It was the happening that made it all happen.

If it wasn’t for the event which is about to return to Canada Tuesday in the form of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, our nation wouldn’t be a year away from the biggest soccer tournament ever held on Canadian soil.

If it wasn’t for this event, which made it’s debut as the FIFA U-19 Women’s World Championship here in 2002, there would be no FIFA Women’s World Cup here in 2015.

What happened here a dozen years ago was nothing less than one of the most remarkable hostings of an international event in Canadian sports history.

In the beginning nobody knew what to expect.

It was a stage which had never existed before.

As a sports columnist I certainly had no expectation I’d be writing about Christine Sinclair, Kara Lang and a bunch of teenage soccer girls every single day for the next three weeks when I look the trip to Calgary to witness their final pre-tournament game.

It was a 2-0 win over Brazil and it was a revelation.

It was hard-nosed, tough, physical football. And size wise, compared to the Brazilians, they were, well, Amazons.

This sportswriter, who had covered Canada’s only World Cup appearance in Mexico in 1984 when we didn’t score a goal, certainly didn’t expect to see a Canadian soccer team play a go-forward game and out-create a Brazilian team of any age, size or sex.

‘Boy Can They Play’

The slogan for the tournament slated to begin a week later in Edmonton was ‘Boy Can They Play’ and boy did they play against Brazil in front of 2,382 in Calgary.

FIFA vice-president Jack Warner spoke to the girls from Denmark, Japan and Nigeria at a welcoming ceremony at City Hall for the teams in the Edmonton group and made sure they understood they were part of a moment.

“These are an important two weeks in the history of football and all of you are here, in a very real sense, making history.”

The No. 1 thing people needed to know about the FIFA U-19 Women’s World Championship was that it was O.K. not to know anything. It was a common condition.

“It’s the first time around for everyone,” said U.S. coach Tracey Leone. “This is the first time the tournament has ever happened.”

Warner said he had spent time with former FIFA boss Joao Havelange of Brazil earlier in the week when word got to them that Canada had beat Brazil 2-0 in Calgary.

“He was dumbfounded,” said Warner.

Edmonton organizers, who had been aided by $5 million of FIFA support money to cover costs of travel and hosting, were making hard-to-comprehend predictions of possible crowd counts for teenage girls soccer.

“We can’t wait for it to start,” said Canadian captain Christine Sinclair. “It’s been amazing to be here this week.

“Everywhere we go we are being recognized as the Canadian team at the U-19 Women’s World Cup. That’s a lot different than normal.

“Usually people don’t recognize us anywhere.”

Coach Ian Bridge took his team to the Edmonton Eskimos game so they could sit in a big crowd and get a feel for what they might be about to experience. Eleven days earlier Denmark played a pre-tournament game against Germany before a crowd of 200.

It would be 15-year-old Kara Lang who would provide the memory maker of the lid lifter, a 3-2 come from behind win over Denmark which sent 21,117 fans – almost quadruple the largest crowd ever to watch a woman’s soccer game in Canada, home happy. She scored the goal from the sideline almost 25 yards out.

“This stadium is absolutely fantastic. Our players tingled coming into the stadium. But that’s what a World Cup should be all about. Big crowd. Big stadium. Big game. But this is new to them,” said coach Mo Marley.

England had played their pool games in Victoria before a combined total of 8,551 fans for three games.

Sinclair essentially beat England by herself, scoring five goals in the 6-2 win to take Canada where we’d never gone before at any level of international soccer. As she did, she continued to create dreams for the thousands of young soccer-playing girls in a crowd of 24,595 and, to that point 77,229, who had watched her in Edmonton so far, numbers which she suggested were far more mind-boggling than the ones she’d put up.

She now had 10 for the tournament, double Brazil’s highly touted Marta. And it was Canada-Brazil in the semi-final. The last time Canada had played Brazil in Commonwealth Stadium it was Brazil’s last game en route to USA ‘94 where they won the World Cup as Canada remarkably registered a tie before a crowd of 54,000.

Head over heels

It was ridiculous what happened next.

The day Edmonton fell absolutely head over heels in love with these girls was the morning after they’d beat England to advance to the medal round.

It was ‘Bad Kit Day’.

It was wonderful. If there was an fear about these girls suddenly becoming full of themselves it vanished.

They forgot there might be media there. They were horrified that photographers showed up to their practice.

“We didn’t think about that,” said Lang, the 15-year-old who came dressed in a “superhero thing.”

Two weeks earlier nobody knew who they were. While Edmonton warmed up to these girls from the beginning to make it a memorable event, the rest of the nation pretty much had just checked in watching the England-Canada quarter-final the night before. All of a sudden they were all wearing these silly outfits. And they’d never seen so many cameras and media members in their lives.

Bad kits, good girls

The day had been waiting to happen since the got together for the final nine pre-tournament games on the road leading to the tournament.

It just needed a happening to make it happen.

It wouldn’t have happened, of course, if they’d lost to England.

Sinclair said this wasn’t quite how she envisioned it.

“My dad coached my brother’s team and they did it once but that was just wearing bad soccer stuff. I don’t think anybody has had a ‘Bad Kit Day’ like this before. Some of the things these girls wore ...”

Forward Katie Thorlakson and a couple of her team-mates came to that practice as ... well, sort of strippers.

“We went shopping at a dollar store in the mall and we found these negligee things, she said of G-strings and matching bras which they wore over other, ah, stuff.

“We wanted to be as crazy as possible. We wanted to shock our team-mates said the girl who was mostly responsible for turning ‘Bad Kit Day’ into ‘Bad Kid Day.’

Back-up keeper Jessica Hussey stepped off the team bus wearing a tiger costume. Complete with tail. A couple of the girls came wearing diapers.

Sinclair was the only one on the field dressed as a soccer player. She wore a USA jersey with “Hamm” and “9” on the back. “I thought it would be funny,” she said. “Mia Hamm is the favorite of everybody on the team.”

Funny to the girls, sure. Symbolic to everybody else.

With the five goals in Canada’s 6-2 win over England and to that point 10 in the tournament and, well, Bridge put it best.

“She’s one of the best strikers in the world who is going to be the best striker in the world.”

Part 2: Tomorrow

Crowd control

Sinclair credited the crowd for the win.

“It was amazing just walking in to the stadium. I’ll have that in my head forever.

“It’s something you dream about growing up. Thousands of people like that.

“To be down 2-1 and hear the crowd screaming for us ... I think it brought us back.”

Sinclair and Lang continued to put their names on the tournament with two goals each to lead Canada to a 4-0 win over Japan. And Sinclair scored her fourth and fifth goals of the tournament in a 2-0 win over Nigeria before to go through group play at 3-0.

The northern girls had drawn 52,634 to that point.

“I’ve embraced the crowd,” said Lang. “It’s a real motivator.”

Up next. England wearing the famous crest of the three lions and coming from soccer programs familiar to fans around the world. Arsenal. Southampton. Birmingham City. Charlton Athletic. Everton. And Sheffield Wednesday.

It just didn’t seem right that an English international side should step into a stadium in Canada and have their jaws drop in anticipation of a FIFA U-19 quarter-final game.