Benefield: World Cup final a birthday to remember for Santa Rosa woman

Margie Bradylong turned 50 last August but she’s celebrating Sunday.

Bradylong, a math teacher at Maria Carrillo High School, will be in the stands at BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia, to watch the United States take on defending champion Japan in the final of the Women’s World Cup.

It’s all thanks to her husband, Tom, and one heckuva birthday present.

Last August, Tom presented Margie with a series of cards, each indicating certain potential birthday gifts. It was a sort of choose your own adventure gift in the style of those children’s books that let readers dictate where the story goes at the end of each chapter.

“It was ‘If you like this, go to Card A, if you like this, go to card Z,’?” she said. “Through all of those questions I think there were a dozen gifts.”

The meandering mystery could lead Margie Bradylong, a rabid soccer fan, to only one place: Canada.

“She went right for the grand prize,” Tom said with a laugh.

One card was good for tickets for two to seven matches in group play and in another was the promise of two tickets to Sunday’s final in Vancouver.

But Tom, who is a pretty big soccer fan himself, didn’t make Margie choose. He gave her both (as well as an Amish quilt and new stands for her washer and dryer set).

“It’s great. I have so many points on my side of the aisle,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve got years of screwing up before it even comes back to me. I know that going in, so it’s even better.”

There may be some payback down the line, but that is of little concern to Margie, who is taking in every bit of soccer splendor she can, in two separate trips.

The couple spent two weeks in Winnipeg watching the U.S. team in two group stage matches as well as five other games, before flying home to Santa Rosa. For ’s final, they left their home before the crack of dawn Friday and will stay in Vancouver through Tuesday.

Margie Bradylong, who said it’s been a good 10 years since she and Tom took a big-ticket vacation, is making the most of it.

Before all seven matches they saw in Winnipeg, the couple would arrive an hour before the gates even opened, just to survey the scene. They watched the field prep, the team warmups and all the ancillaries that come with an event on the biggest women’s soccer stage in the world.

“We watched it all,” Margie said, noting that she even watched the players cool down and exit the field. “We would not leave. My husband could have left but I would not leave until all of the players did what they had to do and left the field.”

The plan Sunday? It started Saturday.

They were to make their way to the stadium a day early, just to see the lay of the land.

“To scout the field and parking the day before so we know exactly where we are going,” Margie said.

Sunday they will arrive an hour early to see everything there is to see. These two mean business.

“There is a long-standing love of women’s soccer,” Margie said. “I don’t know, but I’m in awe of what they do and I don’t know why, but it feels more magical than what the guys do.”

Tom Bradylong said he’s hoping that by wearing his Abby Wambach jersey, the aging striker, coming off of the bench in this World Cup for the first time in, well, forever, will add to her record-setting stockpile of career goals.

“I want Abby Wambach to head in a nice goal and put us in over the top,” he said.

This day is so huge for Margie Bradylong that she is likely to go big in her spirit wear - a very un-Margie thing to do.

“I wear muted colors, as little makeup as possible,” she said of her day-to-day approach. But game day? At the World Cup?

“It’s appropriate in those stands to be expressive,” she said. “It’s the biggest party I have been to in my life.”

She might even wear face paint.

And what would have happened if Margie Bradylong had picked the wrong card last August? Would someone else be warming their seats in Vancouver?

No chance.

“I got it all,” she said. “I feel completely spoiled.”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield.