U.S. women's soccer team kicking for gold

Kristine Lilly's fingernails are red and blue — she couldn't find any white polish. Brandi Chastain is as intense as ever, sweating through a drill in the midday sun long after teammates quit. Joy Fawcett is 10 time zones away from her three kids.

The Fab Five of U.S. women's soccer are back for one last hurrah and a chance to make amends for failures of the past few years. And, just as importantly, they're back among friends.

Lilly, Chastain, Fawcett, Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy have been the team's nucleus since the late 1980s. They have celebrated at each other's weddings and grieved at parents' funerals. And they have become perhaps the most storied team in women's sports history.

Now in their early to mid-30s, they have come together again to try to capture the gold medal they couldn't win at the 2000 Sydney Games (silver) and the 2003 World Cup (bronze). And they have gathered to share yet another chapter in what they say will be a lifelong partnership.

"I love soccer and I love this team," Foudy said Thursday after a two-hour practice outside Athens. "But I think the reason we've all been around so long is because of the people we're doing it with."

The U.S. team won two World Cups in the 1990s, as well as the gold medal when the sport debuted at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The first World Cup victory came in 1991, and younger members of the current team refer to the Fab Five as "the 91ers."

The youngest member is Mia Hamm, 32, whose 151 goals in international competition are unmatched by any other woman. The trade of her husband, Nomar Garciaparra, last weekend led the women's soccer team members to discard their Red Sox caps in favor of Cubs caps.

Foudy and Lilly are 33. Lilly has played in a women's record 276 international games, and Foudy has appeared in 256.

The image of Chastain, 36, ripping off her shirt after scoring the winner in a penalty shootout at the 1999 World Cup remains one of the enduring images in sports. Fawcett, 36, is the ultimate soccer mom. Her three daughters in California will join her in Greece during the Olympics.

"I think it's inevitable we'll remain close. We have something that will last a lifetime," Lilly says. "We've spent half of our lives together, so it won't be like we're going to stop seeing each other after soccer."

The team has a good chance for gold.