Manifestly American: FIFA Women’s World Cup Champions
Photo by Erik Drost via Wikimedia Commons
The FIFA World Cup trophy glistened as it was brought to the waiting, hungry arms of the champions — the United States Women’s National Team. It was Carli Lloyd who beckoned it with her eyes, eagerly hoisting it above her head for the world to see. As I watched these women surround each other cheering and hugging, a surprising emotion swept through me: hope. Unbridled, unconfused hope.
In a perfect world, sports has nothing to do with the politics. In a perfect world, we can witness men and women at the top of their game – these physically transcendent specimens of the human race – perform their awesome feats for a global audience and we simply get to marvel at the spectacle.
These women were not granted this privilege, for it is a truth universally acknowledged that a group of women in possession of raw talent and singular vision must be attacked by legions of baffled idiots.
The women who raised the World Cup trophy today did so despite playing under systemic inequality. For her outspokenness on the issue of equal pay and injustice as it exists more broadly in the United States, team captain Megan Rapinoe was specially targeted by the highest office of this country. But the President of the United States is not the only diminutive character attacking this team.
Megan Rapinoe and star forward Alex Morgan spent much of the press tour before the semi-final with England answering for their perceived arrogance. Arrogance is an oddity in that it requires as much intention on the offending party as it does perception on the offended party. If you go looking for it, you’ll find it everywhere (see: Twitter). For women to joyously whoop and cheer goal after goal, win after win earns them the right to be arrogant. Being at the top of your game earns you bragging rights.
They are proud. They are not braggarts.
I watched the team that calls itself “23 best friends” play with tenacity for 95 minutes. However close they may have been a month ago, there is no doubt their bond is now unbreakable having withstood international attacks on their character and talent, resentment at their success, and that constant bully – pure misogyny.
None of the women were thinking about any of this backlash for the 95 minutes of play, that’s for sure. Everything seemed to dissipate on the pitch, and we witnessed a marvelous game.
The US scored two poetic goals in the second.
Alex Morgan, unfairly punished with a spate of elbows-to-her-face, kicks-to-her-shins, tackles-at-every-corner was felled by kick to her arm, garnering a penalty kick. Megan Rapinoe scored on a penalty kick, and the sports bar I was in erupted in wild cheers and dancing at that second, but what I will always remember is her face: the bright intensity of her eyes under a smooth, unlined forehead, her jaw loosening as she caught the gaze of someone to her left…and then immediately after scoring, the brilliant smile as she runs to the side for her trademark “Are you entertained?!!!!” pose. Less than ten minutes later, Rose Lavelle demonstrated unbelievable grit, collecting the ball just over mid-field, masterfully weaving through opponents oh-so delicately to the goal before pounding it to straight net for the second goal.
This tournament, and everything associated with it for the last several weeks, is a masterclass in tenacity and heart for everyone, especially women. Keep going, keep going, keep unapologetically going.
I can think of no better manifestation of what it means to be American.
The players who make up the United States National Women’s Team roster, Morgan Brian, Abby Dahlkemper, Tierna Davidson, Crystal Dunn, Julie Ertz, Adrianna Franch, Ashlyn Harris, Tobin Heath, Lindsay Horan, Ali Krieger, Rose Lavelle, Allie Long, Jessica McDonald, Samantha Mewis, Alex Morgan, Alyssa Naeher, Kelley O’Hara, Christen Press, Mallory Pugh, Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, Emily Sonnett led by their coach, Jill Davis have deepened critical conversations on and off the pitch, changed perceptions of women at home and abroad and most definitely transformed the future of soccer in America.
For all this, they should at the very least be paid the same as the men’s team.
And honestly, that’s the tea.
I follow enough international Women’s Soccer to know that the American team are totally braggarts and jerks. They’re the strongest squad and know it and like to show off about it, which includes rubbing it in the face of less talented teams.
It’s their team identity. Just own it. They can be heroes to Americans and inspirations to girls to achieve and still be heels to the rest of the world. The dynamic of the top international women’s soccer team with the rest of the world isn’t entirely about internal American gender politics as much as a lot of people want it to be.Report
I’d say that for many Americans, they are the most obnoxious thing to hit soccer since the vuvuzela, ranking right up there with Dennis Rodman, Lance Armstrong, Johnny Manziel, Colin Kaepernick, and Tonya Harding.Report
I’m not afraid to say it: they’re uppity.Report
It was the play against Thailand that made so many people recoil. Physically, it was like playing a junior high girls team.
The Thai’s goalies average 5’6″, the defenders and midfielders average 5’3″, and their forwards are 5’6″. 5’3 is shorter than the average American non-athletic woman.
