Headed into the Women’s World Cup, the US girls’s nationwide soccer group (USWNT) was aiming to make historical past and turn into the primary group — males or girls — to win three consecutive world cups. That all got here crashing down this weekend when the top-ranked US misplaced in penalty kicks to Sweden within the spherical of 16, the primary of the competitors’s 4 knockout rounds. The remaining will happen on August 20.
Given the expectations of excellence that the USWNT has set because the sport began to flourish on the worldwide stage — 4 World Cup wins, 4 Olympic gold medals, and medaling in each main worldwide competitors apart from the 2016 Olympics — it was little doubt a disappointment. This was the perfect group on the planet making an attempt to perform a feat that takes 12 years to realize, as World Cups solely occur each 4 years.
The US girls’s loss was worldwide information.
If you ask soccer consultants, the loss wasn’t too stunning given the accidents key gamers sustained and questionable teaching selections that had been made. It was a transitional 12 months for the US, with the group looking for its id amongst a mixture of old-guard stars like 38-year-old Megan Rapinoe and new expertise like 22-year-old Sophia Smith. Sports media and followers alike have already begun inspecting what went unsuitable, what little went proper, and what the way forward for US girls’s soccer goes to appear to be.
But the defeat has additionally turn into a speaking level amongst a bunch of people that often don’t have a lot to say in regards to the sport: right-wingers, like former president Donald Trump and pundit Benny Johnson. In the wake of their defeat, USWNT has turn into topic to the declare that the US girls misplaced as a result of they had been too woke and too progressive.
That couldn’t be farther from the reality.
The right-wing concern in regards to the girls’s soccer group isn’t actually about successful or shedding or soccer
The sport towards Sweden kicked off at 5 am ET on Sunday, and the USWNT had misplaced on penalty kicks earlier than most of their nation had their first cup of espresso. The US group held even with Sweden throughout regulation, arguably taking part in one of many higher matches of their match, whereas repeatedly being stymied by the Swedish goalkeeper. But they misplaced 5–4 on penalty photographs after Rapinoe, Smith, and Kelly O’Hara missed their alternatives. As the day went on, a selected sort of criticism started to flow into amongst right-wing personalities: The US girls’s nationwide group misplaced as a result of that they had gone “woke.”
In a politicized and deceptive tweet, Benny Johnson wrote, “BREAKING: Woke US Women’s Soccer Humiliation … After winning back-to-back World Cups the heavily favored Team USA has been ELIMINATED by Sweden in the 16th round. Team USA’s downfall was delivered by anti-America, anti-woman activist Megan Rapinoe’s EMBARRASSING free kick …”
Leaving apart the a number of technical errors in Johnson’s tweet (the US misplaced within the Round of 16, not the sixteenth spherical — there is no such thing as a sixteenth spherical of the World Cup; and the video Johnson hooked up confirmed Rapinoe lacking an important penalty kick, not a “free kick”), its tone didn’t seize what really occurred Sunday. The US is the top-ranked girls’s soccer group on the planet, and Sweden is ranked third — a margin that’s slimmer than Johnson suggests. Based on how poorly the US performed in its group stage (the round-robin format that precedes the one-and-done matches), Sweden was at all times going to be a tricky match for the US.
Later within the day, freshly indicted former president Donald Trump weighed in on Truth Social, warning that the loss was a sign of the United States’s fiery descent into the underworld: “Many of our players were openly hostile to America – No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to Hell!!! MAGA”
The identical form of “woke = failure” rhetoric was implied in Fox commentator Alexi Lalas’s tweet in regards to the sport. (Fox occurred to be the community broadcasting the Women’s World Cup.) Lalas wrote, “This USWNT is polarizing. Politics, causes, stances, & behavior have made this team unlikeable to a portion of America. This team has built its brand and has derived its power from being the best/winning. If that goes away they risk becoming irrelevant.”
Despite taking part in on the US males’s nationwide soccer group, Lalas by no means got here near successful a World Cup. As his critics level out, in his personal phrases, this is able to make Lalas irrelevant. (Lalas has additionally beforehand tweeted assist for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose politics run diametrically against that of some outstanding US girls’s gamers.)
But what are these guys, nevertheless inaccurately, making an attempt to speak about? The US girls’s nationwide group has supported quite a lot of progressive causes, primarily LGBTQ rights and equal pay for ladies.
In 2016, the US girls’s gamers started a authorized battle demanding equal pay. They argued that regardless of successful main competitions and being the perfect group on the planet, they didn’t obtain the identical pay and therapy (constitution flights, motels, services, and many others.) as their male counterparts. The US males’s nationwide soccer group hasn’t ever come near successful any main worldwide soccer competitors, however nonetheless reaps a lot heartier monetary rewards. The combat ended with a $24 million settlement in 2022, and a pledge from US Soccer to equalize pay.
