NEW YORK (AP) Construction workers sounded air horns above crowds chanting USA! USA! today as the U.S. womens national soccer team reigned supreme once again in New York Citys Canyon of Heroes.
It was four years ago to the day that crowds tossed heaps of confetti to celebrate the team and its 2015 Womens World Cup title.
Now, its the women of 2019s turn. The repeat champs beat the Netherlands 2-0 on Sunday to win the 2019 Womens World Cup, inspiring another ticker tape parade in lower Manhattan that will bring soccer fans together to rejoice in the historic win.
The parade began at 9:30 a.m. and moved up the Canyon of Heroes, a section of Broadway in lower Manhattan. The route has long hosted ticker tape parades for world leaders, veterans and hometown sports stars.
Aly Hoover, 12, of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, stood at the sidelines with a poster of the face of Alex Morgan, one of the teams stars. If she sees Morgan in the parade, she said, Im gonna scream my head off and try to get a hug.
I just want to be like them, she added.
Garret Prather brought his newborn son to celebrate how the American women made us proud on and off the field.
The parade is named for the long strands of ticker tape that used to be showered down from nearby office buildings. The tape has since been replaced with paper confetti, already drifting down from office buildings before todays parade started.
After the parade, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio planned to honor the team with symbolic keys to the city.
The Department of Sanitation said it will have 350 workers assigned to parade cleanup with trucks, backpack blowers and brooms at their disposal.
The team had already started celebrating its record fourth Womens World Cup title. After touching down at Newark Liberty International Airport on Monday, players shared a toast and sang We Are the Champions.
They appeared on ABCs Good Morning America in Times Square on Tuesday to show off their trophy and answer questions from cheering kids.
The team has accepted an invitation to visit Congress.
The players have helped lead the global push for gender equality in the workplace, suing the U.S. Soccer Federation in March for gender and pay discrimination. At the final whistle of the final game of the tournament in Lyon, France, fans chanted Equal Pay!
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, introduced a bill Tuesday that would bar federal funding for the mens 2026 World Cup until the U.S. Soccer Federation provides equal pay to the womens and mens teams.
Prather, attending the parade with his newborn, said its about time women are paid the same as men. Its long overdue, he said.