All three US goalies are 5’9″, our defenders average 5’7″, our midfielders are 5’8″, and our forwards are 5’7″.
Going by average US female heights, that mismatch was the same as having 16-20 year-old girls playing an equal mix of 12 to 13 year-old girls.
They should’ve eased up after it was, oh, 8-0. It’s not like they can bank the extra points towards the next match.Report
*Shakes fist menacingly*
Come the Revolution, those tall poppies will get what’s coming to them!Report
The corollary to “if you don’t want to see us celly, don’t let us score” is, if you don’t want to be treated like the privileged jerk team, don’t act like jerks while being privileged.
Its not necessarily a bad thing for the sport for the overwhelmingly better resourced team with a much larger talent pool to draw on to act the heel. It makes for a good narrative. But if you’re going to cheer for them, own that you’re cheering for the Yankees.Report
Yes. I wish I wrote this comment.Report
“Tall poppies” was a sarcastic reference to the conservative penchant of celebrating the superstar individual, the brash entrepreneurial genius, the sort of people who flaunt their wealth with gaudy gilded New York penthouses.Report
You need to update your stereotyping. Rich, tacky liberals and conservatives receive praise from their ideological allies. Conservatives are more likely to praise the accomplishment of a relatively politically-neutral or even politically-opposed successful person, which isn’t a bad thing. But if I had to list all the gaudy New Yorkers I’d heard of, they’d mostly be liberals in the entertainment field. Rich, famous, tacky Angelinos greatly outnumber their NYC counterparts.
What conservatives tend not to do (although we do slip up) is praise successful people based on their race and sex.Report
You bring up a good point that the celebration of superstars and tolerance of arrogance is omnipresent in our culture.
And maybe it is tolerable in sports which by its very design demands a win/lose dynamic.
But maybe we should reject the sort of Darwinian survival of the fittest ethos as a template for society at large.
Maybe we need less stress on competition, and more stress on cooperation and helping each other succeed.Report
This is probably one of those things where virtue is found in the middle. I really should read Plato some day.
I want to make a silly joke, that the middle ground between too much and too little focus on winning is found in covering the point spread. But there’s some truth in that. One should set realistic expectations but seek to exceed them. The person can use his competitive instinct, but toward competitive or cooperative goals.Report
The book I would write were I not too lazy and untalented, is “Everything I Need To Know About Politics I Learned in Boy Scouts”.
Where they pair the drive to individual achievement of merit with the Patrol Method, where the slogan is (direct quote) “All For One, One For All”.Report
Goal difference in the group stage matters. Pasting Thailand 13-0 made the US +13 to Sweden’s +2. After the match against Chile, goal diff was US +16 to Sweden +6. Because of this difference, the only way Sweden tops the group is if they beat the US. Goal difference takes a draw off the table.
And also, this is the WORLD FREAKING CUP. If you can’t celebrate scoring a goal in this competition, where, exactly would it be ok?Report
Fish,
The important thing to remember is that there is nothing the USWNT could have done that would have mattered. If they had played keepaway all game long, they would have been pilloried for that too. The point here is that we have commenters starting with their total disdain for this team and working backwards into criticisms of it.Report
Mind-reading again?Report
@pinky Mind-reading is not necessary when what would theoretically need to be read is out on public display.
There are a group of sports fans that want their teams to be apolitical by which they mean, “not having politics that differ from the sport’s fans.” The USWNT want to be paid for their accomplishments and these fans don’t like that. The USWNT does not respect a president that does not respect them and these fans don’t like that either. From there, it simply a project to find things to whine about, whether it is being too competitive in a sports competition, or inevitably something else.Report
I have no idea what the politics are of people who frown on the poorly-behaved American women’s team. Some people probably hate women, some hate Americans, and some had bad manners. The only one who is definitely being motivated by politics is you, by your own statement. You’re passing judgment on a large group of people on a solely political criterion, that might not even be true.Report
“I have no idea what the politics are of people who frown on the poorly-behaved American women’s team”
I do and so does Sam.
“You’re passing judgment on a large group of people on a solely political criterion, that might not even be true.”
No, we pass judgment on a large group of snowflakes based on their thin-skinned dispositions and their political leanings towards said thin-skinned dispositions.
If you want to chide me for passing judgment – guilty as charged. If you want to think I have no reason to, I’ll just suggest taking your head out of the sand or wherever it’s hiding.
