Team USA Welcomed After World Cup Win

So there’s a ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Heroines at 11 on Friday morning, and here’s a travel tip: do not arrive late. Carli Lloyd, New Jersey midfielder turned international icon, will be on one of the floats, and with the way she conducts her business, the whole thing might be done in 16 minutes.

That, of course, was how long it took Lloyd to score three times against Japan in Sunday’s Women’s World Cup final, the beginning of an astonishing 90 minutes at Vancouver’s BC Place that didn’t merely provide a resounding wrapup to the tournament’s month-long run in Canada, or bring the World Cup title back to the U.S. for the first time in 16 years.

For the 53,000-plus fans in the building, and the record 26.7 million who watched on American television, it offered one of those transcendent moments that leave you wondering if what you just saw had really happened.

Yes, it did. Three times. Doubters should Google YouTube and Andres Cantor, who, after Lloyd’s insane strike from midfield for No. 3, began a “Gooooooooooooal” call that threatened to go into Monday morning.

That is precisely why there is a parade Friday that wasn’t on the schedule before July 5, when the Americans came out scoring as if they were playing pinball, going after Japan the way a bull goes after a matador.

Carli Lloyd could’ve possibly had the best one-day performance of any athlete in American history,” said Rob Gilbert, a sports psychologist and professor at Montclair State, a university in the same state that can claim four (Lloyd, captain Christie Rampone, Tobin Heath and Heather O’Reilly) of the 23 members of the U.S. women’s soccer team. “It was just an explosion. I can’t think of anything even close to it. It was like Babe Ruth hitting five home runs in an inning. Her name will never be forgotten.”

U.S. coach Jill Ellis put it a different way.

“I call her my beast, she’s just a beast,” said Ellis of Lloyd. “She’s a rock star.”