Politics & Power Quote by Brandi Chastain

Chastain’s memory lands with the quiet force of someone describing the moment before a life swerves into purpose. She’s talking about men’s pro soccer in the old NASL era, but the real subject is permission: the way a kid can absorb a sport as atmosphere, not destiny, because the culture hasn’t yet made it legible as a path for her.

The line “I thought it was great” is deliberately plain, almost disarming. No myth-making, no destiny narrative. That restraint is the point. By insisting it was “recreation” and “family fun,” she sketches the world women’s soccer had to grow out of: a pre-professional landscape where fandom was communal and weekly, but ambition wasn’t yet on offer. It’s not that the games didn’t matter; it’s that their meaning was capped by what she’d been taught to imagine.

There’s also a subtle generational portrait here. The NASL, with its brief, flashy run, functioned as a kind of American rehearsal for soccer’s legitimacy. For Chastain, those weekends weren’t just entertainment; they were repeated exposure, a normalizing ritual. Families buying season tickets signals stability and belonging, the opposite of the “niche sport” stereotype.

Underneath, you can hear the future icon negotiating her own origin story: she didn’t begin with a manifesto, she began with a good time. That’s why it works. It frames women’s athletic greatness not as an exception, but as something that can start in the ordinary, if the culture eventually catches up.