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Prominent members of the US girls’s nationwide group have additionally been staunch supporters of LGBTQ rights, a stance that places them at odds with right-wing politicians and pundits who’ve embraced hostile viewpoints towards the queer and trans group. The group didn’t settle for an invite to go to the White House when it received the World Cup in 2019. “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 stated in a 2019 televised interview, chatting with then-President Donald Trump.
In a contest earlier this 12 months in Florida, the place LGTBQ rights are beneath legislative assault, the group wore mild blue, pink, and white wristbands in assist of trans rights.
The political criticism the US girls’s nationwide group is dealing with isn’t in contrast to the rhetoric utilized in conservative boycotts towards Budweiser following trans content material creator Dylan Mulvaney’s sponsored content material. That boycott isn’t in contrast to the Starbucks boycott that pops up 12 months after 12 months, or that point Tucker Carlson was mad on the gender expression of M&Ms. It’s additionally just like the current and very misguided pronouncement that Greta Gerwig’s Barbie would make no cash as a result of it championed feminism and criticized the patriarchy. (Barbie is now poised to surpass $1 billion on the field workplace.) In the world of sports activities, stars like Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James have beforehand confronted right-wing villainization for talking out towards police brutality.
The ideology is easy: if you happen to present progressive values, you might be destined to lose. Go woke, go broke. But it’s a crooked connection and has little or no to do with how sports activities works.
This viewpoint fails to keep in mind that the ladies’s soccer group has been successful for a really very long time, going again to the 2015 Women’s World Cup and even earlier than then (the group has received 4 Women’s World Cups since 1991 and 4 Olympic gold medals since 1996). They’ve been combating for equal pay and equal rights throughout their most spectacular stretches of dominance within the sport. The US girls have additionally been on the forefront of equal pay and therapy not only for US gamers, however for girls’s soccer gamers throughout the globe. Spain and England, who are actually thought-about favorites within the match, have equal pay constructions amongst their women and men gamers.
Scapegoating the US girls on this second feels much less like criticism of how they performed and extra like a political alternative for right-wing politicians and politically adjoining figures to play to their base. Figures on the suitable who’ve been championing issues like anti-trans laws paint these girls as political opponents, advance their very own agendas, and seize some highlight on what’s a global information story.
Why the US girls’s nationwide soccer group actually misplaced
The USWNT’s loss towards Sweden wasn’t an enormous shock to anybody who’s been following the group over the previous couple of months. This 2023 World Cup was at all times going to be a dogfight.
Headed into the match, the US group misplaced a number of key gamers to accidents, together with proficient scorer Mallory Swanson, defensive stalwart Becky Sauerbrunn, and star midfielders Sam Mewis and Catarina Macario. Those gamers are a part of the rationale the US is the top-ranked group on the planet, however they had been unable to begin.
The US roster additionally included gamers who had been injured and making their comebacks. Rose LaVelle, a standout within the midfield, injured her knee in April. The World Cup was her first match again. Similarly, Julie Ertz and Rapinoe had been easing their method into competitors after struggling accidents. While proficient, these gamers weren’t taking part in at their peak.
The greatest criticism of the US group was towards coach Vlatko Andonovski. Soccer insiders and consultants posited that Andonovski didn’t decide a balanced roster, and additional, his in-game selections left many puzzled. As Kim McCauley identified in the Athletic, Andonovski’s ways left the midfield weak and disconnected, which in flip made the US offense a portrait of pure ugliness. “He wants to create overloads in wide areas and get numbers into the box so badly that he is willing to sacrifice having a midfield to do so. Personally, I think this sucks and leads to very bad soccer,” McCauley wrote.
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At the identical time, it’s vital to notice that groups and gamers world wide are getting higher and higher. Teams which can be nice on paper — like second-ranked Germany, seventh-ranked Canada, and eighth-ranked Brazil — didn’t make it out of the group stage of the World Cup. The most spectacular group of the match thus far has been Japan, presently ranked eleventh on the planet. Women’s soccer is getting extra aggressive, and the US was by no means going to dominate the sport because it as soon as did.
While the US misplaced in an unlucky solution to third-ranked Sweden — literal millimeters on {a partially} saved penalty kick — a surging Japanese group would’ve been their subsequent opponent. Based on how good Japan has been taking part in and the way poorly the US has performed, that may’ve been one other robust match and sure would’ve resulted in a loss too. If that had been the case, we’d doubtless have had the identical form of discussions about what went unsuitable for the group that we’re subjected to now. A depleted US roster, puzzling teaching selections, and a gummy offense are all extraordinarily legitimate criticisms of the perfect girls’s soccer group on the planet, however they’re far much less thrilling choices if you happen to’re making an attempt to make a hole political level.