It’s pull day for me tonight in case you need any help with that.Report
There are absolutely some people who are going to criticize the USWNT no matter what they do. It’s difficult to have a conversation with people who have this attitude. However, there are also people who don’t watch soccer and don’t understand the mechanics behind group play and the factors involved in who wins the group, who advances, and who doesn’t. Those people I can talk to about soccer–and boy do I like to talk about soccer–and maybe we can come to an understanding about why scoring goals matters and why it’s ok to celebrate when you pot one.
And then there are people who just don’t like fun. Those poor folks are beyond help.Report
Oh lay off the strawmen, it was never about running up the score, that’s a red herring to distract from the actual issue.
The complaints were explicitly about the showboating in excess of what’s reasonable. The people making the complaints tended to state the goal scoring is fine. People’s beef is acting like you won the tournament when you scored against a minnow. The point is you don’t act like you’re all that when you pummel someone so far below you in skill that they can’t muster the slightest defence and expect to be treated like the heroes. If you want to act like the heel, expect to be treated like the heel and not the face.
It also started with other female players calling out them out, not a sexist conspiracy of sports commentators. People who’ve been on the other side of the USWNT’s antics and aren’t impressed.Report
Hey, I’m just happy that we’re talking about actual football and not our silly American version in which nobody except for two specific guys are allowed to touch the ball with their foot!Report
An argument to prove P:
Premise: People who disagree with P would have disagreed no matter what the facts are.
Conclusion: PReport
There isn’t a single “uppity” thing about them. They don’t owe their respect to people that do not and will not return it.Report
Well, I’ll give them this. They do a great job of embracing the role of Ivan Drago or Apollo Creed, and that will help them transition Women’s soccer into sports entertainment, potentially generating a lot more revenue by providing drama and a back story.Report
My heartiest congratulations to the American squad. They are a great team. All of the participants in this tournament are dedicated athletes who deserve respect. I would like to single out the goalkeeper for the Netherlands who made some amazing saves. Rapinoe’s penalty shot goal was simply not humanly stoppable.
I hope that this will inspire some talented young American men to get into the sport. If the inspiration is not enough, google Lionel Messi income.Report
For all this, they should at the very least be paid the same as the men’s team.
As a percentage of revenues or as a flat number?Report
To save people from having to look.Report
The labor theory of value shows up in a lot of places.Report
I agree, which is why I’m in favor of seeing the Men’s teams capture a larger share of the revenues they generate… fair is fair, they should get at least as much as the women do.Report
Your wrongthink has me literally shaking.Report
Careful, we know what the Revolution does to Tall Poppies, but I’m not sure what it does to Shaky Terps.Report
Sigh. It’s like people read Smith and think they know the labor theory of value. Nobody reads Marx anymore.Report
Remember back when there was a required reading list?
Good times.Report
Case in point:
Report
To be fair, I only have a 50/50 hit rate on whether JB is using a term ironically or not, so often I just run with the thread and let the irony sort itself out later.Report
FWIW, this is highly misleading.
It is absolutely true that, globally, men’s soccer makes money than does women’s. However, the class action lawsuit filed by the women players for the US is not addressing global issues; they are addressing payment from their employer.
The numbers in the article you shared are FIA numbers. But FIFA does not employ (or pay) players from either the mens’ World Cup team or the women’s. Both the men and the women are employed (and paid) by the USSF.
The lawsuit alleges that the amount of revenue the women generate for the USSF is as much or greater than the revenue the men generate. Yes, the base money shared by FIFA for the men is more than then for the women, but that base money is a small percentage of the USSF’s total annual revenue. The rest is from TV and sponsorship, where the women unsurprisingly bring in more because, well, they are on TV more (because they go deeper in the tournament), get high ratings (because people watch winning teams more), and sponsorship wise they are a much hotter commodity.
If you are a “The People Who Make More For The Company Should Get Paid More” kind of free-marketer, you should be siding with the women players, at least in the US.Report
Oh, I think their pay is the least they have to worry about. A good team would get to meet Trump in the Oval Office. But these girls aren’t going to meet Trump, or Pence, or McConnell, or Pelosi, or Mike Pompeo, or Steven Mnuchin, or, a dozen notches lower down the list, even Kirstjen Nielsen. They’re going to get greeted by Chuck Schumer, Senator minority leader.
Partisan politics is driving them to shame and humiliate themselves.
Little League World Series champions? White House
Penn State men’s wrestling team? White House
Ohio State men’s volleyball team? White House
University of Washington women’s rowing team? White House
University of Maryland’s women’s lacrosse team? White House
Women’s World Cup Soccer champions? Chuck-E-Cheese.Report
Well I am perfectly happy agree that the Women’s team should receive compensation as a percentage of their revenues (though I am not free-marketer type and not sure why that would be relevant)… and if that makes them better compensated than men, bully for them.
