Happy Birthday to Michelle Akers: FIFA Female Player of the Century

Michelle Akers is a true football icon, not just in her native country, the USA, but in the whole world. She was part of the first ever U.S. Women’s National Team und continued to play for the team until 2000. While she missed the first-ever international game of the US team in 1985 due to injury, she played in the second-ever game against Denmark, scoring the historic first official goal for the US team in a 2:2 draw. After that, she played a total of 153 games and scored 105 goals for the US Team over her 15-year career. When she hung up her boots in 2000, Akers had won two World Cups (1991 + 1999), an Olympic gold medal and was named one of two FIFA Female Players of the Century. The player who shares this title is Chinese international Sun Wen, who earned 163 caps and scored 106 goals for the Chinese Women’s National Team between 1990 and 2006. The reason why there’s two winners of this award is simple: there were two polls. Akers was awarded the title on votes from the FIFA Football Committee and readers from the FIFA Magazine, while Sun Wen shared the title based on the votes cast by the fans through the FIFA website. </figure>Today is Michelle Akers’ 54th birthday. To celebrate that the team at the FIFA World Football Museum is extremely pleased to be adding her match-worn shirt, shorts and shoes from the opening match of the FIFA Women’s World Cup USA 1999 to the collection. Happy Birthday Michelle!