USA TODAY International Edition
US women’s team had better win to protect legacy
The most important and most scrutinized women’s sports team on Earth has breezed through the group phase of the 2019 World Cup and is now headed into the real tournament. All the U.S. women’s national soccer team has to do from here on out is win. It is expected to do that, of course. It also really needs to do it, because the alternative isn’t good.
If this team doesn’t win in France, the salient memory for the United States from this World Cup will be of that crazy opening game and the fascinating issues that it created, topics that linger to this day. In other words, all anyone will remember is 13-0.
That’s not necessarily fair, but it’s what will happen if the United States loses — and, to a lesser extent, even if it wins. That score against Thailand was one for the ages. Even now, a week and a half later, you can’t help but run into people who understand the importance of goal differential but wince at the thought of seeing their favorite team run up the score on a weak opponent — and even more interestingly, still wonder why the magnificent Megan Rapinoe launched herself into that whirling, dancing, sliding celebration of Goal No. 9.
This being soccer, there certainly were sexists who criticized Rapinoe and her teammates, but it is not at all sexist to question and even dislike what they did.
Memorable and controversial American athletic celebrations on the international stage are never completely forgotten, and gender has nothing to do with it. They are remembered because Americans always command attention, whether they are loved or loathed. Every athlete who has ever put on the red, white and blue knows and understands that.
This isn’t a new development. In the opening ceremony of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, members of the U.S. team, men and women, were so distracted by taking pictures and waving and dancing that they broke formation and ended up so far behind the lead American pack that they unwittingly surrounded and swallowed up the delegations of several small nations that followed the U.S. into the stadium. As you might imagine, this was quite a topic of conversation in Seoul for several days. The U.S. Olympic Committee’s apologies were epic.
Then there was the 1999 Ryder Cup. To this day, if anyone mentions veteran golfer Tom Lehman, my first thought is of the man I witnessed dancing on not one but two greens while matches were still in progress on that wild September Sunday at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. There was tremendous pushback from the U.S. golf community over media criticism of Lehman and his American teammates — reminiscent of the reaction by some of the criticism of the U.S. in that 13-0 game — but that didn’t change the fact that the U.S. team’s effusive celebrations that day were astonishingly out of place.
A year later at the Sydney Olympics, there was another excessive display by U.S. male athletes — this time the victorious 4x100 track relay team — in which they preened and postured with the U.S. flag, drawing intense and well-deserved criticism.
So it turns out the women’s soccer team is not being singled out, not at all. It is being treated equally.
Deep down, players like Rapinoe must know that, even as they pushed back against the criticism after that first game. How can they not know? Those of us who have covered the women’s soccer players for two decades know they are whip smart, the best-educated team this country sends from our shores. If they’re not talking about the legacy of the ’99ers, they’re remembering the ’91ers. Everyone knows everyone, and they protect their shared history. This current group is a glorious reflection of its predecessors, growing the game globally by fighting the battles for gender equality that were begun 20 years ago. Female Johnny Appleseeds, if you will.
That’s the irony of the U.S. running up the score or celebrating to the bitter end. You know who probably cares more about the Thai team’s quest to receive more respect and resources from its federation, other than the players from Thailand? Rapinoe and her teammates.
I’ve covered the 33-year-old Rapinoe for years. When I watched her deliver the greatest pass in the history of U.S. soccer, men’s and women’s, to Abby Wambach’s forehead in the 2011 World Cup, I left the men’s British Open golf tournament to cover the Americans’ next game in Germany.
She has taken a knee during the national anthem in support of Colin Kaepernick. She recently became the first openly gay female athlete to pose in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. A cocaptain of this team, she hasn’t sung the national anthem at the World Cup, or put her hand over her heart.
I cringed at her celebration of that ninth goal, at least in part because she is so not what an over-the-top American is supposed to look like. It was the team’s first World Cup game in four years, of course, and everyone was ready to explode, and they did. But by that point in the game, by Goal No. 9, I would have figured someone, perhaps Rapinoe herself, would have spread the word to tone down the celebrations, leading to a quick hug of a teammate or two, then back to midfield. I was wrong.
I then was mystified when the ensuing conversation did not turn to a measured discussion of the behavior of yet another boisterous American team, but rather to a pitched battle of the sexes. The U.S. women’s national soccer players are always worthy of the most interesting conversations.
When they lead us there, we should most definitely follow.