The Forbes article is describing a 45x difference in Revenues between men’s/women’s soccer… if that is not true in the case of the USSF then I am wrong. Surprised, but wrong.
Upon further digging, It would seem that the biggest issue is a failure in variable revenue sharing and that seems to be what the WNT is asking for:
“Under this model, player compensation would increase in years in which the USSF derived more revenue from WNT activities and player compensation would be less if revenue from those activities decreased,” the 28 U.S. female players wrote in their recent court complaint. “This showed the players’ willingness to share in the risk and reward of the economic success of the WNT.”
I’m all in favor of such a model. It would also mean that if the Men’s team were to experience success then pay disparities based upon revenue would re-emerge… so it isn’t simply “equal pay”… but it certainly seems (more) equitable pay.Report
Given that this is the case, they *SHOULD* be making more money and it’s messed up that they aren’t.Report
Alas, its more complicated than that:
The contested estimate is that WNT generates ~51% of the total revenues.
“A Washington Post analysis found that the women’s team did make more in bonuses and salary than the men in 2018 — but the women played almost twice the number of games and won a lot more of them.”
2018 WNT: $17.1M / 2018 MNT: $14.6M
Which means they took home 53% of the 2018 Player Fees on generating 51% revenue.
So if the measure is Soccer Player Annual Compensation, the women earned more; if the measure is per game played, the Men earned more; if the measure is Win the World Cup, the women earn less in bonuses… BUT
“Fifa prize money is the basis for most of the bonuses US Soccer provides the players, the federation is wiling to overpay the women – but only as long as they win the World Cup. US Soccer’s $9.4m bonus for the men’s team if they win the World Cup is 24% of Fifa’s $38m in prize, whereas US Soccer’s bonus of $2.5m for the women’s team if they win the World Cup is around 126% of Fifa’s prize money offered when the USWNT’s CBA was signed in 2017.”
So on a per World Cup win basis, the Men get bigger per game $$ but less of the overall purse, but the women are compensated beyond what the World Cup purse supports. And, presumably if the Men’s team is taking home a World Cup, then the multiples of revenue they generate via Merch and TV is going to amp up from their lethargic multiples closer to 9x, 15x or maybe even 45x.
So… I’m still in favor of good revenue sharing plans, but I’m more convinced after further research that we’re working with apples and bananas here, despite the sloganeering.Report
We need equal contracts.Report
For all sportball.Report
The perfect gift. The perfect person to send it.Report
That WWE belt implies that the matches were rigged! Would Britain and the Netherlands take a dive against an American team that happens to be suing FIFA, trying to get twice as much money for the female World Cup athletes? A team that has AOC, Buttigieg, Beto, Gillibrand, and Julian Castro backing their equal pay demands?
This could be bigger than the Black Socks scandal!
If I had any idea women’s soccer could be this entertaining, I’d have actually watched some of it. Well, I did watch the final 10 minutes of the US vs UK match, and amusingly, at the end of it I couldn’t understand why the girl’s in the red jerseys were celebrating because the US won. Then I realized that I’d had the teams backwards.Report
The point is less that soccer matches are pre-determined (I have no reason to believe that this is so) and more that, hey, Game Recognize Game.Report
It’s a WWE belt. You have to roll with it and make up the dramatic conflict, fictional as it may be!
*consults with some story-line experts for the WWE, along with some script writers for Real Housewives, The Bachelor, and various soap-operas, as we start working on the script for World Cup Behind the Scenes – “Scene IV, the screaming match in the Swedish locker room.”
Here’s a video of pro wrestling’s approach to a horrible mismatch with a young Asian girl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTizPJj23QY
That’s in stark contrast to the US Women’s approach of humiliating them until they cry. To really make it as a pro athlete you have to win over the crowd. It was true in the gladiatorial arena, and it’s true today, because delivering balls into a net isn’t the actual job, entertaining people is. If an audience doesn’t show up or tune in, there’s no revenue to divvy up. You can play the villain to generate that interest, as the WWE famously does, but realize that the crowd is showing up hoping to see the villain lose, and lose badly.Report
You don’t make the real money with the match.
You make the real money with the re-match.Report
Very true, but I figured the match was against Thailand, were they really established their role, and the rematch was the rest.
By the way, I’ll be avoiding Thai restaurants for the next few months because they might not be happy with Americans these days. Plus, I’d feel guilty about having to hate and despise them because they hate women, hate equality, and support Trump, as does anyone who harbors any negative impressions of the behavior of the US team.
