She Kicks Back Legend Special: Hege Sweeps the Board in Sydney (Hege Riise)

Hege Riise, Golden Ball winner at the 1995 World Cup she won with a solo goal in the final, completed a hat-trick of major titles with Olympic gold in Sydney in 2000. After losing the opener to the United States she cut a headline reading ‘I am so confident’ from a Norwegian newspaper and wore it on her t-shirt, because the squad had almost none. Norway beat Germany in the semi-final and, in the final, recovered from Mia Hamm’s stoppage-time equaliser to win through Dagny Mellgren in extra time. She later won the WUSA Championship with Carolina Courage before learning, with fifty-five other players, that the league had folded with a twenty million dollar shortfall as they prepared for the 2003 World Cup.