Background and career
Brandi Denise Chastain (born July 21, 1968) is an American retired soccer player, two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion, two-time Olympic gold-medalist, coach, sports broadcaster, and co-founder of Bay FC, the professional soccer club representing the Bay Area in the National Women's Soccer League. She played for the United States national team from 1988 to 2004. In her 192 caps on the team, she scored 30 goals playing primarily in the defender and midfielder positions. She scored a World Cup–winning penalty shootout goal against China in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup final. In 2023, Brandi co-founded Bay FC alongside fellow former USWNT and professional club players Leslie Osborne, Danielle Slaton, and Aly Wagner. Chastain played professionally for Shiroki FC in the Japan Women's Football League, the San Jose CyberRays of the Women's United Soccer Association, FC Gold Pride of Women's Professional Soccer, and California Storm of Women's Premier Soccer League. Chastain was named to the USWNT All-Time Best XI in 2013. In March 2017, she was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame. In 2018 she was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame.
Chastain was born and raised in San Jose, California and began playing soccer at the age of eight. Because there was no girls' soccer team at Davis Junior High School, she played for the boys' soccer team after a successful tryout. Chastain attended Archbishop Mitty High School and helped lead the team to three consecutive Central Coast Section championships.
Chastain attended University of California, Berkeley where she played as a forward for the Golden Bears and scored 15 goals as a freshman. Following her first and only year with the Bears, she was named All-American and earned Freshman Player Of The Year honors by Soccer America. Soon after, she underwent reconstructive anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgeries on both knees which caused her to miss the 1987 and 1988 seasons.
After transferring to Santa Clara University ahead of the 1989 season, Chastain helped lead the Broncos to two consecutive Final Four NCAA College Cup appearances (for the first time ever) in 1989 and 1990. Chastain scored ten goals for the Broncos during the regular season. In 1990, she was a national scoring leader with 22 goals (50 points) and helped the Broncos to a 18–1–1 record. The same year, she was named the ISAA Player of the Year. She also won the Honda Sports Award as the nation's top soccer player. She graduated from SCU with a degree in communications in 1991.
Of her 192 international career caps, Chastain played 89 primarily as a defender but occasionally as a midfielder. On June 1, 1988, she earned her first cap for the United States women's national soccer team during a match against Japan. She scored her first international goal on April 18, 1991. After coming in as a substitute forward, she scored five consecutive goals in the team's 12–0 win against Mexico during the 1991 CONCACAF Women's Championship.
The U.S. went on to win the inaugural 1991 FIFA Women's World Cup in China.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
