Mia Hamm and the Washington Freedom are Saturday’s opponent.

BOSTON (AP) – It was after her second game as a head coach that Pia Sundhage realized something had to change. So, in the wake of the Boston Breakers’ 6-0 loss to the Atlanta Beat, she called not one, but two team meetings.

At the first, she did all the talking. The Breakers coach went on for 25 minutes, then told her players to come back the next day for their chance. When they did, almost all of them spoke, openly and honestly; the others, Sundhage said as she tapped her chest, “spoke on the inside.”

“It was very emotional for me. I talked to them from the heart, in my own particular way,” she said Friday after the Breakers practiced for this weekend’s semifinal against the Washington Freedom.

Having the team unload as a group “was very, very dangerous,” Sundhage said. “We could have done a different thing. But I look back, and that was one way to change the attitude.

“This is my dream: to be a coach for a professional team. So I really wanted to find a way to win.”

Sundhage seemed to have hit on the right formula, convincing the Breakers in that meeting to play more aggressively, and not to get down on themselves if something went wrong. The Breakers won their next game – a crucial victory, Sundhage said – and finished the season with a 10-game unbeaten streak (5-0-5) that left them with the best record in the league to make the playoffs.

“We changed that,” Sundhage said. “Right now, they are relaxed. They look like a team that wants to play. It’s easy to be a coach now. … My mother could be a coach now.”

Sundhage and her whole family will see how much things have changed on Saturday at Boston University’s Nickerson Field, where they’ll play Washington and its stars Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach. In the other semifinal, the San Diego Spirit will play at Atlanta.

The winners will meet in the Founders Cup Championship in the University of San Diego’s Torero Stadium on Aug. 24. San Diego hopes to become the first WUSA team to play for the championship in its home stadium. The Spirit overcame the loss of forward Shannon MacMillan to a torn ACL in her right knee in mid-May to reach the playoffs for the first time.

Washington and Atlanta have had more success – each playing in a title game, and each losing. The Beat lost in the inaugural championship, in 2001.

Last year, Atlanta lost in the semifinals to the Carolina Courage, who went on to beat Washington for the title.

“I think the team is feeling more determined,” Atlanta forward Cindy Parlow said. “We’ve been to the playoffs the past two years – once we lost in the semis, once we lost in the finals. Hopefully, this year we won’t feel that feeling again, what it’s like to lose, coming so close to the Founders Cup. Hopefully this year we’ll be able to pull it out.”

Washington is also hoping for a title that would fill in one of the few gaps on Hamm’s resume. As the most visible star in the sport – and perhaps its best player – Hamm is also hoping that a return trip to the championship game will help spread the word of women’s soccer.

“What we’re trying to do is continue to preach that message,” she said, adding that the influx of foreign players is making the league easier to sell internationally.

With the women’s World Cup returning to the United States this fall, soccer again has a chance to make its presence felt.

“The identity and the connection is there across the country,” Hamm said. “They aren’t new names. So the entire pressure isn’t on the U.S. team to sell the game because they know the names and the faces of the international players as well.”

AP-ES-08-15-03 1917EDT