Traitors! A Commentary on the US Women’s National Soccer Team

I don’t think I’m overstating things; I have been personally betrayed.  Alex Morgan, my ultimate sports crush, has utterly disappointed me.  I feel like a fool having rooted for this national team that hates half the country just for political reasons.  But here’s my main problem with the US Women’s National Soccer team: I didn’t mean to do any sports writing this summer.  I was going to take the time off to work on a fiction story.  I started off writing about the MLB London Series, but felt like I had to cover the soccer, because I was watching their games.  Since I already had RPG stuff scheduled for the whole month, I had to stick my commentaries in on the weekends.  Moreover, I really didn’t mean to keep writing about them, but I couldn’t stop.  This team’s sad act has really gotten under mine and a lot of other people’s skins. Whether they’re more famous or infamous depends on your personal disposition instead of on-field events.  

I mostly skipped the postgame championship coverage because of the inane commentary by the hosts, but I heard about it later.  I saw the video of the American flag being dropped and heard that Megan Rapinoe actually trampled on a flag, though I never actually saw that happen.  Player Kelly O’Hara “rescued” the flag after it fell.  To be honest, while the drop may have been a literal Freudian slip of the team’s true feelings, it seemed like a minor accident and not an incident that deserved all of the attention.  I appreciate Kelly’s presence of mind in the situation, whether out of patriotism or trying to avoid a controversy.  The conservative media pounced on the drop and praised Kelly.  The mainstream sports media also highlighted her, in an effort to promote the team, but even then, they also showed Kelly kissing her girlfriend for the cameras.  The Agenda . . . always, at all times . . . The Agenda.

Afterward, the team was treated to a parade New York City.  It was pride parade combined with a democrat party rally with Rapinoe teasing throwing her hat into the 2020 election.  It was swell.  I couldn’t watch any significant portion of the parade.  I heard one clip of Rapinoe.  She said the words, “Our country,” at one point in a tone that suggested she was actually playing for another country, one that only people like her live in.  And I can't believe Carli Lloyd gave a shoutout to the Philadelphia Eagles during their NYC rally.  This team really was all about pointlessly pissing people off.  

The US Women’s National Soccer team neatly reduced itself to two salient issues before, during, and after the tournament: they’re money grubbing and political.  So much for being winners, role models, and ambassadors for the sport.  Playing for the championship was almost a foregone conclusion.  Since they felt assured of victory, the team’s “hero’s” journey would be less than epic, in their minds, unless they wedded themselves to higher causes: money and power.  Being so like minded, since they’d gotten rid of or silenced any dissenting opinions, they were as fallen angels, so as one sinned, they all fell together in allegiance to one another.    

The team claimed to be fighting for “all women” for more pay.  This is a painfully embarrassing transparent attempt to cover their greed with a larger cause (which is itself suspect).  Male sports stars and the sycophantic sports media continually complain about how much more they “deserve” to be paid.  The general public finds these assertions utterly tone deaf.  How much less will they care about Women playing a sport they don’t care about (and that includes soccer fans in general)?

Moreover, they want the money to essentially come out of the US Men’s Soccer team’s budget.  They’re not saying that directly, but they’re not saying where else the money to pay them more is going to come from.  I’ve heard it said by the sports media that the US Soccer Federation governing body and the international FIFA body have been put in a position where they’ll have to equalize the gender pay gap, because of the US Women’s win. 

Yeah, right.  Obviously, you commentators don’t know the stuffed shirt elitist bureaucrats who run these agencies.  The US Soccer Federation will likely give the Women a raise since they won, but they’re not going to pay them the same as the Men’s team.  Instead of giving Women’s soccer in this country a bunch of good publicity from their win, they’ve lost half the country as potential fans from their off field antics.  Instead of promoting national pride after winning, the team spent their time demanding a raise and taking shots at President Trump.  The Women's sport is now perceived as being only for greedy female democrats who shun the company of men, not exactly a mass audience.  US Soccer Federation is congratulating the Women with gritted teeth. 

As for FIFA offering the same prize money for the Men and Women’s World Cups, well, they’re basically a French organization.  The French didn’t invent snobbery; they just perfected it.  Unless you’re massing German troops on the French border, expect them to ignore your pleas.  The Women will be lucky to not take a pay cut for embarrassing the sport and knocking their officials’ noses out of joint.  They’re only going to pay the ladies more if they make their organization more money.  Some “socially conscious” corporate entities might step up, but the general public may not be applauding them for it because of how the Women acted, so don’t count on it.  