I really despise the French, who were pulling for their bitter rivals, the British, which just proves that the French are a bunch of Trump-supporting right-wing misogynists.Report
“In a perfect world, sports has nothing to do with the politics. ”
This puts a huge burden on “perfect world.” It has to be a world in which everyone–and I do mean everyone in the literal sense–agrees on stuff like who gets to play and how or if they are paid. In other words, it is a world without politics of any sort.
In the real world, sports has never been separated from politics. It was, within living memory, and hot button political issue about letting Those People play. Actually, it still is, depending on which Those People we are talking about. And many people who would be offended if you suggested they had any animus toward the Those People of a few generations back playing are the same ones complaining about this generation’s Those People.
Then there is the pay issue. Every fan who expresses an opinion on player compensation is taking a position on labor versus management. So too every fan declining to express an opinion, though more subtly so.
I wrote about this in a different context a couple of years ago. Politics in sports isn’t something you can opt out of. That’s not what either politics or sports are. https://ordinary-times.com/2017/08/02/the-new-doctor/Report
Just about every night here when I pass by the TV, there is a women’s volleyball game on: China versus someone else. I’m often a bit surprised at how enthusiastic the responses players give to just about every point where they do just about anything. I am not talking about game-winning points. These are points early in games doing ordinary things like spiking the ball or blocking a spiked ball, each of which happen many times within a single game.
And yet, there is a considerable amount of fist pumping because they are somehow excited about playing volleyball or whatever.
And that basically seems OK to me? They presumably play volleyball a lot. They presumably have invested a lot of time and effort into getting to play on these teams, and it makes sense to be happy when you do a good thing.
As for running up the score in a game that has been decidedly one, I think it’s worth noting that there are a couple ways that can happen.
One way is that a team can purposefully make moves to run up the score. For example, I once saw a football game where the winning team that was up more than two touchdowns faked taking a knee at the end of a game and instead threw a touchdown pass to go up by three touchdowns before the clock ran out. I can see why someone might judge that as jerkish behavior. (Though I would argue if you don’t like it, don’t make teams take a knee to run out the clock. It would be an easy rule change to make taking a knee optional and instead let the team take a down to keep the clock running.
A second way the score can be run up is that a team just keeps playing and because it wasn’t at all a fair match-up to begin with, the score ends up lopsided even without the winning team making any sort of special effort to run up the score. I have seen this too innumerable times in football games where the winning team simply runs the ball, not trying to really score, but it turns out that they score anyway because they are a good team. Again, perhaps the teams should do something about this and take the ball to the opposing team’s 1-yard line and then take several knees, but I don’t really think that is any less condescending. Again, if you don’t like this sort of result, it’d be a trivial rule change to implement a mercy rule that a 10-goal advantage to one team ends the game right there. There are plenty of sports that have such rules, and if you want to avoid larger blowouts, just do that.Report
I’ve seen this in men’s and women’s volleyball, both beach and indoor. High fives at every break in the play. I’ve watched more beach volleyball, which is two-on-two, and I can understand the psychological need for steady support there. There are only two players, and they need to be perfectly in sync, and about half the time the ball hits the ground, it’s your or your partner’s fault. All you need is for one player to show frustration at his partner, and the match is doomed (maybe even your partnership is doomed).Report
I wouldn’t note high fives. That would seem normal. I’m talking fist pumps. Really vigorous fist pumps, often accompanied by a cry out.
Good point about two-on-two. Though I don’t know. In another way it could be worse if you miss the ball and are on a team of 8 on the court. at least with a two-person team you both know you will have plenty of chances to screw upReport
I googled for “dabbing” videos but they’re all about weed and I feel even older than I did when I thought I was looking for videos featuring the dance.Report
American Samoa once lost a soccer match with Australia 31-0.
*checks to see if the historic event was posted*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wg9ox9F7VwReport
I don’t see the Australian team dancing around with every goal. That makes a difference.Report
It does! Though I also want to ask whether this was a world cup match.
Also, it does seem different to win a game by 32 versus 13 even though they are both insurmountable leads.
A third question I have is whether the Australian team was truly suppressing their joy of scoring to spare the feelings of the other team or if they just genuinely weren’t excited about scoring. To look at how that goalie handled some of those shots, I don’t think I’d feel like partying either. I’m not sure this is a game that needed to be played at all. In contrast, the teams the US women beat by large margins were actually pretty decent.Report
The point about condescension of a good one. In the early days of baseball you would see a big city club go play the local boys in smaller locales. Sometimes they would run up a score like 103-7. The locals took it in stride, regarding it as an educational experience and inspiration to improve. There wasn’t a concept of easing off against weak competition. I have not seen anything explicit, but I suspect it would have been regarded as an insult.Report