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AfterEllen.com Huddle: Soccer players

This Sunday, the Japan and US women’s soccer teams will face off in the World Cup Final. So what better time to celebrate the women of football? LIke this guy did with his song for my girlfriend US player Megan Rapinoe.

OK, real or fictional, team: Who do you love?

Mia Jones: Soccer was basically my life from the age of 9 until I injured myself in my first game senior year of high school (and then went on to play in the Gay Games five years ago and made some incredible friends). Since my name is Mia, obviously the first female soccer player I idolized was Mia Hamm (who, at the time, was the youngest player to ever make it on to the national team).

I made sure my soccer jersey was number 9 and I would literally tape and re-watch soccer matches to study what they were doing and try to bring their moves to my field. Eventhough I loved Mia, I also loved Julie Foudy and Tisha Venturini (who I thought was incredibly hot). Can we just be honest here? Soccer players are the hottest.

Heather Hogan: My favorite fictional soccer player is Bridget from the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books. I mean, she’s cool in the movies and everything (and she’s always looked like Blake Lively in my imagination, anyway), but in the books, she’s one of the greatest YA Lit female athletes ever. Soccer is so many things for her: A way to show-off, a way to escape, a way to go to travel the world, and, ultimately, a way to get back home.

Plus, Ann Brashares is a whiz inner dialogue, Bridget’s especially: “What made you feel that stomach-churning agony for one person and not another? If Bridget were God, she would have made it against the law for you to feel that way about someone without them having to feel it for you right back.”

By the way, I read the fifth (and, I think, final) Traveling Pants book last weekend. I don’t recommend it. It’s like being punched in the heart for five solid hours. Brashares should have ended with Forever in Blue and left my Bridget alone.

Trish Bendix: When I was younger, two of my favorite movies were Just One of the Guys and Ladybugs. Both were about protagonists who dressed in drag to switch genders. It was Jonathan Brandis in Ladybugs, dressed as a chick so he could play on an all-girls’ soccer team and bring them to victory. His new identity, “Martha,” strikes up a very close friendship with his teammate Kimberly Mullen (Vinessa Shaw). He has a crush on her, but she thinks he’s a she, someone she becomes close to.

The whole thing is so lesbian because, at the end, Kimberly realizes Martha is really a boy, but has still fallen for the person he is along the way.

The Linster: I came across this clip from ESPNW this week – it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen. I can’t think of a better way to spend seven minutes. Meet El Chiquitin Futbol Club.

I have a sneaking suspicion that we didn’t get a word-for-word translation of some of that trash talking. Every one of these ladies is a futbol hero to me.

Bridget McManus: I chose Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ effeminate coach Joe in Bend it Like Beckham. Seriously, Meyers is the prettiest chick in that film!

And let’s not forget Wei Zhao in Shaolin Soccer. Her bald cap stole the movie!

Who is your favorite woman who plays the field?

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