Rapinoe and the Women’s team were upset that FIFA scheduled their World Cup final, the Copa America final, and the CONCACAF final all on the same day.  They wanted the global stage to themselves.  None of these events overlapped, so FIFA’s intent was clearly to create a day of soccer for western hemisphere fans.  They may have even been trying to do the Women a favor, hoping fans might tune in for the early Women’s game while they were waiting for the Men’s matches.  Unfortunately, there was no such crossover.  The Men’s and Women’s coverage didn’t mention each other at all.  They may as well have been playing different sports.  Even worse, and I say this from personal observation, viewing the Men and Women’s games back-to-back, it was real obvious who the better players were. 

What do the players on other Women’s national teams think of the US Women attitude?  I’m sure they’d like higher pay, but probably not at the expense of their Men’s national teams, whom many of them likely take a lot of national pride in.  The only reason why the US Women can take their position is that the US Men’s team is only barely internationally competitive.  US sportswriters and commentators are all on board with paying the championship-level Women as much, if not more than, the Men.  I’m sure other countries would appreciate the US soccer governing body permanently kneecapping their Men’s team forever.  Not one of them will do the same.

The Women’s team’s intent to promote and legitimize their sport has almost completely backfired because of the inane way they went about it.  Hey, they lost me as a fan and I was watching their matches whenever I could.  It seems unlikely I’m going to mark out time to watch a bunch of money grubbing in-your-face non-het females play a sport I don’t like.  Yeah, my main reason for watching, Alex Morgan, is straight (and married), but she has really soiled herself in my eyes by her association and endorsement of all of her radical teammates’ agenda. 

Alex Morgan, the team’s only relevance for the last four years since their last World Cup win, has obliterated her reputation as a soccer star, a sex symbol for guys, and an idol for little girls into sports.  Morgan is now completely irrelevant in Megan Rapinoe’s political activist shadow, and her only value is that she does what Rapinoe tells her to.  I don’t think this is Alex’s last World Cup, but she’ll just be that honorary captain with limited playing time in the next one, like Carli Lloyd.  It probably doesn’t matter to me, because I won’t be watching.

How could they be so dumb to alienate the patriotic half of the country that might have been willing to give their sport a chance?  How could Alex have done this and been so supine in going along with it?  She is one of the most highly-marketed female athletes in the world.  I’m sure she has a team of publicists working night and day on her carefully crafted image as a beautiful nice woman, who plays soccer well and is a role model to little girls.  Did none of them say anything?  How could they have been so good at their jobs to this point and then let the whole thing get dynamited?  Did Alex herself not realize this was going to limit her own popularity?  The team is going to get some endorsements out of this, but not as many as they could have.  The ones they do get will likely be unsatisfied with the results from the association with the general public. 

If Alex had any objections to what was going on, she was a co-captain like Rapinoe.  Between her and the third team captain Carli Lloyd (well, there’s part of problem, too many captains), who I suspect (and have no concrete reason to do so) wasn’t all in with the social justice agenda, they could have told Rapinoe, “Hey, shut up.  If you don’t like it, leave.  We can win without you.”  (And they did in that game with England.)  If that seems like an unlikely scenario, consider the case of Jaelene Hinkel.  She’s an American player and reportedly the best defender in the world.  Jaelene was left off the team for not wanting to wear a pride jersey in a pre-cup match.  It’s pretty obvious who’s driving the bus for the team.       

On the Todd Starnes radio talk show, he played a clip of a hockey coach, who told his players that they’re going to stand for the Anthem, and if they had a problem with that, go ahead and leave now.  Todd got the coach on for an interview.  The coach said Rapinoe had blown a chance to bring people together and be loved.  He wondered what had happened to her in her life that made her want to have people who might have cherished her, instead hate her. 

I don’t know anything about Rapinoe’s personal history and don’t care.  She’s an adult and has made some calculated and coached choices on how to behave with a national spotlight on her.  And here she is, just another divisive political figure, nothing more.  She washed away her own accomplishments.  She also could have been a credit to her community.  Now, she’s just a stereotypical angry non-het woman with a poor hair color choice who hates Trump for no good reason.  

Can this be undone?  Can the Women’s team win back all of America?  Sure, they can start by taking Trump up on his invitation to the White House.  Whatever Rapinoe’s problem is with him, she can politely bring it up to him while there.  If she raises a worthwhile enough issue, it’s not unthinkable she’d be invited back to discuss it further.  But, no.  Much like Steph Curry and Steve Kerr in the NBA and whoever in the NFL, there’s no principled, reasoned ideological stand here.  It’s just brainless politics.  If the team actually goes ahead and only meets with the democrats (and maybe Never-Trumper republicans) in congress, they’ll prove it.  Until there is an appeal to all of America by the US Women’s Soccer, don’t expect me to be watching or caring.