Victory Tour?

The USWNT are BACK TO BACK World Cup Champs!

As we near the end of July, I return to writing for this blog and will be rolling out content every week moving forward.  So bear with me as there is a lot I have missed commenting on.

Our Women’s National Team is once again World Cup Champions after a dominate tournament in France.  Let’s recap: 13-0 Win over Thailand (where many people chastised our team), a 3-0 Win over Chile (where the Chilean goalkeeper literally stood on her head to prevent us from scoring), and a  2-0 Win over Sweden to round out the group stage.  In the knockouts, we faced a tough test against Spain prevailing 2-1, took down the home nation France 2-1, defeated a tough England squad in the semi-finals 2-1, and finally defeated the Netherlands 2-0 in the final.  On paper, it looks like one of the most dominating performances in Women’s World Cup history, but what I will remember is the constant critique of the national team.

In the opening game, the USWNT defeated Thailand 13-0.  Many people would have the immediate reaction that this “is too much”, “they should show respect”, and “why didn’t they stop scoring?”.  Unfortunately, in our “participation” society this has become commonplace to degrade a team for scoring like this.  I want to preface my next thought by saying that I am a high school coach and my teams would never win by more than a 6 goal differential.  With that being said, THIS WAS THE WORLD CUP.  Yes, I feel that message necessitated the caps lock.  In a tournament where goal differential is the first tiebreaker for advancing why would the USWNT stop scoring? 

Now the next argument people have is about the team celebrating scoring a goal.  To the majority of you who have probably not played in the World Cup and will probably never play in the World Cup, please tell me how you would refrain yourself from scoring and or celebrating?  These are humans playing a sport they love and have dedicated countless hours in training to get to where they are.  They deserved every minute of celebration. 

The 13-0 win over Thailand does, however, bring me to a very important point.  Thailand had a private donor pay for their team to travel to the tournament.  Not only that, but the donor employs the team members so that they can train.  Yet, we want to complain about the score line when the Thailand team did not even have the full support of their country’s association?  For those new to this discussion, the USWNT went to France not only to win, but to get equal pay compared to the men’s team.  My constant thought is that maybe when the United States commits to the women’s game then other teams will follow suit.  America is suppose to be a leader in the world and other countries are looking at how we treat the women’s team as a blueprint for their own.  Instead of complaining about the score line, let’s redirect the conversation to actually help the global soccer community.

As I write this, the USWNT found its way back into the headlines after announcing their Victory Tour, including games in Pasadena, Philadelphia, St. Paul, and some other cities to be announced.  Perhaps more news worthy, is Head Coach Jill Ellis stepping down after the tour.  The Olympics are next year.  Anthony DiCicco, via his Twitter page posted the following today about the numerous uncertainties the USWNT face:

"Status of things at US Soccer that impacts the #USWNT:
-New CEO hasn't been named
-USWNT GM hasn't been named
-New USWNT Head Coach coming
-No word on YNT Director
-No YNT coaches named for: U20s (World Cup next year) and U17s (World Cup next year)" 
~Anthony DiCicco via Twitter

All this coming to the surface just a day after Carlos Cordeiro, President of US Soccer, claims that the USWNT players make as much as the men’s team in a letter to the press that is denied by members of the USMNT in a follow up letter?  This uncertainty for our World Cup Champions is disheartening and terrifying.  How can a program that is so successful be in such disarray after winning back to back World Cups and heading into an Olympic year?  So forgive me when I question how enjoyable the “Victory Tour” will be.  It seems like US Soccer took a page out of the Hunger Games when Peeta and Katniss have to travel to the districts of all the dead tributes after winning.

Now I know this is more than a small rant, but therein lies a major problem.  While the Women’s national team players should be welcomed back to their respective clubs with sellouts and praise, like many NWSL teams have done, or spending their time celebrating like Mallory Pugh and Rose Lavelle at a Washington Nationals game, the discussion has unfortunately shifted back to these glaring disparities.  Not to mention, the best Women’s league in the World, as of right now the NWSL, only competes with nine teams and without much investment.  I’ll save that rant for my next blog post but for now I will celebrate the World Cup Champs when they play Portugal in Philadelphia on August 29th.  I hope that this will end the debate and allow significant changes to be made in the Women’s game in the United States.

 “I believe it’s our responsibility to show our communities the value of all people, to celebrate different, and to take a stand for acceptance and inclusion.”

Julie Foudy