are to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team (2005)

The 99ers and their ‘Dare to Dream’ (2005)

The HBO documentary Dare to Dream: The Story of the US Womens Soccer Team faithfully captures the build up and heartbreak that is US Soccer’s Womens National Team (USWNT). If you are a fan, you need to watch this film. If you watched it when it first came out in 2005 (like I did), you need to watch it again.

We are now 7 years removed from watching Mia, Brandi, Julie, Kristine, and Joy play. We’ve recovered from Womens World Cup 2011. Two womens’ professional soccer leagues have failed in the USA, and the third is fighting to survive.

So take a fresh look at how hard the players worked to create the phenomenon that was the 1999 Womens World Cup championship team. They were a marketing machine, traveling the country to play games, run clinics, sign autographs, and fill 80-90,000 seat stadiums.

This documentary brings home the reality that the 99ers made a huge contribution to soccer in the USA, as well as the fact that women players have not benefited from that founding work.

Written by Ms Ouisie Shapiro and put together by an award-winning documentary team. HBO no longer has a movie webpage for the film.

IMDB uses the DVD release date of 2007, but the documentary was produced as the last of the 99ers made their 2004 farewell tour. The DVD has no extras.

8 Soccer Movie Mom Rating = 8

Resources:

  • Release Date: 2005-12-11 (HBO TV)
  • Full title is Dare to Dream: The Story of the US Womens Soccer Team
  • IMDB
  • WIKI
  • Writer: Ouisie Shapiro
  • Because I couldn’t find a trailer, an unofficial copy of the film starts here