Champs are home, ready for parade
The U.S. women’s national team arrived home following its World Cup win against the Netherlands.
The soccer team, which won its record fourth Women’s World Cup title, touched down Monday afternoon at Newark, N.J., Liberty International Airport, where they were met with cheers and a banner saying “Congratulations Team USA!”
The team members gathered on the tarmac for a toast and posed for pictures as they sang “We Are the Champions.”
The Americans beat the Netherlands 20 on Sunday as Megan Rapinoe converted a penalty kick in the second half and Rose Lavelle added a goal.
“Thank you, France, for the hospitality,” Rapinoe said. “But wow, we are very excited to be back in America.”
On Wednesday, the team will be showered with a tickertape parade up lower Manhattan’s Canyon of Heroes. It’s the city’s first tickertape parade since the women’s team won the 2015 Cup.
Final had fewer viewers than in 2015: Sunday’s match averaged nearly 15.6 million U.S. viewers on English and Spanishlanguage television.
It was the mostviewed match this season, but a decrease from the 2015 final.
The match averaged 14.27 million viewers on Fox, according to the network and Nielsen, and peaked at 19.6 million. The audience was down 43.8 percent from the 2015 final between the U.S. and Japan, which averaged 25.4 million viewers. That match, though, was played in Canada and started at 4 p.m. Pacific, compared to Sunday’s in France, which began at 8 a.m. Pacific. The Telemundo telecast averaged 1.3 million and peaked at 2 million as the match concluded.
Besides the title, a few causes: Setting itself apart from other great American sports teams, the U.S. women’s soccer team is embracing a frontline role in socialjustice causes even as it savors a fourth world championship.
The players are now world leaders in the push for gender equity in the workplace, having sued the U.S. Soccer Federation for equal pay and treatment visavis the men’s national team. With a lesbian coach and several lesbian players, including Rapinoe, the World Cup MVP, they’re a proud symbol of LGBTQ inclusion. And they have stood firmly behind Rapinoe after she said she’d refuse to visit the White House if invited by President Trump.
Far from being daunted by these offthefield roles, the players seem to relish them.
“I feel like this team is in the midst of changing the world around us as we live, and it’s just an incredible feeling,” Rapinoe said after the team’s win in Sunday’s title match in Lyon, France. The team won all seven of its matches, scoring 26 goals, allowing just three.
Individual athletes — notably Muhammad Ali, more recently, former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick — have risked their careers in the past by taking political stances. Some teams in the NBA and WNBA wore warmup outfits a few years ago protesting police brutality and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.
But it’s difficult to think of another highprofile U.S. team sticking its neck out, in the runup to its most important competition, the way the women’s soccer team did by suing the USSF in March. The two sides have agreed to mediate the lawsuit now that the World Cup is over.
“These athletes generate more revenue and garner higher TV ratings but get paid less simply because they are women,” said Molly Levinson, spokeswoman for the players in their lawsuit. “It is time for the federation to correct this once and for all.”
Debra Katz, a Washington attorney who specializes in sexualharassment cases, said the U.S. team had earned global support for the causes it is embracing. “Their message is, ‘You’re not going to divide us. We’re united for nondiscriminatory treatment for all of us.’ ”
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