the field, and boys' teams that let them play when there were no girls teams to play for. We hear those stories, explore those themes, in their own words. Today, in the World Champion US Team, in the professional players in the NWSL, and on soccer pitches all over the world with girls of all ages – we see echoes of 1985, watershed moments created by rebels and outliers. These different girls  – what they have, they had to go out and take. When they arrive at the gates of the world's game, they don't turn back; they kick them open.