In the aftermath of the U.S. women’s national team’s stunning loss to Sweden in the World Cup, there were two common reactions on social media — and both were wrongheaded for far different reasons.
First, there were the trolls taking delight in Megan Rapinoe’s failure to convert a penalty kick that likely would have given the USWNT a spot in the quarterfinals. These are the same “fans” who have stamped Rapinoe as unpatriotic for taking a stand on social issues they despise, or worse, the homophobes who can’t stomach that one of our greatest female athletes is a proud lesbian who dies her hair blue and celebrates her success in a flamboyant fashion.
They pretend to love America but openly root against one of America’s most successful teams because they don’t like one of its outspoken stars. They should take a long, hard look in the mirror. They won’t. But they should.
Then, there were the apologists — and, before my inbox takes on a bipartisan level of vitriol, please know that I am not equating these two responses. These people mean well. They want to see the U.S. women win at the highest level, so much so that they refuse to understand that the criticism of an underperforming team with high expectations is not only warranted, but in the long run, might bring on the kind of changes that make sure it doesn’t happen again.
They insist that the U.S. team will “come back better and stronger,” as Hillary Clinton did, “because that’s what American women do.” They treat this collection of elite athletes like kids standing at the edge of a town field waiting for their postgame orange slices.
Look: Maybe the women will bounce back. But part of the process of getting there is to acknowledge that this World Cup performance was an unacceptable failure. The favored USWNT scored a single goal in its final 300 minutes in Australia and New Zealand against inferior competition. Everything is fair game after a performance like that — the roster building, the coaching, the style of play, the developmental system, you name it.
Delran native Carli Lloyd, one of the greatest American soccer players ever, was willing to say what was plainly obvious after the team limped through group play: That the U.S. was lucky to advance, period, given how they played in a 0-0 tie against Portugal.
“They’re playing as individuals and the tactics are too predictable,” she said on FOX Sports. “I’m just seeing a very lackluster, uninspiring, taking it for granted — where winning and training and doing all you can to be the best possible individual player is not happening. ...They’re playing to not lose, versus playing to win. That’s the difference that I see. Portugal played to win, and they almost did.”
After the penalty-kick loss to Sweden, Lloyd said on FOX that the Americans “had heart” and “did everything they needed to do except get one in the back of the net.” It was, in fairness, the U.S. team’s best performance in this World Cup. Still, it felt like Lloyd was backing off after taking heat from her accurate commentary days earlier.
Lloyd knows what a winning team looks like — she has two Olympic gold medals and two World Cup championships on her resume. If the rest of the world is, indeed, catching up to the Americans’ early advantages in women’s soccer, then it is important to start drilling down on the source of the recent problems.
“I don’t think this is something necessarily that just came to fruition now,” Lloyd said later on FOX. “This is on the youth level. This is developing players. ... This needs to be an entirety of a rebuilding, and what is that new identity going to look like? It’s going to be interesting to see.”
This we know for certain: The U.S. team will not include the 38-year-old Rapinoe, who announced that she would retire this year. Rapinoe vanished in this World Cup, and when cameras caught her laughing after missing that crucial penalty kick, the haters piled on as if she was the first athlete to react that way to a high-profile failure.
Rapinoe cared more about fighting for what she believed in, like equal pay for her and her women’s soccer teammates and social justice for everyone, than appeasing the vocal minority of sports fans who think our athletes should shut up and play. How petty a person, as an American, do you have to be to cheer against her — and, by extension, her teammates — because you disagree with her politics?
“I’ve always tried to play the game the right way, and to go about things the right way,” she told reporters in Melbourne. “I’ve always tried to use whatever platform we have to grow the game, to make the world a better place, to use our voices, to advocate for more. That’s the real legacy, the most important legacy of this team, at least.”
Rapinoe won’t be the only U.S. stalwart who isn’t on the roster the next time this team takes the international stage. The USWNT almost certainly will have new coach, with embattled Vlatko Andonovski taking the fall for this team’s failings, and a new, younger look when competes in the Paris Olympics next summer.
That can’t be the only change. This early exit in the World Cup comes after a series of lackluster performances on the developmental levels over the past few years. The U.S. had a head start, and given the results in Australia and New Zealand, it is clear the rest of the world has closed the gap. How will the Americans respond?
For starters, they’ll acknowledge that this was an unacceptable failure. They won’t listen to the trolls who revelled in their defeat or the apologists who tied to prop them up. They’ll just find a way to get better.
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Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.