Thirty Years Ago Carolina Women’s Soccer Conquered The Impossible

Anson Dorrance was looking to challenge his team in a way that had never been done before.
 
Thirty years ago, the 1992 UNC women’s soccer team, quite possibly the greatest college soccer team ever, embraced Dorrance’s vision to take on all comers and, in doing so, set a standard that may never be matched again.
 
Over the course of four days 3,000 miles from home, the No. 1-ranked and six-time defending national champions defeated four opponents, two of which themselves were ranked in the top four in the country playing on their own turf in front of packed crowds, and out-scored those four teams, 22-2.
 
Four days, four games, four lopsided wins.
 
Longtime sportswriter and ACC historian Bill Brill of the Roanoke (Va.) Times called it the greatest team accomplishment in Atlantic Coast Conference history.
 
Carolina had beaten Wisconsin in the 1991 NCAA title game while Dorrance and the team’s top two superstars, Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly, were in China leading the United States Women’s National Team to a world championship in the first-ever Women’s World Cup. Hamm redshirted the entire ’91 season, while Lilly played through the ACC Tournament championship game and won National Player-of-the Year honors for the second consecutive season.
 
 
The ’92 team returned Hamm and Lilly, six other starters, and several dynamic scoring threats who had missed the previous season due to injury. In short, UNC was loaded –physical, fast, experienced, deep and talented, oh, so very talented.
 
Since losing to George Mason in the 1985 national championship game, Dorrance had led the Tar Heels to a 133-1-7 record. A 1990 overtime loss at Connecticut snapped a historic 101-game unbeaten streak; the 1992 team would go on to a perfect 25-0 record, part of another record-shattering streak of 103 games without a loss.
 
So Dorrance and chief assistant coach Bill Palladino set up a schedule that was almost daring in its design to build in a loss, something they would occasionally do to create additional adversity for the players to overcome.
 
In the season preview Dorrance said, “the team could be tremendously exciting to watch and because of that we have set up an almost impossible schedule for them, one that will really challenge the kids.”
 
Looking back on it 30 years later Dorrance beams with pride reflecting on what the players…