11v11

At high schools on opposite sides of town, two groups of girls showed up for the first day of soccer practice, and everyone thought they knew how the season would go.

West Sycamore's team had always been pretty average. No one expected that to change.

East Sycamore's team was the best in the state, with a lineup full of All-Stars. Anything less than a state championship would have been a disappointment.

But in sports, things rarely go according to plan. There were new arrivals. There were injuries. There were red cards and penalties and fights in the locker room. Boyfriends and girlfriends and deaths in the family. Add it all together and you get a season people are still talking about 10 years later.

This is the story of that season, the greatest girls soccer season that never actually happened, told through interviews with the young women who didn't actually live it.