Brandi Chastain’s Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame plaque makes the Cristiano Ronaldo statue look good

Sculpting the faces of soccer superstars is difficult. I say this not because I’ve actually tried, but because so many other talented artists have failed miserably in the past. First there was the “YOOOU GUYSSSS” Cristiano Ronaldo bust. Now there’s this hideous Peter King-as-Brandi Chastain mashup at the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame.

First, before we begin to deconstruct this police sketch of an old man who stole creamers from McDonald’s, let’s compare it with the actual Chastain — a longtime U.S. Women’s Soccer team standout who scored the tournament-clinching shootout goal at the 1999 Women’s World Cup and two-time Olympic gold medalist.

Great! As you can see in the actual photo, the real Brandi Chastain has long, silken hair and not the haircut of a 19th-century robber baron. Instead, the plaque presents an aging gentleman running out of patience with the construction of the transcontinental railroad.

Next, let’s move to the neck, where Chastain is depicted wearing one of her famous, Goretex-lined parkas. You may recognize it from her most famous moment as a public figure — that time she finished off her solo trek to the South Pole. If the BASHOF can ignore the fact Chastain’s greatest moment — and one of the most iconic sports moments of the 1990s — came while wearing relatively little clothing, then so can I.

But the true highlight of this Play-Doh catastrophe is the mouth. Chastain either has no lips and hideous, bulging teeth in this artist’s rendition or lips so taut her teeth are actually poking through them. In the wrong light, her mouth looks like Fire Marshall Bill’s. In the right light, it looks like she’s holding her mouth shut so powerfully her jaw could explode.

Chastain, to her credit, was diplomatic about the casting, presumably because it will be doing all her aging for her from this point on.

“It’s not the most flattering,” she said at the Hall of Fame ceremony. “But it’s nice.”

/loudly sucks air over teeth

Iiiiiiiiis it, though?

Update: After getting roasted throughout the morning, the Hall of Fame has offered to re-cast the plaque with a less Gary Busey-looking visage.