USA TODAY International Edition
Rapinoe unparalleled star of World Cup
Christine Brennan: Fearless co-captain leads the charge on and off the field
NEW YORK – Twenty years to the day after Brandi Chastain’s penalty kick won the 1999 Women’s World Cup, heralding an era of promise and opportunity for girls and women in sports, a new generation of U.S. women’s soccer players joyfully stormed Manhattan Wednesday morning, demanding so much more.
With ticker tape raining down upon them in the Canyon of Heroines, and with tens of thousands of their young disciples cheering them on, the U.S. women’s national team took over New York as it did the World Cup – with a swagger and fearlessness never before seen in so many young American women.
If one person could embody it all, it was U.S. co-captain Megan Rapinoe, who battled the president of the United States even as she became the unparalleled star of the World Cup. Her boundless energy came across the Atlantic with her and was on display for all to see from the cable talk shows to the steps of New York’s City Hall.
“There is nothing, nothing, that can faze this group,” she said. “We’re chillin’. We got tea-sippin’. We got celebrations. We have pink hair and purple hair. We have tattoos and dreadlocks. We got white girls and black girls and everything in between. Straight girls and gay
girls. … It’s my absolute honor to lead this team out on the field. There’s no other place that I would rather be – even in the presidential race.”
Speaking of which, Rapinoe isn’t going to the White House, and neither is anyone else from her team. She made that crystal clear on CNN Tuesday night when she said she would not participate in what used to be an honored tradition for American sports teams – and she said that every one of her teammates she has spoken with about the matter won’t go either.
“I don’t think anyone on the team has any interest in lending the platform that we’ve worked so hard to build and the things that we fight for and the way that we live our life – I don’t think that we want that to be co-opted or corrupted by this administration,” she said in an unprecedented rebuke of an American president by one of this country’s national sports teams.
During the World Cup, in a series of tweets chastising the outspoken Rapinoe, Donald Trump invited the team to the White House, “win or lose.” After the team won Sunday, though, Trump said he hadn’t “really thought about it.”
He doesn’t need to start now. The soccer players are not coming. The team will go to the U.S. Capitol to celebrate at the invitation of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi instead.
Interestingly, back in 1999, there was a small parade for Chastain and her teammates in New York City, according to then-World Cup chair Donna de Varona. That day, one particular New Yorker couldn’t wait to push his way through the crowd to meet the U.S. team.
His name? Donald Trump. Now, 20 years later, he’s a pariah to the national team.
Meanwhile, Rapinoe’s star has only risen since she returned to the United States. On CNN Tuesday night, when asked what her message would be to Trump, she turned to the camera and said this: “Your message is excluding people. You’re excluding me. You’re excluding people that look like me. You’re excluding people of color. You’re excluding Americans that maybe support you.”
Rapinoe also took on the issue of equal pay for the women’s soccer team, which is headed to mediation soon with U.S. Soccer. The federation’s president, Carlos Cordeiro, didn’t get things off to a great start at the rally when he mispronounced Rapinoe’s last name. Wait! What? Yes, he really did that. Where in the world has he been for a month? If you’re the president of U.S. Soccer, that is a mistake you just cannot make.
Speaking to the players in the midst of boos and chants of “Equal Pay” from the crowd, Cordeiro said U.S. Soccer is “committed to doing right” by the team, but instead of heeding the specific call for equal pay, he said the players “deserve fair and equitable” pay. “Together,” he said, “we can get this done.”
Rapinoe took the high road by not mispronouncing Cordeiro’s last name, then said with a smile, “I think he’s going to make things right. We look forward to holding those feet to the fire.”
An idle threat, that is not. When Rapinoe says it, consider it done.